They should be productive or fun, but mostly, they should be lazy.
Fuck it. Fuck ’em. Fuck it.
Target: 700 words
Written: 38 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: Saga 53-56
Music: Outside, David BowieMonth: June 2024
how do i sell myself to you
It’s a question I’ve wrestled with since the day I decided I wanted to be a writer.
I want to be authentic. Open. There should be nothing between you and my thoughts but the desire to keep other people’s secrets secret, because they’re not mine to expose.
Of course, we all present ourselves through a filter, either by intentional omission or unconscious deceit (or vice versa – intentional deceit and unconscious omission.)
I don’t like to do either, but at the same time, I don’t want to be a martyr anymore than I want to be a charlatan. I’d like to write for a living, but there are two non-negotiables:
First, what I write is what I want to write. I hate the idea of being tied to a particular genre, and I don’t want anyone else to dictate the content of my stories. No Hollywood motherfuckers who think they know better or need to “sex it up” (although I am heavily fixated on sex, so that seems like it might not be an issue), or publishers/editors who want a happier ending or something more “clever”.
Save me from clever art, as Palahniuk would say, while being weirdly over clever, yet somehow, managing to hold that instinctual, emotional raw nerve. (It is a brazen and wondrous talent, those who can do this, and I am in awe of it.)
Secondly, I don’t want to be someone I’m not. I’m not perfect; if anything, I’m terribly broken, complex and boring, typical and atypical simultaneously; unique, in the worst and most generic way.
I am a work in progress. I’m an ugly piece of granite, in the process of seeing what’s underneath.
It might be a toad.
It might be Psyche.
I don’t know, but I know what I’m trying for.
How on track I remain will determine whether I’ve the smooth and incredible detail of a Cellini or the clumsy stack of a inukchuk (although, given the spiritual connection to the land and to honouring what is, in nature and spirit, that is totally cool). Maybe shattered gravel would be a better metaphor.
Or a pile of crumbling mud.
Anyway, how to tell the world of what I’ve written, while not compromising my self into something I don’t want to be?
I want to be honest, in work and in life.
Anything else isn’t worth it, and bullshit.
Target: 700 words
Written: 98 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: Saga 49-52
Music: Outcesticide, Nirvanalost in space
My wife was a big fan of the original series; I was more of a Star Trek/Doctor Who guy growing up. My dad always looked down on Lost In Space. If we watched something from that era, it was Captain Kirk or Adam West.
That said, I adore the new one from Netflix and wish it went on much longer. Molly Parker and Parker Posey are two of my favourite actresses and they are terrific in this. I also have a visceral attraction to Molly Parker; I don’t know what it is, but man, she just does it for me.
Anyways, the point is that I recently started watching the original series, as a nod to my wife (sorry about the Molly Parker thing, honey), and I have to admit, I’m in. They do a good job of creating tension and doing that writerly thing of “keep them in danger”, even if it’s outlandish in the actual science part (as, admittedly, was Star Trek).
And Jonathan Harris, what can I say? Every time he shows up on screen, all I can think is “this motherfucker“, so I guess he’s doing what he’s supposed to do, in creating a perpetually evil villain. I suspect there’s a redemption arc for him, but I’m not that far into the series. Certainly, there was for Parker Posey’s Smith, who was also terrific, as she always is.
Anyway, out, bitches (and please picture that said in Parker Posey’s Dazed and Confused character), maybe followed by a stumbling “fuck all of you”, with some middle fingers and shit.
Target: 700 words
Written: 84 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: Saga 45-48
Music: Out Of Time, R.E.M. (Jesus, I forgot what an incredible album this was - one of the greatest all time. I used to play it on repeat when it first came out, back when I was first losing my religion, literally.)slight improvements
Well, I mean, it’s eight more words, so good, right?
How many hours is it to mastery?
Ten thousand?
So, roughly, at the rate I’m writing, about 1.5 million words.
I’ve written just under a hundred thousand this year thus far.
I may need to speed up, if I want to be a master before I’m dead.
Then again, I could die any second, so what’s the use?
Life is a series of bludgeons, slowly reducing us to mush.
Target: 700 words
Written: 26 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton
Comics: Saga 41-44
Music: Out Of Time, Blurnew low
Man, I thought I couldn’t get much worse than yesterday, but somehow, I did it.
Slow clap for me.
