Category: personal

purpose

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I don’t know what my purpose is; I know I have to write. I have to challenge – myself, the world, whatever.

Devil’s advocate, without a limit on the number of views he’s willing to explore, and the number he’ll excoriate.

Getting through this, doing the work, the canon.

That’s why I’m here. It’s all I care for. I pray I’ve enough time left to do it; I suspect no such time is forthcoming.

I’ve driven pretty far to realize where I am; I only know this is the thing that screams inside me, and if everyone else could just give it a rest for a moment, that’d be great.

I know what must be done.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 563 words, short story: Broke Down Car

Read: Permanent Record, Edward Snowden
Comics: Chew: Secret Agent Poyo (POYO!) 1, Chew 28-30
Music: No Surprises, Radiohead (one of my all time favourites)

the pushpull

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It tears at me. This urge to drive myself forward, to drive myself into something better, while simultaneously fighting not to give in to all the shit people of the world (and there are many).

It’s the dream of free people everywhere; it’s the slavering desire of every monster to put a stop to it.

It’s those close to us who behave in ways that benefit only themselves; who’d screw over their own blood for their own sick self-interest; who are so lost in their own little world that they fail to see that other people are not simply NPCs in the game of their lives, to be slaughtered or ignored as needed (or at a whim).

My biggest concern is that I’m one of them; my biggest fear is that I’m not serving myself by consistently taking myself out of the equation.

I know I need to help more. I know I barely have enough energy to hold my insides in. It’s a virtual certainty that if I stop holding it together, my body will burst and disintegrate, spilling my entrails to the floor.

Is it too much to ask for wings to emerge from the viscera?

I don’t believe in God or heaven, in no small part because it sounds fucking tedious and hypocritical, but I’d like to think peace is the end result, rather than an eternity of regret.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 432 words, poem: Feathers Falling

Read: Constellation Games, Leonard Richardson
Comics: Chew 20-23
Music: No Security, The Rolling Stones

hopeful

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I’m trying to be more hopeful in the face of a rising tide.

The forces that have colluded since Reagan to undermine freedom, integrity and basic human rights (AKA fascists, bigots and corporations) are peaking, and threatening to drag us all back to the fucking Stone Age.

I am trying to find the inner hope that says, this too shall pass.

We shall rise again, as we inevitably do.

As long as they don’t kill us all first.

Motherfuckers.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 108 words, poem: Feathers Falling

Read: Constellation Games, Leonard Richardson
Comics: Chew 17, 18, 27, 19 (what?  I swear it's right)
Music: No Reason To Complain, Patton Oswalt

roses and violets

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Roses are red
Violets are blue
Hearts are black
And lungs bruised
Legs are weary
Head aches
I’ve gone too far
Before I wake
The road behind
Is trampled waste
Lessons learned
And lost in haste
Roses red
And dipped in black
Falling slowly
Down my back
Burning muscles
Acid lungs
I’ve come to know
My race is run
And if I die before I wake
May someone find
What I meant to make

Target: 1000 words
Written: 80 words, poem: Roses And Violets

Read: Constellation Games, Leonard Richardson
Comics: Chew 13-16
Music: No Line On The Horizon, U2

legacy

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I want to leave behind a body of work that people can dig into and enjoy, even if it’s just in the dissection of me as a person.

I’m sure it won’t all be flattering; I’ve behaved terribly at times.

Such is the life of a drunken wannabe punk kid from the small towns of Ontario. You’ll say and do shit to regret later; apologies don’t mean it didn’t happen.

It also doesn’t mean it’s who you ended up.

I don’t know how I’ll end up.

But I’m worried I don’t have the stamina or force of will for the long run.

Please don’t let me end up one of these cozy mystery writers, or some detective or spy novel fuck, churning out the same formulaic CSI bullshit each week.

It’s always the goddamned butler.

I want my legacy to be more complex than that.

More compelling; equally pathetic, mildly horrific, one long cringe punctuated by the occasional, “Okay, he’s growing on me.”

He’s getting better.

