Category: writing

polarization

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I think the whole thing I’m trying to do with this Bad Neighbours thing is to really explore how absurd the political dichotomy is, and how destructive.

I’m not exploring a third option, and the crazier the right gets, there becomes an increasing need to draw that hard line and say, no.

No more.

No further.

Enough.

And then push back the other way until sanity is restored. The problem is, the rhetoric on that side, so willingly and completely divorced from any kind of reality or genuity, is almost impossible to engage on a conversational level. You can’t argue the points, because they don’t care to listen, and won’t respond in good faith.

There is no argument that will stop this anymore. We need to convince ourselves to take action, whatever action we can, procedural, legal, etc., in order to slow this monster down enough to make it to elections, which at this point, is a question of whether they’ll even happen or whether these fascists will try to find an excuse to suspend them or rig them, because they know in any even remotely just system, they’ll get blown from the water, and then, they’re all fucked.

Basically, every obstruction that can be made, every inch fought for; give up nothing without extreme cost. Make them feel it. Wear them down; they’ve shown a great deal of incompetency.

They will make exploitable mistakes.

Use the bureaucracy against them, especially since you can no longer trust the Supreme Court, and every block at a lower level just gets pushed up to the shadow docket. Plus, even when the court rules against them, they just ignore it and do it anyway.

So, block, obstruct, don’t make it easy. Make them work for every inch, make every yard a Herculean effort.

It’s the only way.

Push back, push back, push back.

And when it’s all said and done, and the extremists have fallen by the wayside, then maybe we can get back to ending the dichotomy.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1313 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Sylvie And Bruno Concluded, Lewis Carroll (god, this is shit)
Comics: Lara Croft And The Frozen Omen 4-5, Tomb Raider v3 1-2
Music: Whatever Happened To P.J. Soles?, Local H (quite possible the most underrated one hit wonder ever)

sunshine and puppies

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And beer. The local Barks ‘n’ Brew, always for a good cause, and a good time.

Beats yardwork, which is all I did this morning, after editing. I could use the break.

Every day seems more than a marathon, it’s a car chase, a manic Daniel Radcliffe running around with guns taped to his hands, a sprint with obstacles that goes the half-circuit.

I’m way too out of shape for it.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1347 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: SNAFU, Ed Helms
Comics: Tomb Raider v2 2-5
Music: West Coast Vs. Wessex, NOFX/Frank Turner (oh my god, Turner turning Fat Mike into a lyricist with his beautiful arrangements?  I love me some NOFX, but whoever would have thought?  Too bad the NOFX covers of his songs were... less good.  The second half of this album is brilliant.)

three down

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That’s it. The villain has been shanked, the prison’s a riot, the mayor’s fled the country.

All of this will make sense.

None of it will make sense, because it is about nonsense.

Our current nonsense.

LET THEM EAT LAW.

(Sorry, don’t know why I went all Dredd there for a minute – speaking of which, who saw the Karl Urban version? Fuckin’ terrific! I love Lena Headey! Something tells me she’s one of these people who plays an incredible villain, but is an absolute sweetheart in real life. Or so I hope. I honestly hope everyone is sweet in real life.)

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1408 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Time Machine, H.G. Wells (better than I remember, but I'm still icked by the classism)
Comics: Tomb Raider 43-45, Tomb Raider: Arabian Nights 1
Music: Welcome To The Drama Club, Everclear (underrated band, for sure)

a few last notes

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And then tomorrow, I’m done with the third draft, until the fourth draft.

And the fifth, sixth, seventh… The Mungk had thirteen total.

Hopefully, this ain’t that.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 260 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Time Machine, H.G. Wells
Comics: Tomb Raider 39-42
Music: Welcome To Paradise, Green Day

i mean, like, it’s getting there

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I’ve got one scene left to revise in my third draft, and despite all my great notes with their wonderful additions and new directions and ideas and such, I’m not sure they all fit, or could fit, without monster rewrites and possible storyline changes, at this point.

Still, it’s a good start, and I will endeavour in the new round to go through all those notes and take whatever will really work, will add to the story and make it better than it is, and put it in.

