Visual Art

I've decided to take up painting. I'll just give you a moment to let that sink in.

Like many children growing up, I went through different phases with what interested me the most at any given moment. This led to me declaring what my career ambition would be multiple times. I remember wanting to be a pilot, paleontologist, jazz musician and even a journalist (actually, I did live that last one out for a few years before coming to my senses).

But the very first thing I wanted to be was an artist. I guess that's not too shocking considering I've lived an artistic life and only wish to continue it, hopefully making a living at it along the way. Anyone who even briefly knew me knows that I'm an artsy person. So yeah, not too shocking.

However, since about the age of nine, I've realized that I have close to zero ability when it comes to visual art. I can't draw. For one thing, I don't have the patience. Even when I make comic strips out of stick figures I find myself lamenting that it's taking too damn LONG and I just want it over with. But when I was three, four, five - I wanted to be a painter. I drew hundreds upon hundreds of pictures with my crayons, about 90% of them featuring various nature scenes, from the Triassic period to present day. Beside dinosaurs, I especially enjoyed drawing birds, trees and mountains. Remember that guy who made oil paintings in that black void? He was my hero. I watched him whenever I could and desperately attempted to imitate his method using crayola and my meager skills.

By the time I was about ten, I finally realized that the things I drew didn't look the way I wanted them to. I also had to admit that freehand, I couldn't draw a decent circle or straight line to save my life. It was just around that time that I was discovering a real talent (at least, I'd like to think of it as real) for writing. I was good at rhythm and metre and I was good at vocabulary and storytelling. I had (and have) a great memory for detail and I was adept at putting it into written words.

When I'd reached my teens, I was even able to laugh at myself when it came to my complete lack of ability at drawing and all things related. This was completely my own doing and of my own volition; I can't recall any point in my life when anyone criticized or made fun of my attempts at art. I'd just decided that it was time for me to concentrate on my strengths and let that old love go. I've never looked back.

Until now.

I don't have any plans to become a great artist. Not even a passable one. I've just decided that I've never really had much experience with any sort of paint beyond the most basic going back to art class in junior high and I guess probably finger paints years before that. My plan is simply to paint and see if i enjoy it. I have a lot of stress and anxiety...issues and I'm going to try to use painting as a means to combat it. Trust me, it's not my first line of defence. Just a diversion that I hope won't be a complete disaster.

So I'm going to post my first ever painting on this blog whenever it's finished. I promise I'll be honest. I won't show you my fourth or fifth attempt and try to pass it off as my first. Whatever winds up on the canvas will wind up on this page. God help us all.

Untitled Dark Staircase Sequel

Even though it's ripping my guts out to continue with this character, I really think I have something with The Dark Staircase. And since it's short even for a novella (about thirteen thousand words) I figure it's going to need a companion story to get publishers to look at it. Of course this doesn't have to be a sequel but I've realized that I can change the character's name to whatever I want, it'd still be Annie I would be writing about.

So here's the beginning:

          Annie closed her eyes.

Riveting, huh? I'll keep you posted.

The Dark Staircase - Complete

Yes, I finished something. Technically, the story has been done for a long time. But it wasn't done. Now it is. I have no idea what to do with it. I started writing it years ago for very personal reasons. Those reasons don't mean much anymore and I guess that's why it took me so damn long to finish a story that's only thirteen thousand words. If you search this blog you can find an early excerpt.

I think it's good though. I think it's publishable. I really think it's that good. I suppose it requires still more editing and revising but not much. The main problem I'm facing now is I don't know who to show it to. I'd like a few outside opinions before I do anything official with it but uncopyrighted works are a tricky business (not that I believe anyone I'd show the story to would steal it from me or anything) and also I guess I just feel bad that the person I actually wrote it for in the first place isn't going to be reading it.

But it's done. I'll figure something out and hopefully then I will give the story to the world. You know, like a writer.

Update the update - is this an update?

What the fuck? It's May? It's LATE May? What have I been doing? Ignoring this blog, that's for sure. Well, that ends now. Even if it means posting lame crap like this, I vow there will be regular updates throughout the summer.

The novel is back on track (only took two and a half years), the play is...going, and the short story is finished and a new one is halfway through. Back in November I tried NaNoRiMo (well, I'll always have 2003 and 2006) and failed again for the third straight year. I thought maybe I could resurrect the story I came up with but several attempts have fallen short. I think I'll just have to let that one go. I don't know why I tried hard sci-fi anyway.

I recently read the first two Twilight "novels"; took me about three hours. What's amazing is that this series seems to actually get worse as it goes along. Maybe I'll post some insights on it although I know that I am quite far behind the rest of the world in this respect. What jokes can I make that haven't already been said? But hell, I was spending my time reading books and comics that were actually GOOD. Hey, at least the youtube channel is working out well. The one year anniversary is tomorrow. I have nothing planned. Maybe I should think of something.

