Category: writing

crescendo

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It’s a fun word, and that’s where I’m at. Tomorrow, I’ll take on the epilogue, which, unfortunately, I know needs a metric shit ton of work.

That’s an official measurement, you know.

Look it up.

A metric shit ton.

It’s a lot.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1485 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Armada, Ernest Cline (I wanted to like this, because I liked his first one so much, but it really feels like it was just Ready Player One redux, with a storyline lifted straight out of an Eighties teen sci-fi movie and Ender's Game.  Such a shame, really, and clearly, written for sequel, even though it's unlikely it'll ever get it.  It wasn't that good, and doesn't deserve one.)
Comics: Invincible Universe: Battle Beast 8-9, Capes 6-7
Music: Hallowed Ground, Violent Femmes (is every album brilliant, or what?)

i think i’m happy with that

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Sometimes, I feel like I’m too repetitive.

In The Mungk, it was semi-intentional. The metaphor was for trauma causing hopelessness, paralysis, as the world fell apart around you, and you descended into mindless hell.

In The Conflagration of Boor and Aghast, it’s used for some dramatic effect; Walter’s interactions with the dog, for example, grew increasingly tense, until, well, I don’t want to say until the book is released. It would be a shame to spoil it, if anyone actually cared.

In this one though, it seems out of place, and I feel like I’ve done it a lot.

Like the story could go in a crazy direction, but it doesn’t. I doesn’t really need to, but it’s a paranormal horror novel; it should a little.

I don’t know.

Is it weak? Is it thin?

Fuck, it feels thin.

Perhaps I’m not the man I thought I was.

Perhaps in the next one, one must get truly, truly insane.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1873 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Armada, Ernest Cline
Comics: Capes 3-5, Invincible Universe: Battle Beast 7
Music: Hallelujah! I'm A Bum, Local H (I always wanted to be one of those, though the reality of it has ripped the romanticism away; I think it had more to do with the idea of being happy no matter the circumstance.  A rejection of material things, an embrace of the present, no matter its conditions.  In retrospect, a bit naive, if well intentioned.)

you cool with that?

Posted on by admin

Yeah, I’m cool with that, he thinks, as he finalizes the dying moments before the denouement (or the climax, the philosophical portion of the climax).

Yeah. I’m cool with that.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1183 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Armada, Ernest Cline
Comics: Invincible Universe: Battle Beast 5-6, Capes 1-2
Music: Halfway To Sanity, The Ramones (not me)

soooo tired

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So, so fucking tired.

How come the universe lets you have crazy dreams all night as a method of processing the sub/unconscious, but doesn’t let you have a goddamn night’s rest?

Huh, universe?

Am I sick of people or what?

Thanks, local mayoral and council candidates, for weeding yourselves out with your pro-AI data farm stance.

I was having trouble sifting through who’s what, and now I know.

There’s a few names off the list.

Fuck AI.

For the record, AI companies – none of you have any permission to use any of my work ever, for any reason, under any circumstances.

Or you can, but the cost is a billion dollars a word.

In other words, fuck you.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1832 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Armada, Ernest Cline
Comics: Invincible 141-144
Music: Half-Hour Of Power, Sum 41

how close am i?

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I’ve given myself until sometime in November to finish this book, but these middle scenes that I’m working on now?

They seem so far from complete, like the gasoline scene in The Conflagration of Boor and Aghast that I can’t seem to bear to rewrite, even though it desperately needs it and I know exactly what I want out of it.

It just seems like so much.

And so much is what I’m trying to avoid right now.

I would like to be done, but as it is said, because we have no other options…

The only way out is through.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1373 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Radical Compassion, Tara Brach
Comics: Invincible 129-132
Music: Hail To The Thief, Radiohead (so good)

trying to fix one of my biggest mistakes

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It’s a pivotal scene, and when I wrote it, I flubbed it. When I edited it the first three times, I didn’t fix the problems.

I shit the bed.

So, it’s go time. Let’s get this fucking thing right, or that’s it, burn the whole thing down.

Is this what it’s like to be a Republican, without any of the self-awareness that one even made a mistake in the first place?

Like you fuck up real bad, but instead of taking responsibility for that, you pretend like it was actually what you intended to do all along, and if you don’t like it, you’re some kind of beta cuck soyboy, and you just keep doubling down and claiming victimhood whenever anyone pushes back at you?

No, I guess it’s not like that at all.

Fucking victim identity politics, man.

Can’t stand it.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1495 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Anyone, Charles Soule
Comics: Invincible 120-122, Tech Jacket v2 10
Music: Habits, Tove Lo

wow, editing is hard

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And time-consuming. Not sure how I’m going to manage being up at the granddaughter’s this weekend. Up early and late, I guess, as usual.

Ugh.

Would that this didn’t require the theft of sleep.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1572 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Rule Of Capture, Christopher Brown (well done, sir)
Comics: Tech Jacket v2 1-3, Invincible 113
Music: Future Nostalgia, The Sheepdogs

derailed

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Geez, this editing thing is time-consuming. Granted, when it’s my full time job I’ll spend four or five times the amount of time doing it, but I won’t have a full time job fuckin’ up the works.

Or the work.

Whatever.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 2360 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Rule Of Capture, Christopher Brown
Comics: Invincible Universe 12, Invincible 110-112
Music: Further Down The Spiral, Nine Inch Nails (every day)

mister

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There’s a moment in the scene I’m writing, one of those searching misterrrr?, waiting on the name, and it is literally killing me (actual literal, I think) that the character would NEVER do what every dad joke bone in my body is screaming to do.

“Misterrrr…?”

“Fuck off.”

“Alright, Mister Fuckoff, what can I get you?”

Every goddamned time. I might have to rewrite that whole section so it doesn’t end up my greatest regret.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1495 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Stand, Stephen King
Comics: Invincible 103-104, Invincible Universe 4-5
Music: Fully Completely, The Tragically Hip (if it's not the greatest Canadian album ever, it's top five, for sure)