Category: canon

three down

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That’s it. The villain has been shanked, the prison’s a riot, the mayor’s fled the country.

All of this will make sense.

None of it will make sense, because it is about nonsense.

Our current nonsense.

LET THEM EAT LAW.

(Sorry, don’t know why I went all Dredd there for a minute – speaking of which, who saw the Karl Urban version? Fuckin’ terrific! I love Lena Headey! Something tells me she’s one of these people who plays an incredible villain, but is an absolute sweetheart in real life. Or so I hope. I honestly hope everyone is sweet in real life.)

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1408 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Time Machine, H.G. Wells (better than I remember, but I'm still icked by the classism)
Comics: Tomb Raider 43-45, Tomb Raider: Arabian Nights 1
Music: Welcome To The Drama Club, Everclear (underrated band, for sure)

a few last notes

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And then tomorrow, I’m done with the third draft, until the fourth draft.

And the fifth, sixth, seventh… The Mungk had thirteen total.

Hopefully, this ain’t that.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 260 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Time Machine, H.G. Wells
Comics: Tomb Raider 39-42
Music: Welcome To Paradise, Green Day

i mean, like, it’s getting there

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I’ve got one scene left to revise in my third draft, and despite all my great notes with their wonderful additions and new directions and ideas and such, I’m not sure they all fit, or could fit, without monster rewrites and possible storyline changes, at this point.

Still, it’s a good start, and I will endeavour in the new round to go through all those notes and take whatever will really work, will add to the story and make it better than it is, and put it in.

That’s going to be a major task, I’m sure, and I’m starting to worry my end of year deadline isn’t going to be one I can reach.

I finished The Mungk on time last year; it was a novella.

This is much more ambitious and has taken up considerably more time and effort.

I imagine the next will be that again.

A book a year; maybe I’ll have all my work done before I’m eighty. Or even ninety. Ninety-one, perhaps.

I’ll retire on my ninety-first birthday. How’s that?

And then I’ll fucking die.

If I make it there first.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 2869 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Captain Paul, Alexandre Dumas
Comics: Tomb Raider: Sphere Of Influence 1, Tomb Raider: Takeover 1, Tomb Raider 37-38
Music: Welcome To New York, The Rolling Stones

rants that went the wrong way

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But were still somehow kind of right? Like, it’s the stuff you don’t want to say out loud, because it’s the kind of thing that a good and just society would never say or do, but ultimately, knows sometimes needs to be done?

I mean, I’m not saying anything in particular. In this case, it’s a part of Bad Neighbours, a peak point where things have gone off the rails and the main character has made a certain decision that ultimately, is the wrong decision, but also, kind of the right decision, in the way that we’d all like to ignore Nazis and let them have their little hate parades and such as long as they’re just out there playing pretend and don’t have any actual power and aren’t physically hurting other people.

But the second they do that? Well, I mean, I know how Jack Kirby would have seen it: see a Nazi, punch a Nazi, and certainly, the second there’s violence, it’s up to us to oppose it. I truly believe in the Tao concept of entering a fight like a funeral, with the same solemnity, and the intent to simply end it as quickly and peacefully as possible.

But then, what do I know? I’m a lifelong pacifist who has never actually been in a fight ever, beyond some wrestling with my older brother as kiss. I don’t think I’ve ever been punched in the face.

Then again, maybe that’s because I’m not a Nazi.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1826 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Captain Paul, Alexandre Dumas
Comics: Tomb Raider 33-36
Music: Welcome To My Dream, MC 900 feat. Jesus

coming close

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I’m coming up on the end of the third draft. I’ll probably be another week or two, but then, hopefully, all the major components are there and it’s just tweaking and making sure all the little things, like what name I used for some mentioned place or character in scene two matches my return comment in scene thirty-one.

They kind of don’t.

I’m catching it as I go.

And all of a sudden, I’m panicking. Did I wing this shit? Is it poorly planned, poorly executed?

Damn it. I suck.