So this is a pretty good post even though it's not creative or interesting, right? I'll get to that next time. Great, now the phone's ringing. I swear, god does not want this blog to thrive. How many more times do I have to renounce him? I'll get published on my own! I don't need your fucking charity! You'll get no prayers from me! Alright, that was fun. Stay tuned.

V World Update

And I'll be you thought this novel was dead. Well, so I did I quite honestly. For a long time parts of it had been inaccessible to me and I still find working on it emotionally draining. But in the last few weeks I've regained it and have been reading through and editing the chapters.
The main problem now besides overcoming very unprofessional personal hangups is connecting the other stuff I've written in the meantime.

For over two years I've had lots of ideas for this story and originally projected it as resulting in something like a 650 000 word story. That's...a lot. Now I think it could be decidedly shorter. I don't really know if that's a good thing or not, we shall see. In any case, it won't really become clear for some time. The nearly 40 000 words I have written I can say I am mostly pleased with and the main challenge now besides actually moving the story forward is deciding exactly how much is needed to fill in the gaps I've left in connectivity. This is the first major work in my entire life that I've actually written out of sequence and so far I'm finding the experience quite difficult. There really is something to be said about the wisdom in plotting. Yes, I have plotted this book to a certain extent - beyond any extent to which I've ever plotted anything else - and yet, it's still not really straightforward plotting. It's more like holding ideas in my mind and then writing them down without any clear idea of how to make them all fit together.

If you've forgotten what V World is supposed to be about it's basically my attempt to do something like King's The Stand (go on and laugh; I'll wait) only with vampires being the major plot element and a uniting force for many different characters who start out having nothing to do with each other. Eventually I hope to change the landscape from normal twenty-first century life in North America to something pseudo post-apocalyptic only not quite that far. You know - a lawless world full of anarchy, dead people and vampires (and a few other super natural elements thrown in for good measure). I know what you're thinking, assuming you have in fact, stopped laughing - "a tad ambitious, no? Particularly for you, Mr. Unpublished Author." To which I respond: Absolutely. At this point in my life, ambition can only be a good thing, even if maybe I am somewhat out of my league.

I've got a head full of madness, a pretty decent laptop and time on my hands - the perfect tools for such an endeavour, I would think. Sure, talent and a better work ethic might help too but perhaps these things can develop over time. I think what held me back previously in those areas was a problem in attitude - I figured time would be required to hone those abilities but I didn't seem to grasp that didn't mean empty time where I just waited around for things to happen for me. While intrinsically I believe I always knew what it would take to get myself going I think I probably shelved such rationale while instead clinging to ridiculous hopes of perhaps one day simply waking up and realizing I now possessed the talent level and work ethic to proceed. I hadn't forgotten about hard work and sacrifice; I'd just decided to trick myself into thinking there were shortcuts past them.

Now I stand on the precipice of something truly significant. Something that will help me evolve as a writer. Whether that means success as in finishing the novel and actually having it published and finally embarking on a career as professional writer or just finishing the novel and understanding finally how it all works now in addition to maybe also understanding myself a little better too, I don't know. (Feel free to congratulate me on that ridiculous run-on sentence - I've already given myself a little pat on the back for it) But now I do know that, to paraphrase Hamlet, "The novel's the thing". Lately I've repeated this mantra while trying to remind myself that there's a lot more going on besides that and that any breakthrough with V World still only really represents one step on my road. Then I bury that because I am anything but a big picture guy, put my head down and write.

Special thanks are in order to three certain people who all in the past few months, completely separately and each in their own way, encouraged me to continue on with this book. I doubt any of you knew at the time how much your words resonated with me and shook me out of the state of doubt and defeat I'd attached to V World. So I'm telling you now: Thankyou.

V World - I should really think about a new title, shouldn't I?

problem fixed

The excerpt posting problem has been corrected. Hossanahs, hossanahs!

V World update

Not so much an update as a promise that a small excerpt is going to go up here really soon. Honest.

inspiration

Ideas have been coming fast and furious over the past few days and I have to make sure not to just stick them all in V World. I've taken a brief hiatus on the novel while I sort out these new ideas. One is some sort of fantasy novel or novella in the spirit of 1984 and Brazil among others, that's going to focus a lot on locales that are a lot like off-shore oil rigs. Another is a noir-style graphic novel based loosely on a classic story (not saying what that story is). The rest are disjointed sci-fi type elements that very well may find their way into V World.
Some musings are coming up soon for this page. Expect them to be insightful, poetic, self-righteous and weird. Stay tuned.

i forgot

I forgot Mr. Michael Chrichton - a writer whose pacing i hope to emulate but I will never match his dedication when it comes to doing research for a novel.

V World enters chapter eight...