Category: work

tedium

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So, the new training is SO. FUCKING. BORING.

I like to think I’ve lived a life free of trauma, though not drama, though it often feels like a trauma lurking around the corner.

Something repressed, guiding my moods and thoughts subconsciously, ready to jump out and smash the dinner spread just as I’m about to eat.

It feels like I’m barely allowed to eat, and alternately, stuffed of the point of nausea and vomiting.

Fucking mental illness… it’s a real son of a bitch, and the sneakiest motherfucker you know.

Target: 400 words
Written: 234 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Welcome To Night Vale, Joseph Fink/Jeffrey Cranor (did I spell that right?)
Comics: Tokyo Ghost 1-4 (FUCK.  YES.)
Music: KEROSENE HAT, Cracker (one of my favourite southern alternative albums ever, if not the top dog - fucking brilliant)

back to training

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I guess I’m doing something right, because I’m being trained on special tasks yet again.

It’s funny, when I was younger and more oblivious, I knew I was a hard worker and a smart guy, but I didn’t believe in my own fallibility; it was a problem.

When you won’t accept that you’re a fuck-up who can be lazy at times, no amount of nose-to-the-grindstone and feeling responsible for everything around you will help.

Now that I am older and officially know that I am imperfect and know very little about pretty much everything, I feel like I’m not being responsible enough.

And now I feel like it’s okay not to be responsible for everything.

Is wisdom actually saying fuck it? Let’s do what we want and let it ride?

Is true wisdom giving up control and accepting the peace of kicking back with a whiskey sour?

As the song says, “All I know is that I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t know nothing.”

Target: 400 words
Written: 2296 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: If Chins Could Kill: Confessions Of A B Movie Actor, Bruce Campbell
Comics: Chrononauts: Futureshock 1-4
Music: Just Can't Get Enough New Wave, Various (my jams)

back to work

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No rest for the weary. No breaks for the forlorn.

No quarter given to the depressed.

Life is a cruel motherfucker. Part of me wonders if I died when I was younger and this was my own personal hell, offering me chance after chance for happiness, but then inflicting such insecurity and depression to fuck them all up.

Life gives us joy only so we know the pain of taking it away (thanks, Kelly).

Life shows us joy so we know what we’re losing.

Target: 400 words
Written: 1030 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Fire Starter Sessions, Danielle Laporte
Comics: Nailbiter Returns 2-5
Music: Julian Plenti Is... Skyscraper (love, love, love the atmospheric nature of this album. Skyscraper is definitely getting use in the Mungk playlist)

workload

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It’s an irony that the only thing I want to do is getting somewhat squashed by the thing I have to do.

I set my writing targets intentionally low, because I know, until I’m actually supporting myself full-time with the whole storytelling thing, I have a job to do. Family to support, all that stuff.

If you see me not hitting my target each day, know that there’s actually a bigger target, an overall target, that I’m exceeding.

For example, this year, if you were to count up the number of words I set as target each day, it’s not quite eleven thousand words. That sounds like a lot, but come on? Over a month and a half?

It’s nothing.

In reality, I’ve actually written closer to thirty-five thousand words, which while still kind of low, is more respectable over that period. Some established authors only do five hundred words a day; I’m averaging somewhere between seven and eight hundred.

Of course, some of those five hundred a day-ers are agonizing over each sentence, spending an hour on a paragraph, an afternoon on a page, and they’re coming out brilliant.

Me? I’ll fix it in post. A first draft is nothing more than an overwrought outline, as far as I’m concerned; an extended method of finding out how the characters want the story to go, and where your plot holes make themselves known (although some sneakier plot holes will slither their way into your second, third or even sixth drafts, crafty buggers).

Some plot holes you’ll never see.

I certainly didn’t.

Target: 400 words
Written: 215 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Sex Rx, Lauren Streicher
Comics: Hunter Killer 4-7
Music: Jello's Revenge (Bootleg!), Dead Kennedys

end of training

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And I’m on my own.

Spreading my wings. Still learning, taking tentative steps, shaky in the knees, and all that.

But luckily, I have a headache and exhaustion to go with it.