Please let me leave it behind.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 326 words, poem: Roses And Violets

Read: Constellation Games, Leonard Richardson
Comics: Chew 9-12
Music: No Joke!, Meat Puppets

the day after

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It’s time now to rest, to refocus and think about the next thing. In the meantime, it’ll be poems and short stories, maybe a comic or four, a new hip ditty and then…

Then.

It may seem relaxing, but I’m desperate to have had something of an impact. I don’t need to be Jesus or Buddha; I’ll take minor pantheon member. But hell, even though I’ve got so many plans, it still feels like my race is run, like the egg timer is about to go off and my goose will be officially cooked.

You know, the usual hair on fire stuff.

So, yeah. Back to work, back to the work. Downtime, with a side of poetry.

Also, selling The Mungk, but hey, every act of creation has its cross to bear.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 81 words, poem: Roses And Violets

Read: Constellation Games, Leonard Richardson
Comics: Chew 5-8
Music: The No Fun, Local H

the mungk

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It started off as a riff on a couple of classics, as so many of my things do: the monster under the bed and it was a dark and stormy night…

I can’t seem to help postulating on other ways to see things; it’s a gift and a curse. The need to play devil’s advocate and constantly ask what other ways a thing can be seen is so ingrained in me, it’s just about impossible to keep from indulgence.

The monster under the bed merged with the concept of little things draining the life and verve you’re born with, and grew to encompass loss, abandonment and trauma.

The Mungk is a meditation on the birth of resignation, of fatalism.

Hopelessness, as seen through the guise of a children’s story.

It’s a exploration of how, as we grow, the world reveals itself to be far less well-meaning and static than we presume as children, where parents are gods, friends are forever and it’s one adventure after the other.

I won’t claim to have been abandoned or abused or any of that good stuff. My parents were pretty good. We had our fights, but nothing like what other poor souls have been through. I was disemboweled by a tree when I was eight; it didn’t make me grow up vowing revenge against improperly cut stumps.

(What a shitty superhero that would have been – the Leveller!)

I was more traumatized by the loss of faith; as I’ve said before, if you want to lose your religion, read the Bible. If you’re not out by Leviticus, there’s something wrong with your basic human decency.

The Mungk is trauma on trauma on trauma.

It’s overwhelming, it’s so much bigger than something we can deal with, in a child’s parable.

I’m sorry to unleash this on the world, but well, it’s the thing I’m most proud of, to this point. It’s good.

I think it’s great.

I could be wrong.

That’s the risk a person takes in creating anything. We build, we create, we connect the dots. We put it out into the world and now, it’s something for the jackals. Their noses twitch, their lips pull back from their teeth.

They pounce.

Anyway, the Mungk is born, for better or worse.

Only time will tell if this post is the beginning of something huge, or just another whisper in a storm.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 1618 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Mindset: The New Psychology Of Success, Carol Dweck
Comics: Chew 1-4
Music: No Exit, Blondie (ha!)

manuscriptin’

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No time for love, Dr. Jones.

This should be epic (and probably not be done today).

Intense concentration incoming.

So we pray. Bring on the Patti Smith and the Kurt Cobain. Gonna need all the classics for this level of focus.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 9100 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Sorrows Of Young Werther, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Comics: The Boys: Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker 2-5
Music: Nirvana, Nirvana

falling asleep

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Falling into skyrocketing blood pressure.

It’s like being so drunk you lose all balance and suddenly, tip sideways into the snow, but you’re stuck in the moment where balance fails and you’re just about to tip uncontrollably…

Without even the good time first.

Well, technically. I’m sure the abuse I put my body through was a good time at the time. I just don’t remember any of it.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 1549 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: I'll Be Gone In The Dark, Michelle McNamara
Comics: The Boys 57-59, The Boys: Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker 1
Music: Ninety-Nine-Double-Oh Demos, Local H (most underrated grunge band ever?)

today has only just begun

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And already, it seems like it might have been smarter to throw myself headfirst down the stairs.

Fuck me.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 1649 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: I'll Be Gone In The Dark (I Wish), Michelle McNamara
Comics: The Boys 53-56
Music: Nina Simone Essentials, Nina Simone (probably the only good thing that'll happen all day)