That’s going to be a major task, I’m sure, and I’m starting to worry my end of year deadline isn’t going to be one I can reach.

I finished The Mungk on time last year; it was a novella.

This is much more ambitious and has taken up considerably more time and effort.

I imagine the next will be that again.

A book a year; maybe I’ll have all my work done before I’m eighty. Or even ninety. Ninety-one, perhaps.

I’ll retire on my ninety-first birthday. How’s that?

And then I’ll fucking die.

If I make it there first.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 2869 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Captain Paul, Alexandre Dumas
Comics: Tomb Raider: Sphere Of Influence 1, Tomb Raider: Takeover 1, Tomb Raider 37-38
Music: Welcome To New York, The Rolling Stones

rants that went the wrong way

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But were still somehow kind of right? Like, it’s the stuff you don’t want to say out loud, because it’s the kind of thing that a good and just society would never say or do, but ultimately, knows sometimes needs to be done?

I mean, I’m not saying anything in particular. In this case, it’s a part of Bad Neighbours, a peak point where things have gone off the rails and the main character has made a certain decision that ultimately, is the wrong decision, but also, kind of the right decision, in the way that we’d all like to ignore Nazis and let them have their little hate parades and such as long as they’re just out there playing pretend and don’t have any actual power and aren’t physically hurting other people.

But the second they do that? Well, I mean, I know how Jack Kirby would have seen it: see a Nazi, punch a Nazi, and certainly, the second there’s violence, it’s up to us to oppose it. I truly believe in the Tao concept of entering a fight like a funeral, with the same solemnity, and the intent to simply end it as quickly and peacefully as possible.

But then, what do I know? I’m a lifelong pacifist who has never actually been in a fight ever, beyond some wrestling with my older brother as kiss. I don’t think I’ve ever been punched in the face.

Then again, maybe that’s because I’m not a Nazi.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1826 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Captain Paul, Alexandre Dumas
Comics: Tomb Raider 33-36
Music: Welcome To My Dream, MC 900 feat. Jesus

coming close

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I’m coming up on the end of the third draft. I’ll probably be another week or two, but then, hopefully, all the major components are there and it’s just tweaking and making sure all the little things, like what name I used for some mentioned place or character in scene two matches my return comment in scene thirty-one.

They kind of don’t.

I’m catching it as I go.

And all of a sudden, I’m panicking. Did I wing this shit? Is it poorly planned, poorly executed?

Damn it. I suck.

I’m sure all writers feel this way at some point, but also, at some point, it’s always fucking true.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1129 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Solar Lottery, Philip K. Dick (I like that women's fashion is apparently just walking around topless - bit pervy, kinda sexist, Dick, old boy)
Comics: Tomb Raider 26-27, Tomb Raider Journeys 9-10
Music: Weighting, Rollins Band

maybe found it

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I think I just found the mistake I made in not turning my bad guy into the ULTIMATE bad guy (meaning in this book, not in general – hard to beat such sons of bitches as Kevin Spacey in Se7en or Lady deWinter, not to mention Davey Trauma in Tokyo Ghost or Donald Trump in real life).

But I’ve got the secondary bad guy (who had eclipsed my main at points) building up the primary now, and if I do it right, it will be grand.

I hope.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 306 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: World Of Ptavvs, Larry Niven
Comics: Tomb Raider 12-14, 0
Music: Weezer (Blue Album), Weezer

that was horrifying

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Well, I’ve written what I assume is the grossest thing I’ve ever written (I won’t say worst – you’d have to read Western Cradle, which has to be drawn, inked, coloured, lettered and edited first, plus the Mungk, which involves child abandonment, suicide and children dying of preventable diseases), but yeah.

Fucking gross.

Real gross.

And I’m talking about the capitalist, not just the feces he ignores to try for the sale.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 2476 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Two Gentlemen Of Verona, William Shakespeare
Comics: Tomb Raider 10-11, Tomb Raider Journeys 1, Tomb Raider/The Darkness 1
Music: Weezer (Black Album), Weezer