Target: 700 words
Written: 18 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton
Comics: Saga 37-40
Music: Out Of Space, The Prodigythe least ever?
I’ll admit, I’ve been mailing it in a bit. I’ve been still doing one thing a day, and I’m roughly fifteen thousand words ahead of where I wanted to be to this point (building up slowly), so I don’t feel horrible about it, and overall, I’m ahead of the game.
But yeah.
This might be the least I’ve written in a day… ever.
Target: 700 words
Written: 24 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton
Comics: Saga 33-36
Music: Out Of Our Heads, The Rolling Stonesstray dog
I half expected my horoscope to just be a big picture of a middle finger this morning.
Not only did the drop of my iPod nano (yes, I still use and love it) damaged the headphone port so that I cannot fit my headphones into it (a fact I didn’t realize until this morning), the internet was out, meaning I had to prep like I was going into the office instead of working at home, and then, of course, a stray dog wanders into my life, and I have to lure it up on the porch and call the local pet and wildlife rescue to come pick him up (for return to its owner, not euthanization – I’m way too much of an animal lover to take a perfectly healthy pup anywhere but a no-kill shelter).
Of course, this last wasn’t bad. The beagle was fat, happy and friendly, and other than trying to keep him outside and my dogs and cats inside, not really a lot of hassle. Super friendly and how would you say… well-fed?
The dog has an owner; strays aren’t that fat. But it’s been outside for a while, I guess; he was pretty smelly and dirty. But friendly.
I’m sure he’ll get picked up; he’s want to friendly a guy not to be.
But what worries me is that after the fact, I saw a picture of him and another smaller dog blocking traffic a couple of blocks away (obviously, only a few minutes before I lured him onto my porch), and now all I can think is… what happened to the other dog?
I am wracked with guilt and concern. Way to take a nice moment and make it stressful, universe and/or people who forgot to close the gate and let their dogs out.
Target: 700 words
Written: 199 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton
Comics: Saga 29-32
Music: Out Of Exile, Audioslaveback to sick
Motherfucker.
Diarrhea all night.
I’m thinking botulism. Maybe salmonella.
Or the dreaded E. Coli, scourge of my eldest cat, a few years before he died. Went on six months.
Or maybe it’s cancer. Or Crohn’s.
Or dumping syndrome, even though I have all my intestines.
Target: 700 words
Written: 54 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton
Comics: Saga 25-28
Music: Out My Way, Meat Puppets (much as I respect and love Kurt Cobain, I will never understand his love for these guys)nothing finer
Than to be in a v… wait. No.
There’s nothing finer than a cup of coffee, a mix of David Bowie/Rise Against/Nine Inch Nails in your ears, as you finalize the edits on the fourth draft of your novella.
Thirteen scenes I hope to combine to six.
I know you can’t sell a novella. I’m hoping to package it as The Mungk & Other Bullshit, which I realize will be a tough sell on bookstore shelves, but it’s also an eyecatcher. It was suggested to me to call the book The Little House In The Country, but that sounds fucking boring and generic.
The Mungk is a weird name. And people love swearing.
You see the word Mungk and ask, what the fuck is that (although you might be one of those people who don’t swear like longshoremen, so you might say, “what a strange looking word, perhaps I should inquire as to its meaning” and then drink some tea with your pinky out and adjust your monocle, you fucking weirdo), and then pick it up.
Pick it up and maybe buy it. And then maybe that money goes through the various systems of skimming off the top from the store, the distributor, the publisher, agents, managers and probably some grifting professional organization that claims to advocate for authors, but actually keeps them poor and begging, like the RIAA and MPAA do to movies and music, and then finally, that pittance will arrive in my bank account, where it’s probably already been paid out in an advance and I’ll actually get nothing extra for it at all.
But if enough of you do it…
Well, shit.
Break out the fucking tea.
Target: 700 words
Written: 302 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter
Comics: Saga 21-24
Music: Out In L.A., Red Hot Chili Peppersso out of it
I think I might be sick.
Like really sick. Like liver failure or cancer sick.
The onset of diabetes or some aneurysm or stroke waiting to happen.
I don’t like it. I don’t know if it’s true.
I just want to be cold.
I want to sleep forever.
Target: 700 words
Written: 1136 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter
Comics: Saga 17-20
Music: Our Love To Admire, Interpol