Month: March 2025

good guides

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Great guide today, telling about the history of the Nazis and Jews, showing us the stumbling blocks, and using that to really bring home the danger of a dictator, bigotry and fascism.

Something the Americans with us desperately needed to hear, and you could tell it made them uncomfortable.

That’s what good education does – it tells you more about your world in real life; taking the lessons of the past to teach us how to be better in the present, and for the future.

So, kudos, tour guide. Well fucking done.

Target: 1100 words
Written: 1384 words, novella: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Road Through The Wall, Shirley Jackson
Comics: Cyber Force 10-11, Cyber Force: Artifacts 0, Cyber Force v5 1
Music: Is This Desire?, PJ Harvey (for me, fuck yes.  I adore PJ Harvey)

bone holes

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It’s not a sex reference, although that would be a funny way to refer to them (yes, I said them – there are at least four).

On the other hand, it was a hole in the bottom of the church where they start tucking in the bones of the deceased when they run out of room to bury them in the yard.

That’s a little fucked, right?

Anyway, the Black Forest was cool, but how do people eat black forest cake without getting pulled over a DUI? The amount of schnapps that girl soaked the cake in had to have been criminal.

On the plus side, if you get pulled over, you can honestly say, “I haven’t drank a drop.”

Target: 1100 words
Written: 558 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Road Through The Wall, Shirley Jackson
Comics: Cyber Force v4 6-9
Music: Irvine, CA, Sublime

travel day

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Long, long day. Full flight to Amsterdam, then a short hop to Basel, Switzerland.

You know, as one does.

So, not much time to write today, so what time I have will be dedicated to the novel.

Also, Basel, kinda cool. Never been to Switzerland. It’s pretty sweet. Zurich, maybe, someday.

Target: 1100 words
Written: 1352 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Road Through The Wall, Shirley Jackson
Comics: Cyber Force v4 2-5
Music: Irvine Plaza, New York, Anti-Flag

oversea’d

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Well, we’re off to tour Rhine, I think. I’m pretty sure it’s the Rhine.

Let’s fucking go.

Target: 1100 words
Written: 97 words, novel: Bad Beighbours

Read: Adam Bede, George Eliot
Comics: Velocity v3 2-4, Cyber Force v4 1
Music: Irresistible Bliss, Soul Coughing

getting out

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Of town, tomorrow.

Today, that means the litany of last minute things we need to do for the friend sitting our house and dogs, for ourselves, for the things we need to be ready or to come with us, for our animals, who we will miss terrible and want to have a few precious moments with each (and when you have four cats and two dogs, that can be time-consuming) before we leave, in case the worst happens.

The worst never quite seems to happen, except in America.

Where exist authoritarians, the worst is always yet to come.

Target: 1100 words
Written: 2399 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Adam Bede, George Eliot
Comics: Cyber Force/Hunter Killer 3-5, Velocity v3 1
Music: Irish Punk Drinking Songs Compilation, Various

lost day

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Well, not technically. I actually got quite a bit done, but ran out of time for this.

Instead, I got a tandem haircut, my wife and niece tag teaming to clean up the frump that’s grown up over the past few months.

Would that I could let it grow, but I’m an old man now, and it would just be weird.

Long hair is a young man’s game, unless you’re Willie Nelson.

Target: 1100 words
Written: 533 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Adam Bede, George Eliot
Comics: Fusion 2-3, Cyber Force/Hunter KIller 1-2
Music: INXS Essentials, INXS

when tech goes wrong

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I had a brilliant little first draft of a scene written out, absolutely perfect (I mean, it would need editing, but for a first pass, I was in the zone), and then, I went to save it.

All OpenOffice locks up, leaving me unable to even copy the text into Notepad, let alone save the file. I tried to let it sit, let it run out whatever putting a period on a sentence made it do, but to no avail.

I prayed the autosave function that automatically restores files after they’d crashed would bring it all back, but nope. You had to apparently save at least once in order to get that back.

Eight hundred words down the drain, to be replaced by a second version coloured by my frustration and nowhere near as good, though it followed the same lines.

That’s annoying. Technical issues should never be the difference between something good and something mediocre. OpenOffice has served me well over the years, and I fucking hate Microsoft Word, for more reasons than their nonsense policies and anti-user standpoint (it’s the fucking UI and functionality I hate; it’s like they’ve never watched anyone try to create a document before).

But it may be time to think about finding something else. Something more basic. Functional.

Intelligent and user friendly.

But mostly, stable. Reliable. So flawless as to be almost unnoticeable.

Is that too much to ask?

Target: 1100 words
Written: 1186 words, novel: Bad Neighbours (officially, who knows what I was at before the crash)

Read: Adam Bede, George Eliot
Comics: Cyblade 2-4, Fusion 1
Music: The INXS Collection 1980-1993, INXS

hidden action

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I started writing a sex scene, then realized, it actually makes for a better story to hide the sex act that is causing our main character such grief.

It’ll be revealed later on in the book, but for now, mystery is the way to go.

Target: 1100 words
Written: 1569 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Adam Bede, George Eliot
Comics: Ripclaw v3 1, Cyblade: Pilot Season 1, Velocity v2 1, Cyblade 1
Music: Invisible Lantern, Screaming Trees (so underrated)

thinking a lot about sex today

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Not because I need to get some (I do) or that I’m particularly feeling my oats (I am), but that’s mostly because for the first time, I’m writing a sex scene.

(Well, not the first time, but the first time in canon. I alluded to the father’s use of a late night laptop session in The Mungk, and a couple of the short stories referenced sex – Get Back Again’s misogynist ghost threatening/chastising his murderer with abuse/promiscuity, Forest Edge’s main victim being a prostitute, its villain getting what comes to him at the hands of the prostitute’s best friend after being seduced, oh, and Western Cradle, which deals almost exclusively with a woman’s revenge for the murder of her family and her own gang rape).

Okay, well, then, this is the first time in canon, and also, the first time where the character is engaged in a consensual act that they really have no love for.

It’s something I would do without hesitation, and would hope my partner is open enough to find fun and sexy, but Walter, the main… he’s a little repressed. Well, a lot repressed.

And so, this is hard for me to write, because I don’t have a lot of boundaries, and it’s difficult for me to get into the mindset of someone who does. For me, it’s no big deal; it’s play.

For others, it’s world shattering.

For me, it’s fun; for Walter, it’s disgusting (hygienically and morally).

And believe me, we aren’t talking anything that weird here.

You’ll see when it’s all done.

When it finally comes out.

When any of this comes out.

Most of it has gone nowhere.

I might be getting a little stale.

Target: 1100 words
Written: 685 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Adam Bede, George Eliot
Comics: Cyber Force v3 4-6, Cyber Force & X-Men 1
Music: Invisible, Everclear

writing

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I finally feel like I’m moving in uncharted waters.

Like this first draft is starting to take real shape.

It needs massive overhaul and a total and complete rewrite, but hey, that’s what first drafts are for. They’re really just insanely overdone outlines, technically.

Brainstorming in real time.

Making shit up based on the loose guidelines given in the prep.

The raw paints and easel, with a word on a sticky note: bowl of fruit.

This is the blue pencil sketch, before the ink, the colour and the word bubbles.

(Of course, everyone uses Photoshop now, so you know, that’s outdated).

Fuck it. Let’s go.

Target: 1100 words
Written: 1473 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Joy, Osho
Comics: Cyber Force v3 0-3
Music: An Introduction To... Elliott Smith (fuck yes, also, by, you guessed it, Elliott Smith, comma, comma, comma)