Month: November 2025

reminders

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This book is reminding me of why I love the Hip, and Gord Downie in particular, and why my heroes went from being rebels who gave everyone the finger, to nice people who weren’t afraid of hard truths and dark places.

Loudmouth boors be damned.

Give me a soft-spoken purveyor of real things, dark and light, any day.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1407 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay
Comics: Youngblood v6 4-7
Music: Without You I'm Nothing, Placebo

it’s nice to be reminded

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Of just how bad you are at art.

How on another plane artists like Gord Downie, Lou Reed, Patti Smith and Leonard Cohen are.

How other people understand that.

How you’re a fucking peon and a boor, a shitpile no-talent with no future and no gravitas.

But hey, I wrote a book about the monster under the bed, and a guy getting humped by a dog, so there’s that.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 687 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay
Comics: Bloodstrike v2 2, Youngblood v6 1-3
Music: Without A Sound, Dinosaur Jr.

the never ending story

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I do not understand what is happening with this book. I usually read for about an hour or so a day, which moves me usually about fifty to a hundred pages, depending on the depth of the text, font size, readability, how much dialogue the writer is prone to use, etc.

But this book, The Never-Ending Present, is weirdly entirely out of character. I read for an hour, to move maybe four to five percent on the Kindle. It shouldn’t take more than a week max; it’s now been five days and I’m only barely a quarter of the way through.

Not that I care that much, because it’s about the journey and not the target, but I’m definitely not hitting that reading target I set at the beginning of the year. A stretch goal for me was ninety books; I think of the minimum as a book a week. Basically, four to seven days on average per novel.

I may have to amend that if I’m going to read like this from now on.

Still, I’m enjoying it; anything Gord Downie is my spirit animal.

I just don’t understand why the slow pace, despite the effort.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 2345 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay
Comics: Youngblood v5 76-78, Bloodstrike v2 1
Music: Within A Mile From Home, Flogging Molly

nailed it, bro

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I think I’m doing a good job of editing. Previous edits kind of suck, but my new notes are hitting the right notes, there’s less tangents and things are speeding off to the side or getting half-assed, with this better plan in place.

Hopefully, that means I can still hit my target of Christmas. I’ll guarantee there’s at least one to two more drafts in it, but they should be mostly minor tweaks, technically, picky shit about punctuation and grammar, and not the kind of hours long rewrites (and holy shit, what a plot hole moments) that some of these other drafts have required.

Pray for me.

I might actually do this.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1649 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay (starting to feel like the never ending book)
Comics: Bloodstrike 31-33, Youngblood v5 75
Music: [With_Teeth], Nine Inch Nails

youngblood

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I mean, Jesus Christ, Rob. Reboot after retool after dramatic change, like you’re trying to stuff the entirety of fifty to seventy years of X-Men/Avengers tales into a 22 page comic. You can’t go three fucking issues without rebooting the fucking team. Your most interesting characters were killed off, or disappeared, or rendered useless. There are so many goddamn loose threads and things and people that show up like we’re supposed to know them and then just vanish.

Add to that the fact that nearly every character you created is a straight rip-off of a Marvel or DC character and well, fuck, man. No wonder people deride your work. MacFarlane and Jim Lee did better art; everyone does better writing. It’s pretty clear that your ego got in the way of your progression; sometimes, success too early kills the instinct for growth.

Evolution is better than talent; a work ethic and a willingness to adapt will always beat natural skill.

I mean, I don’t know Rob. He might be a perfectly nice guy, but goddamn. This universe is a mess, and Brigade and Bloodstrike aren’t any better.

Consistency. Uniquity. Time to learn who people are – these are the ties that bind, the things that draw us to characters, not cheap knockoffs, splashy art and disjointed storytelling that reads like me trying to write my first novel, discarding and changing, abandoning, getting sick of an idea that’s not working and starting over with the same idea, with a twist, but instead of letting it evolve into something consistent for the world to see when it’s ready, you just do it all over and over again. No wonder people can’t seem to stick, and so many of these series or story arcs get rebooted after one to two issues.

You need to go back to basics, ditch the knockoffs and focus on the things that actually worked (which wasn’t much). Of course, yet another reboot is an interest killer, so maybe not. Maybe just put this fucker to bed, and admit, after thirty-plus years?

This shit ain’t gonna work out.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1413 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay
Comics: Youngblood v4 8-9, Brigade v4 1, Bloodstrike 26
Music: With The Beatles, The Beatles

remember, remembrance

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I’ll be honest. I grew up on tales of World War II. My grandfather was in the army, although he didn’t talk about it a ton.

He did tell me a story I turned into a book for a project in public school; years later, I’d find it and discover he’d related the Great Escape. He was proud of it though; I believe he was a medic. He still had his uniform folded and pressed in the attic, along with a number of commendations, letters from my grandmother and pictures of him in gear.

I should probably look into that.

Anyway, thanks, Grandad, for either punching Nazis or healing the ones that did, whichever it was.

I’m sorry we’ve let them come back into power. I am ashamed for us.

We will do better, I promise.

At least, I will.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 2203 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
Comics: Youngblood Imperial 1, Youngblood v4 1-3
Music: Winning Days, The Vines