This weekend, we’ll dive deeper on the whole “ask forgiveness, not permission” thing, but for now, today, it’s migraine o’clock with a full work day ahead of me.
The seventh draft begins, like a seventh seal broken, and things can only go down from here.
Target: 800 words
Written: 259 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: Tao Te Ching (Ursula Leguin edition)
Comics: Middlewest 15-18
Music: Live Things, NirvanaListen, it’s not actually an issue. I don’t show up drunk for my niece’s recitals or sneak whiskey shots from my desk drawer at the office.
But it’s there.
It’s a part of life.
I likely don’t exceed a six pack a week, and maybe a couple of glasses of wine. Like, a drink a night (although a lot of nights, I don’t have anything).
But what I am struggling with is whether a seven year old would call Jim Beam Mr. Beam or mis-hear it as Mr. Bean.
But do I want Rowan Atkinson in this? I love the character, but the connection is incongruous with what I’m trying to do.
Mr. Beam, Mr. Bean, Mr. Beam.
Safer to stick to what you know, I guess, and Jim Beam ain’t it.
Nasty stuff, that. I’ll never understand Americans and their obsession with bourbon. It pales in comparison to true whiskey or scotch. Playdough to cement. Koolaid to an Old Fashioned. Sure, it’ll get you drunk, but damn, don’t you want it to taste halfway decent while you do it?
Target: 800 words
Written: 632 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: 'Salem's Lot, Stephen King
Comics: I Hate Fairyland 15-18
Music: More Live Random, Guns 'n' Roses (you wanted the best, but they didn't make it... so here's what you get.)I’m looking forward to the end, I think. I don’t want it to come until I’ve met all my goals, but I think it might be a relief.
The hope is that I don’t lose the ability to do all this stuff before I go, or turn into some mediocre shade.
Or worse, give up.
Fucking suffering, fucking with a purpose. Endless pleasure and a cacophony of orgasm is the end goal, after we get through all the awkward and uncomfortable talk about whether it’s okay to kiss or hold hands.
We’ll get to the kink when it’s time to spice things up, I suppose.
Target: 800 words
Written: 191 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: Brothers Of Earth, CJ Cherryh (I might even finish this, finally)
Comics: Bully Wars 5, I Hate Fairyland 1-3
Music: Random Covers, NirvanaIt stares at me. Dares me. Five drafts down, and still shit.
Maybe it will never be else.
Just a pile of runny diarrhea, not even kind enough to be cohesive, splattered on the floor.
How long is ten thousand hours?
Can I training myself in the art of creating shit?
The art of defecation on the page?
These are the questions that spit at me in the mornings.
Are you nothing more than a diarrhea factory? Leaky housing for liquid shit?
Ain’t I hot?
Target: 800 words
Written: 374 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, Jules Verne
Comics: The Crow: Wild Justice 1-3, The Crow: Waking Nightmares 1
Music: The Undiscovered Numbers And Colours, Foreign ObjectsI’m increasingly beginning to think I’m playing lute for the damned.
The seemingly unstoppable march of fascism, climate change, gun violence, bigotry, overpopulation, war, fucking microplastics…
At this point, I’m thinking I could write humanity’s single greatest work of fiction, and it wouldn’t matter, because humanity itself will be gone before my lifetime is out.
My lifetime might be tomorrow.
Armageddon might be tomorrow.
I have works of staggering genius in me, but I fear that neither I nor anyone else will live to see them.
Nor will I ever get my head far enough out of my ass to complete them.
Is it still fatalism if it’s true?
Target: 800 words
Written: 535 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Adventures Of Captain Hatteras, Jules Verne (it's nice to feel cold in this heat)
Comics: The Crow: Flesh And Blood 3, The Crow: City Of Angels 1-3
Music: Undisclosed Desires, Muse (apropos, I suppropose) <-- that's the staggering genius I'm talking about.It’s Deadpool & Wolverine day for me, and I am stoked.
Not only is Ryan Reynolds one of my favourite comedy actors and fellow geeks, he’s also a good Canadian boy, which I appreciate.
Weirdly, I’ve never been particularly nationalist, but I like to support the locals, especially when they’re doing cool things (sorry, Bieber, Nickelback, you ain’t my cup of tea).
Anyway, excited. The first two were great, so I can’t wait.
Also, my second writing was hit this morning, so a mini cigarillo is in order, and it’s nice enough to do it, so yay!
Target: 800 words
Written: 430 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Adventures Of Captain Hatteras, Jules Verne
Comics: The Crow 3-5, The Crow: Dead Time 1 (can I just say that The Crow is a seminal work in Gothic horror/romance? Every time I've read it, it hits me - fucking angst, anger and love injected straight into my veins. Absolutely gutting. Absolutely beautiful.)
Music: Underground V5.0, Linkin ParkTomorrow, I’m turning another year older. Almost half a century on this planet, and I don’t know a goddamn thing.
The Mungk got me when I was a child, and has scraped me clean.
I am a shadow, visible, but without substance.
Target: 700 words
Written: 470 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Elfstones Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Postal 8-9, The Tithe 7, Symmetry 1
Music: Ultra Rare Trax, Volumes 2 and 4, Lou Reed and The Velvet UndergroundI mean, there’s room for improvement, but seventeen words?
Can’t do much less than that.
Target: 700 words
Written: 17 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: Living Dead In Dallas, Charlaine Harris
Comics: Think Tank: Military Dossier 1, Think Tank 5-7
Music: Ukulele Songs, Eddie VedderIt’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, NirvanaWell, 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, Blur