If you know anything about me, it’s that I hate being late.
HATE IT.
I’m late for one thing and it’s like a Rube Goldberg machine of frustration, a fucked-up domino of cascading destruction that leaves me absolutely fucking enraged.
And I’m the chill one.
Target: 500 words
Written: 549 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Sword Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Y The Last Man 45-48
Music: Vivida Vis!, Against Me!Sometimes, I wonder, why is this my life?
Why am I sitting on a couch, searching French asparagus recipes in a pair of swim trunks and an old St. Patrick’s Day t-shirt?
I should be sunning on the beaches of Ibiza or sauntering around Vienna or Santorini, or sharing drinks with Jimmy Buffett on St. Lucia. I should be enjoying the isolation of Lapland or the bustling, noisy markets of Marrakesh or the flowing drift of the Yangtze.
I should be surrounded by people I love, not people I haven’t let get close enough to really truly be myself with.
But, then… asparagus is pretty good. I’m a big foodie, I have a nice family, I’ve done plenty of travelling, to beaches and rivers and cities and tundra and so forth.
And Jimmy Buffett is dead.
Today is about wanting what you don’t have. Today is about appreciating what you do.
And thinking the world is a worse place without the margarita man. Rest well, Mr. Buffett. I too don’t know where I’m’a gonna go when the volcano blows.
Target: 500 words
Written: 400 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Sword Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Y The Last Man 41-44
Music: Vivid, Living ColourI used to be a party person. I could go until all hours, consume copious amounts of drugs and alcohol and make an unbearably obnoxious fool of myself.
It’s a wonder I ever had any friends at all.
Pity, I assume. I’m not blind. The cool kids all had deep connections; I was just kind of there, filling space and being an idiot.
That said, now, I made it to midnight last night and today, I’m a wreck.
Getting old is the shits, which is different than being the shit.
Much, much different.
Target: 500 words
Written: 873 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Sword Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Y The Last Man 37-40
Music: Viva Wisconsin, Violent Femmes (I don't know what it is about these guys, but I connect so completely with literally everything they've ever done, except Vancouver, which sucks)I’d like to spend most of my days that way. An empty room with nothing but me and a good book, a laptop for writing, maybe a corkboard for plotting and visualization. Access to a beautiful woman for companionship. The ability to leave whenever, but the ability to get lost entirely in whatever I’m doing, without interruption.
The ability to be fully and completely present within my little empty box, with the option to go outside on occasion and visit the good parts of the world, and leave the shitbags behind.
Target: 500 words
Written: 127 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Sword Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Y The Last Man 33-36
Music: Vitalogy, Pearl Jam (still an all-time favourite - every word floods back like total recall)I think I’ve earned it – a first draft complete, writing up my notes for the second run? That’s not a small thing; completion is an elusive, moving target in art, particularly when you’re one of those nervous, depressed artists like myself. It’s very easy to scrap the lot and go back to scratch.
I’m saving the Gran Corona for the publication date, but I believe in the art of the small reward. Plus, The Mungk is a novella, a tiny project, and therefore, its rewards should be appropriately sized.
I don’t smoke as a matter of course – I quit cigarettes years ago, but I love the smell of a good cigar, so a cigarillo every couple of months probably isn’t going to hurt me.
My liver or my heart will give out far before my lungs, after all.
Clean livin’, y’all.
To the next one.
Target: 500 words
Written: 256 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: The Sword Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Y The Last Man 29-32
Music: Virus 100, L7, Vision Valley, The VinesA hundred days into this year and we’ve already had multiple collapses, blood issues and a totality.
Sometimes, I’d like there to be a totality inside me, either to end it all or to burn away all the shit. Blind it with a shining aura, a brilliance unendurable except with the darkest glasses.
But the world keeps turning, a disturbing number of people think a man who thought it was intelligent to stare directly at an eclipse is a genius and hate seems to creep further into our lives each and every day.
We need another revolution. Another love-in.
Where’s our John and Yoko? Our sexual revolution appears to revolve around people making sex tapes, where wearing bikinis on your social media is a viable career path.
Where’s our screaming punk? Where’s our Kurt Cobain, hitting the nerves of a generation so raw that it changes entire cultures?
