Category: reading

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: Workbook, Bob Mould

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: Woody Guthrie Essentials, Woody Guthrie (how apropos is Lindbergh?)

reminders

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This book is reminding me of why I love the Hip, and Gord Downie in particular, and why my heroes went from being rebels who gave everyone the finger, to nice people who weren’t afraid of hard truths and dark places.

Loudmouth boors be damned.

Give me a soft-spoken purveyor of real things, dark and light, any day.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1407 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay
Comics: Youngblood v6 4-7
Music: Without You I'm Nothing, Placebo

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: Without A Sound, Dinosaur Jr.

the never ending story

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I do not understand what is happening with this book. I usually read for about an hour or so a day, which moves me usually about fifty to a hundred pages, depending on the depth of the text, font size, readability, how much dialogue the writer is prone to use, etc.

But this book, The Never-Ending Present, is weirdly entirely out of character. I read for an hour, to move maybe four to five percent on the Kindle. It shouldn’t take more than a week max; it’s now been five days and I’m only barely a quarter of the way through.

Not that I care that much, because it’s about the journey and not the target, but I’m definitely not hitting that reading target I set at the beginning of the year. A stretch goal for me was ninety books; I think of the minimum as a book a week. Basically, four to seven days on average per novel.

I may have to amend that if I’m going to read like this from now on.

Still, I’m enjoying it; anything Gord Downie is my spirit animal.

I just don’t understand why the slow pace, despite the effort.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 2345 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay
Comics: Youngblood v5 76-78, Bloodstrike v2 1
Music: Within A Mile From Home, Flogging Molly

youngblood

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I mean, Jesus Christ, Rob. Reboot after retool after dramatic change, like you’re trying to stuff the entirety of fifty to seventy years of X-Men/Avengers tales into a 22 page comic. You can’t go three fucking issues without rebooting the fucking team. Your most interesting characters were killed off, or disappeared, or rendered useless. There are so many goddamn loose threads and things and people that show up like we’re supposed to know them and then just vanish.

Add to that the fact that nearly every character you created is a straight rip-off of a Marvel or DC character and well, fuck, man. No wonder people deride your work. MacFarlane and Jim Lee did better art; everyone does better writing. It’s pretty clear that your ego got in the way of your progression; sometimes, success too early kills the instinct for growth.

Evolution is better than talent; a work ethic and a willingness to adapt will always beat natural skill.

I mean, I don’t know Rob. He might be a perfectly nice guy, but goddamn. This universe is a mess, and Brigade and Bloodstrike aren’t any better.

Consistency. Uniquity. Time to learn who people are – these are the ties that bind, the things that draw us to characters, not cheap knockoffs, splashy art and disjointed storytelling that reads like me trying to write my first novel, discarding and changing, abandoning, getting sick of an idea that’s not working and starting over with the same idea, with a twist, but instead of letting it evolve into something consistent for the world to see when it’s ready, you just do it all over and over again. No wonder people can’t seem to stick, and so many of these series or story arcs get rebooted after one to two issues.

You need to go back to basics, ditch the knockoffs and focus on the things that actually worked (which wasn’t much). Of course, yet another reboot is an interest killer, so maybe not. Maybe just put this fucker to bed, and admit, after thirty-plus years?

This shit ain’t gonna work out.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1413 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay
Comics: Youngblood v4 8-9, Brigade v4 1, Bloodstrike 26
Music: With The Beatles, The Beatles

barking

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I don’t know what the deal is the last few days, but my girls won’t stop barking.

It’s driving me insane. It’s impossible to read a book or edit a scene with this going on.

I can barely get through a comic.

Five minutes, ladies. All I’m asking for.

Maybe twenty. An hour.

Three hours, tops.

Maybe eight.

Nine?

How about a whole day?

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1797 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Magic Kingdom For Sale - Sold!, Terry Brooks
Comics: Battlestone 1, Bloodstrike 16, Team Youngblood 15, Youngblood Strikefile 8
Music: White Trash, Two Heebs And A Bean, NOFX (hey, I don't name 'em)

thanksgiving

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What am I thankful for?

My dogs. My cats.

My family.

My job, unsteady as it is right now with Carney’s cuts looming.

A world on the brink that hasn’t quite made it there yet.

I can still write.

I am not banned.

I may be in the future.

Fuck ’em. I’d want nothing more than to be censored.

Call me A Clockwork Orange.

Madmenny and a malenky bit of the old in and out, right, me droogs?

Fuck it. Banned books for all.

I am thankful there’s still outrage over that.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1476 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Magic Kingdom For Sale - Sold!, Terry Brooks
Comics: Youngblood 9, Youngblood Strikefile 7, Brigade v2 13, Badrock And Company 3
Music: The Very Best Of The Original Dubliners, The Dubliners

back to work

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Well, I guess that’s it.

I’ve been torn in a thousand different directions, feel like I’m way behind on everything, and now, I have to go into the office three days out of every week, thus losing an hour of my day to prep and commute (not to mention the little moments I sneak on breaks and lunch to write, read, etc.)

This is going to hurt.

Fuck my life.

And fuck Donald Trump.

Just because.

Fuck him.

Target: 1200 words
Written: 2408 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Blackbirds, Chuck Wendig
Comics: Fathom: Kiani v4 4, The Four Points 2, Fathom: Blue 1-2
Music: Endtroducing, DJ Shadow

stolen away

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How do entire days get stolen from one? I went to the clinic yesterday morning regarding stomach cramps I’ve had for a couple of weeks, but naturally, they had no power, so they were closed.

Fuck me, I guess.

That should have gained me a few hours of my life back, but somehow, even with the girls working until four o’clock, that meant I was forced into a number of chores I’d been hoping to avoid for a while.

So, here we are, having lost a whole weekend of good writing and reading and generally, time alone, to fucking crap that doesn’t really matter.

I like a nice lawn as well, but who really gives a shit?

Let the bees and the birds have it, and let them reclaim this world.

Target: 1200 words
Written: 1097 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Thieves' World, Asprin/Abby/Anderson/Haldeman/Offutt/Bradley/Brunner/DeWees (what an accomplishment this is, an anthology in a shared world where, for the most part, things actually flow together fairly well, though Cappen Varra and Jamie the Red are a bit off, and Marion Zimmer Bradley's offering is disturbing given her personal life.)
Comics: Fathom v3 6-8, Aspen Seasons 4
Music: The Eminem Show, Eminem