Target: 300 words
Written: 146 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Sex Rx, Lauren Streicher
Comics: Sex Criminals 21-24
Music: Jar Of Flies, Alice In Chains

spent

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It’s 7:34AM and I feel like I’m already spent.

Granted, my day starts typically at 4:50AM, so I’ve been up almost three hours.

I’ve written a bit, did some yoga and some meditation, thought about the state of world, wondered why the hell so many of these insane right wingers continue to get away with shit that is clearly illegal and no one appears to be even considering charges, wondered if I’m capable of writing humanity changing works, but it won’t matter because climate change and divisive, authoritarian politics will kill us all before it can make an impact, wondered if aliens would find these pages years later and not be able to understand a damn word, showered, maybe thought about sex a little (because I do so roughly every three minutes) and then peed, ate breakfast, made coffee, fed the dogs, let the dogs out, gave the dogs their joint medication, fed the cats, unloaded/loaded the dishwasher, played Wordle and Worldle, a game of Go on a 9×9 board with a 8 stone handicap (because I need it, apparently), then sat down and went over my to-do list, what’s left of it.

And I’ve a whole workday ahead of me.

Shit.

Target: 300 words
Written: 227 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Sex Rx, Lauren Streicher
Comics: Sex Criminals 17-20
Music: Janis Joplin Essentials, Janis Joplin (if you don't dig Janis, what the fuck are you even doing with your life?)

in training

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Back into it. I guess I must be doing okay at work, since they’re offering me extra work most people don’t get (or want, perhaps).

It’s not the greatest job, but as I learn more about who does what in the government and our division, I’m beginning to see that there may be other options.

I mean, as long as this writing thing isn’t paying the bills, which it’s not.

I’ve made exactly zero dollars thus far.

Of course, I don’t expect to make anything off poetry and short stories. Maybe comics. Maybe the hip little ditties if I compile them into a larger volume.

A book of short stories or poetry might work, but I’m a long way from that, and let’s face it – it’s not going to land me on the moon.

That’s the novel prerogative, and even then, it’s dicey. You gotta be good to be great and great to make any cash, which is bullshit.

We massively undervalue art in this world, always have. The absolute cream can make a living; the rest of us are scraping by.

And I don’t believe in the starving artist. I do believe that too much wealth corrupts.

But making a living?

That shouldn’t be something we have to fight for.

Target: 300 words
Written: 176 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Face It, Debbie Harry
Comics: Sex Criminals 5-8
Music: A Jackknife To A Swan, Mighty Mighty Bosstones

sideways

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Sometimes, days just get away from you. Technical difficulties, focus problems, the urge to take a nap in the middle of the day for no apparent reason.

Such is life, but it is frustrating. The sooner I’m a full-time, self-sustaining writer and don’t have to work the extra eight hours a day, the better.

This work thing is really cutting into my shit.

Target: 300 words
Written: 1237 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way, Robert Maurer
Comics: Fight Club 3 2-5 
Music: You Only Live Once, The Strokes (The Strokes with Eddie Vedder doing Marvin Gaye?  Fuck me sideways, does it get better than that?)

christmas parties after the fact

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Last night, it was time for my yearly dose of post traumatic stress. My wife and daughter still work at the place that nearly put me under, and so, once a year, we trudge out to their Christmas party, always held after Christmas, because the owners are cheap.

Every year, it is the same; there’s a sense of tension, a fear of being pulled back in, a desire to get the fuck away. It’s so synchronous with the short story I’m working on (based on a Tragically Hip song called Get Back Again), about being unable to get past the past, and unable to let things go, that I couldn’t help but laugh (and consider weeping).

I can’t wait until they are retired or have new jobs, so I never have to think about that fucking place again.

I never want to get back anywhere near it.

Target: 200 words
Written: 300 words, short story: Get Back Again

Read: The Power Of Less, Leo Babauta
Comics: The Legend Of Luther Strode 3-6
Music: Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D, Nine Inch Nails (why must every remix album include one mix that is just complete garbage, but for some reason, goes on for 12-14 minutes?  Does the creator just start with a beat and sit staring at his setup, completely unable to decide what to do next, before going fuck it and turning in a quarter of an hour's worth of pure shit?)