An Immigrant In The Country Of Love

This essay started when I tried to express my gratitude to my dad for a burger, and my friend Deborah for her generosity -- two cocktails, a beer, and another burger was the specific damage. When putting the post together in my head, I realized that I'd done a print expressing the theme for the last issue of Swill. I almost never incorporate humans in my art -- but when I did this piece, I used a photo of Deborah. Odd loops, odd loops.

Can you picture your house? Not the house you live in, not the house you grew up in. Your internal house. The place your soul lives.

The image of my house comes instantly to mind when I call on it. The sky is cool gray, the ground is warm gray, the house is neutral gray. No rain will ever fall from the roiling clouds that stream across the sky; they're heavy with the debris of distant explosions. The ground is blasted ash, worn into coral-like shapes by the wind; boots sink inches into it. You cannot walk without destroying the only beauty in the landscape.

My house is a concrete cube. Curved and pointed, black horns and thorns sprout in rough profusion along its edges. On each side, high and in the middle, there is a small window. There are no doors.

If you see this house, your death has been contemplated. Probably not considered with intent, but if you see this house? Your body is an object. Objects are broken sooner or later. This is war, and no-one survives.

The top of the cube is open to the weather and undefended. I never thought anything that flew would want to hurt me.

I have decided to move; you have taken me to a different place, and while I understand why I made my house the way I did, it no longer acts in service to my life. I still spend much of my time there, but I prefer to live with you. One day I will walk away and I will not feel as if I'm leaving home. On that day, I will become a citizen of the country of love.

I've been mistaken for a military man by people who have served. I believe this stems from my basic approach to life -- it can erupt in savagery at any moment, so be ready to fight all the time. I have consciously struggled my whole life to be open and available emotionally to the people around me, so it's been a surprise to find that there are parts of me I've guarded so fiercely that they've never been touched before.

Illness and poverty have stripped away certain illusions I have entertained about myself, and my place in the world. I have always valued myself based on utility. What am I good for? How can I contribute? What can I do to help?

And despite the kindness that has been shown to me over the years, I've seen the world as a fundamentally hostile place to a much greater degree than most people do. To the point where it has undermined my ability to function in the world. I know what it is like to be hated, and I know what it is like to be despised and I know what it is like to be held in contempt and I know what it is like to be feared.

Much of love is new to me.

I'm not talking about romantic love. I'm talking about the binding regard and affection that people have for one another. Now that I'm in a place in my life where I am of virtually no practical use whatsoever, I have been brought face-to-face with what I currently regard as the root good in life.

Connection. Kindness. Mutual regard. Affection.

It is easy enough to give lip service to these things. When you see them clearly, they are frighteningly powerful. These days I find myself periodically overwhelmed by the sensation of being cared for. The idea that I'm a passing concern in the minds of people I will never meet. The idea that I'm a source of pleasure and solace in the lives of those close to me. I don't sob, but tears flow painlessly from my eyes, and all I can do is endure the feeling that I am cared for, thought of, held in regard, valued. It is joy experienced with the same overwhelming intensity as rage.

The idea that we live in a hierarchy angers and frightens me -- but that anger and fear are being ameliorated by the notion that kindness is also an organizational principle, and it's one that has been brought to bear on me.

Here's what brought this home to me. What dropped right on the roof, where there are no defenses.

I mostly gave up solitary drinking a while ago. I stopped buying comic books more than a year ago, ending a lifelong habit in order to finance my writing education. The very last bit of my money ran out a while back, and I am currently living on kindness and the seeming likelihood that I may receive a disability pension.

This means that there are no little indulgences readily available to me. The tiny treats that I used to coax myself an inch at a time through life are, at least for the moment, over, and have been for some time. If something goes wrong, I don't have the option of promising myself a reward. If things go right, I don't have the option of celebration. There is nothing special at my command.

I missed this dreadfully at first. Dearth sucks.

But here's where things got squirrely on me.

I do get a drink and a smoke. I do get a book and some music. From time to time I get to eat at nice places. I've even traveled a little.

I get the small pleasures in my life from the people around me, and they are given to me because I am valued. Because time spent with me is a small pleasure in itself, a nurturing indulgence, and people like it. What initially seemed like incredible generosity on the parts of my friends has revealed itself as compassionate self-interest.

If I read a new book or look at new art or listen to new music, it is because the missus got it for me at a yard sale. So when I take in these aesthetic experiences, they are flavored by the knowledge that this is something the missus desired for me. She like it when I get things I like. It makes her happy when I enjoy them.

When I have a drink, it is because someone I respect and admire wants to have the experience of drinking with me.

If I take a trip, it is because my company is desired.

When I fell ill, I was cared for, and the manifest kindness of the people around me was overwhelming. And now, as my life continues, that kindness has failed to abate. I've always understood that I'm not supposed to kill myself because it would make other people miserable. I'm just starting to understand that to my true friends, my delight in life is a tangible and valued resource.

This is radically changing my experience of life. I'm gaining a much more feminine perspective -- I value myself based on who loves me as well as what I can do. As a result, I feel more valued both internally and externally. And the process of connecting with the world is increasing in intensity as it builds -- I'm a long way from equilibrium here.

