Category: canon

anyone out there

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Anyone ever do all the prep work, then write a first draft then realize partway through that there’s an absolutely crucial transition that needs to happen, (or an idea that makes for a way cooler scene comes to you), and you realize you haven’t planned for it at all?

But then, you’re so inspired by the idea that you hamfist it in there anyway, and then, several drafts later, when the rest of the book is almost manuscript ready, you realize that while the idea is still cool, the whole fucking thing was done all haphazard and now you’ve got a first draft scene in the middle of your nearly finished manuscript?

It’s like those cars that have pristine bodies and interiors, but for whatever reason, needed a new door and couldn’t find one the same colour, so they bought one that fit, but was all rusted and shitty-looking and didn’t match, and when they drive around, the thing is a freakin’ eyesore?

Yeah. One of those.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1894 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Tesla: Man Out Of Time, Margaret Cheney
Comics: Jack Of Fables 1-2, Fables 52, 1001 Nights Of Snowfall 1
Music: WHO (Deluxe & Live At Kington), The Who

alone time

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There’s rumours we’re going back to the office full-time, and I think with all the changes I’ve endured, and how much time that’s cost me (and killed me, as far as getting shit done), I think it’s going to kill me.

Something will have to give, and I’m afraid it will be me and my sanity.

I don’t want to switch jobs again.

Unless it’s full time author.

Fuckin’ hell, Carney. You’re a real piece of shit, you know. First all the globalist bullshit, now this.

I’ll still never vote Con, but damn son. I was already on the fence on the Liberal Party the last few elections and only voted that way to avoid garbage like Scheer and Poilievre.

But if you have another one, I’m going hard left. NDP or Green, the whole fucking way.

Enough half-measures, done from fear of the right. It’s time to dump the centre, if the centre won’t listen either.

And it’s your fault, Carney, for being an unnecessary dick.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1105 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Tesla: Man Out Of Time, Margaret Cheney
Comics: Fables 44-47
Music: White Trash, Two Heebs And A Bean, NOFX (hey, I don't name 'em)

we are all going to die

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I mean, probably. Well, definitely. The question is really when and how.

Is it when Trump starts the end of the world? Is it a pandemic exploding through us because morons think vaccinations are somehow worse than the disease they’re designed to protect against?

Is it climate change?

When I write, I’ve often dreamed of it as being read still hundreds of years hence (I imagine that’s true of many artists). At this point though, hurtling toward climate collapse at least, I’d be happy if we still had books at all in twenty years. Or if anyone was around to read them.

Maybe someday, aliens will settle our barren, self-destroyed plant, and find our written missives and using supercomputers we haven’t dreamed of, translate them and think, Jesus, what a bunch of fucking assholes.

And they blew it all up.

Damn, dirty apes.

(A story, as told by a fatalist, using cultural references aliens probably won’t get, because I don’t think we ever beamed Charlton Heston to space. We are the monkeys, man! The monkeys are us!)

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1071 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Tesla: Man Out Of Time, Margaret Cheney
Comics: Fables 40-43
Music: The White Stripes, The White Stripes

final stretch

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I’m aiming for a Christmas deadline (preferably before, because Christmas and Christmas Eve are fucking no gos for any amount of editing), but man, how many different way can one describe a mangled dog corpse?

It feels like one’s too many.

Doesn’t it?

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1585 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Complete Poetical Works, Edgar Allan Poe (Raven and Conqueror Worm are still great, but man, I wanted the rest to be so much better)
Comics: Fables 32-35
Music: White Light, White Heat, White Trash, Social Distortion

the rundown

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Multiple meanings for that these days, as you’ll eventually see.

If there’s ever a movie written of my life, it’s going to be a lot of stuttering and masturbation, followed by a slow, tortuous breakdown in front of a computer.

I know it was a shittier time, but past generations had such grand adventures; our life is so regimented now.

You must do this. You must do that.

There’s no time for peace. No time for quiet.

Where’s my goddamned quiet at?

No, I run, and run, and run, it all just runs me down.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1823 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel (I was excited to read this, thinking I might comiserate, but this is far less a description of depression, but rather narcissism using depression as its party mask.  There's a point where she reaches true depression, I think, and there's a perfect description of it, which made me think, okay, finally, she understands, but then she magics it all away with a drug, and spends the rest of the book bemoaning the fact that she did it before it was cool, like some pretentious alt-rock kid pissed off the little indie band they liked signed a deal with a major label.  This book?  Five percent depression, the rest about as real as the proverbial cut my wrist width-wise instead of lengthwise cry for attention.  Disappointing.)
Comics: Fables 20-23
Music: White Chalk, PJ Harvey

still crashing out

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I know this is because I’ve got myself under a ton of pressure to finish this book before Christmas.

Literally. I’ve set the date as December 23rd.

Finished by that date, so I can sit back with a cigar and a whiskey and fucking kick some goddamned ass.

Then to lighten things up for a bit with some poetry, more short stories and comics, maybe a hip little ditty or three.

Then, maybe, by the time March rolls around, I’ll be ready for canon project #3.

And maybe I’ll head back to historical.

Paranormal.

Lovecraft country, baby. I am the man of a thousand ideas; and a thousand more I will never have time to complete.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1483 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel
Comics: Fables 16-19
Music: White Blood Cells, The White Stripes

well how about that

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I’m still writing about feces and doormats.

Steinbeck wrote about the Great Depression. Fitzgerald about the vapidity of the rich.

Shakespeare wrote of love and loss and tragedy, of empire and family.

And I’m writing about feces on a doormat.

Perhaps I’m not really cut out for this whole literary genius thing. I’m the Meatballs of the Great Canadian Novel. This generation’s A Clockwork Orange is actually a rendition of Porky’s, by way of American Pie.

Porky’s did bring us Kim Cattrall, however, and that’s a fucking gift.

Screw Sarah Jessica Parker. I never liked her anyway.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 2321 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay (and now I'm crying, damn it)
Comics: Fables 1-4 (finally, something good)
Music: Which Side Are You On?, Anti-Flag (something we all need to decide)

icons i won’t be

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I used to want to be William Gibson or George Orwell or J.R.R. Tolkien. Even in my modern days, I idolize Doris Lessing, Andrzej Sapkowski and Thomas Wolfe.

I doubt any of them ever had to write a scene where a fat boor took a messy dump on someone’s front stoop.

Perhaps I should set my sights lower.

Like, MAD magazine or National Lampoon lower.

I’d love to be e.e. cummings or Gord Downie. I’d love to write with the sensitivity of Alan Moore or the abstraction of Kelly Sue Deconnick. Kafka, Chekhov, Palahniuk.

And I’m writing about a fat guy’s feces.

Maybe someday, I could reach even Second City.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1488 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay
Comics: Youngblood v7 #1 (oh dear god, another reboot, with a storytelling style that's no better than it was in the first Youngblood miniseries.  Give up, man.  This shit ain't working.)
Music: Where You Been, Dinosaur Jr.

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: When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, Billie Eilish (this is a great album, don't care what you say)

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: When The Pawn Hits The Conflicts He Thinks Like A King..., Fiona Apple (all time favourite female artist? Very well could be, though I'm also big on Bjork, PJ Harvey, L7 and Veruca Salt)