Where’s logic? Where’s freedom? Where are hearts and connection and compassion and a basic understanding of kindness?
Where’s the less ineffectual left? Where’s the sober right?
Where the fuck is everybody?
Social media is madness. Our world is mad.
This has been your daily agonized howl into the void, unable to stand anymore.
Target: 500 words
Written: 191 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 21-24
Music: Villains, The Verve PipeThere’s a phenomenon I haven’t seen since I was a child, and never in the full totality as we’re getting today. I hope it remains unclouded as it has been the last couple of days.
Unfortunately, as with most things in my life, circumstance and poor planning and dedication on my part will likely render it a disappointment, and I, like so many others, will find myself holding the bag of my own responsibility.
Depression in full swing; universe, grant me superpowers.
I’d rather be a hero.
Target: 500 words
Written: 309 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 17-20
Music: Victrola, Veruca Salt, View From A Backstage Pass, the WhoI’m seeding herbs today, and it makes me think that maybe I’m seeding stories, little poems and things to grow my writing career.
However, like seeding, one needs the right fuel and the right ground, the soil, the nutrients, in order to sow the ground with something fertile enough to allow things to grow.
And I’m not a green thumb.
But I think that’s how I need to start thinking of my writing career. Create fertile ground. Find the right nutrients, the right level of sunlight, water as needed.
Pay close attention if the leaves are wilting.
Pray for little babies to push the soil.
Target: 500 words
Written: 818 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 9-12
Music: Vespertine Live, BjorkSome music just moves you. I just finished writing and while James Brown and Night Train was cool, I definitely funked out more to Modest Mouse and Steam Engenius, because SO. FUCKING. GOOD.
My tastes range, and it’s fine. I don’t mind following up Minor Threat with Rihanna or Dean Martin with Henry Rollins. There’s nothing wrong with an Eminem and Beatles mix, or Pink Floyd and NOFX.
It’s all about being open, and enjoying the moment. Falling into it and letting it happen, letting it be what it is and letting go of whatever else is happening.
Music is the most powerful presence creator; there’s a reason we love it in all its forms. It speaks to something primal within us that just wants to live. Here, now, forever in the groove, connecting and commiserating with our fellow humanity, free from all the rest of the world’s shit.
Target: 500 words
Written: 209 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 5-8
Music: Vespertine, BjorkWell, this is a first. I wish I could say it was unexpected, but I knew Get Back Again straddled a line I wasn’t sure I hadn’t crossed.
I mean, it’s a story told from the perspective of a right winger who has been murdered by his liberal girlfriend. I mean, I thought it was clear that the right winger was the bad guy, but I knew that to tell it properly, I would have to hew more tightly to the man’s anger and prejudice than I would normally be comfortable with. I actually made notes to myself during the revision hoping that it would be taken as it was meant, and not become some kind of right wing manifesto.
Wattpad’s a pretty liberal place, which is part of the reason I like it, even though most of the literature posted there isn’t exactly my jam. I mostly followed Cory Doctorow there. If he thought it had value, it must not have been terrible, because you know… Doctorow. He doesn’t suffer tech companies lightly.
Of course, left-leaning places such as Wattpad also mean the kind of people whose outrage tends to not think before it blasts nuclear waste out into the atmosphere.
(And don’t get me wrong, the right is pregnant to bursting with outrage, only they don’t realize that they’re not actually pregnant, just morbidly obese with self-inflicted unhealth).
It appears that’s happened to me.
Either that or Get Back Again wasn’t as clear as I hoped (and I know it was opaque).
So, yeah. I’m anti-censorship for any reason. It’s one thing to know something is immoral and not want to read it; it’s another thing to say to everyone else that reading it is bad. Things can be learned even from things you vehemently disagree with.
If they allow it back, I guess we’ll have to put a disclaimer on it. Trigger warning and a brief explanation: hey, the racist, homophobic misogynist threatening violence against women and minorities?
He’s a baddie.
Duh.
Target: 500 words
Written: 203 words, novella: The Mungk
Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 1-4
Music: Very Proud Of Ya, AFI