I’m sure all writers feel this way at some point, but also, at some point, it’s always fucking true.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1129 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Solar Lottery, Philip K. Dick (I like that women's fashion is apparently just walking around topless - bit pervy, kinda sexist, Dick, old boy)
Comics: Tomb Raider 26-27, Tomb Raider Journeys 9-10
Music: Weighting, Rollins Band

maybe found it

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I think I just found the mistake I made in not turning my bad guy into the ULTIMATE bad guy (meaning in this book, not in general – hard to beat such sons of bitches as Kevin Spacey in Se7en or Lady deWinter, not to mention Davey Trauma in Tokyo Ghost or Donald Trump in real life).

But I’ve got the secondary bad guy (who had eclipsed my main at points) building up the primary now, and if I do it right, it will be grand.

I hope.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 306 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: World Of Ptavvs, Larry Niven
Comics: Tomb Raider 12-14, 0
Music: Weezer (Blue Album), Weezer

that was horrifying

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Well, I’ve written what I assume is the grossest thing I’ve ever written (I won’t say worst – you’d have to read Western Cradle, which has to be drawn, inked, coloured, lettered and edited first, plus the Mungk, which involves child abandonment, suicide and children dying of preventable diseases), but yeah.

Fucking gross.

Real gross.

And I’m talking about the capitalist, not just the feces he ignores to try for the sale.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 2476 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Two Gentlemen Of Verona, William Shakespeare
Comics: Tomb Raider 10-11, Tomb Raider Journeys 1, Tomb Raider/The Darkness 1
Music: Weezer (Black Album), Weezer

funny or sad

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I don’t know what I am anymore. I get angrier the more I work on Bad Neighbours, but ultimately, it’s a satire. A comedy.

It’s meant to be funny.

I’m worried it’s coming across hostile.

Or too skewed toward being hard on liberalism, even though that’s kind of the point of the satire, how ridiculous it is to be so hard on the sanctimonious that mean well, versus the actual assholes who mean evil.

Shelley is almost benign; Walter comes across as a monster at times.

It’s a reflection of the times, but I worry it will be misinterpreted as actually being the way it is.

Certainly, MAGAts don’t know the difference. Their inability to understand Gavin Newsom’s Twitter (yeah, fuck you, Elon, it’s Twitter) parody is pretty clear.

I don’t want this son of a bitch to become an icon, misinterpreted the way my bad guy was in Get Back Again, from several of the places I’d submitted or published it. Wattpad outright banned it, saying it promoted hate, which is really only evidence that they either didn’t read it, or have read too many bad boy romance stories, and thus, have lost their ability to understand metaphor and context.

So, stating this, for the record, before it ever sees the light of day.

Walter Lemon has his problems; he can be problematic at times, but he is ultimately, a good person who wants justice and fairness.

Dennis Shelley (and those who enable/use him) is a fucking monster. HE IS NOT THE GOOD GUY.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1507 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Deadly Streets, Harlan Ellison
Comics: Tomb Raider: Origins 1, Tomb Raider 6-7, Witchblade/Tomb Raider 0.5
Music: We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, Modest Mouse

twenty-twenty-five on speed

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Is it just me, or is this year moving like a freight train whose throttle is wide open and stuck down?

Barreling toward an inevitable conclusion that can only be catastrophe?

I’ll admit, Bad Neighbours, being largely about conflict and unreality, about dichotomy and the endless fight of us versus them, it’s done a number on me.

I know, as a writer, you have to live in the space about which you’re writing. When I did Romance #1, it was fun and goofy, ironic and sardonic. Western Cradle was about trying to make shit out of suffering. The Mungk was months of exploration into trauma and hopelessness.

The fatalism nearly got me.

But I’m largely conflict-averse in my life, so this obsessing over the fight, being at war, at odds with each other, especially in light of the world’s political situation, it’s anathema. And it’s bleeding into the rest of my life.

I’ll be glad when this is done, for more reasons than just completion and the pride of having finished it.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1794 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: East Wind: West Wind, Pearl Buck
Comics: The Seasons 6-7, Escape 1
Music: We Rebuilt This City, Closet Monster