What I thought was true was wrong. I am not actively hated. The world does not seek my destruction with intent. Most intent that is held toward me is positive. I thought I had a house but it wasn't a house. It was a bunker. You know who lives in bunkers during peacetime? Prisoners. Now I don't have a house, but I'm at home in the world. Uncertain but at ease. I don't know where I am, but I don't feel lost.

When I decided to take my art into the world, I approached it as though entering battle. My metaphor was entirely incorrect, and much of the emotional destabilization of the last years has been due to this.

Now I see my art differently. I see myself differently. And I see my place in the world differently.

I am no longer at war. I have been taken into the country of love, and war has no place there. I have to face the challenge of allowing people to be kind to me. Altruism is a basic desire, and to allow others to fulfill it is a kindness in itself, and I have to struggle for that kindness.

To ask for what I need -- let alone what I want -- is one of the greatest difficulties in my life. To do so when I am useless for nearly all practical purposes runs contrary to my rules for myself -- while I certainly wouldn't apply this to others, useless people should die. I feel as if I have been presented with a coward's life.

But if I'm honest with myself, I know that the feeling of having done something good for someone is terrific. And to a certain degree my resistance to having my needs and desires met is a form of hostility. A preemptive rejection.

I am learning to be open about what I want without expectation of either fulfillment or disappointment, how to be grateful without resentment, and most of all to appreciate that there is a mutualism in generosity, and that sincere gratitude and appreciation are worth the trouble just so I can feel as if I'm taking my part properly.

First I felt like a shovel. Then I felt like a broken shovel.

Now? I feel like a treat. I'm a stinky cheese, a single-malt scotch, a neat nugget of the kind bud, a hit of DMT. You wouldn't want to live on a diet of me, but for some folks? If they don't get a little now and then, they feel deprived. Being a luxury item is disturbingly pleasant.

I do not believe I will always be poor. I know how people who know react to my work. I think I will go someplace.

But I am no longer conducting a war. I am no longer staking outposts with my work, and I am growing less interested in chastisement and more interested in the cultivation and encouragement of life's joys and beauties. I can do Swift and Kafka fine; I can do the Thompsons Jim and Hunter. I can Giger your ass nine ways from Sunday, Bacon you til the cows come home. That end of the spectrum seems juvenile in isolation. I want to be able to do Bach and Renoir as well. I am trying to pry my arms open so I can embrace the world.

Hell is easy for me. And I never take the easy way.

I am not pursuing a career in the arts. I am using my talent and abilities to enter into new places so that I can find more friends. Thusly do I accommodate the trauma of discovering that the art world is a social world. At some point, some of my friends will make money with some of my projects. (This sounds dippy. It's solidly practical. Just you watch.)

This is the hidden gift of the outsider -- I belong nowhere, but my friends are everywhere. I have drank with winos and with millionaires, and I am realizing that my whole attitude toward the human species is racist, and that I need to get over it. There is an element in my regard for mankind that is genuinely hateful. I need to cut that shit out. People are people, and I like people.

I do not have a house in the country of love. But I have been made so welcome that I do not feel the need yet. I'm still a warrior, but I like having parts of me that aren't edge or armor. I allow myself that luxury both because of you and for your sake.

As I've said before, I don't love myself, but I don't need to love myself. I have a team that takes care of that little problem, and they do a much better job than I ever could.

If I had a great big blog, I couldn't say this. But this is a small room, we pretty much all know each other, and any strangers that wander in are either welcome or entertainment.

So.

Thanks, y'all. I appreciate it.

Riding The Snake

I was looking for an appropriately serpentine image in the file I keep of art jpgs for the blog when I ran across this little wonder. What the fuck do you suppose was going through my head when I put this one together?

The self is the greatest mystery, my friends. The self is the greatest mystery.

For the record, I'm not a Marxist or even a communist. I'm a socialist, sure, but Marxism's full of Easter Bunny crap like the withering away of the state, and the Marxist obsession with the taxonomy of class makes me think of string theory -- it could well but true, but so what? (We will ignore my willful Maoist streak for the moment, as it is distasteful.)

(And now that I've had a moment or two to consider, I remember the cereal as being shockingly awful -- the box offered legitimate gastronomic competition. Perhaps my statement was that eating it was a radical act of self-criticism? And would it have been funnier with Germain Jackson instead of Tito? Political humor is so difficult.)

Normally, at this time of year I am in a state that would easily enable the missus to have me committed, should she so desire. We’re talking case-study stuff, no fooling. This year? Only two mood swings, neither lasting more than a few hours, both occurring under circumstances when both myself and the missus were in emotionally needy states for specific, defined reasons.

What’s the difference?

Applied self-knowledge.

As initially troubling as the diagnoses I received were – for those unfamiliar with the story, PTSD, OCD, mixed-state bipolar (next time you meet a shrink tell ‘em you’ve got that one and watch the expression on their face – it’s fun if you have a cruel streak), fetal alcohol syndrome, and the suggestion that there might be some massive brain trauma that could explain everything – they’ve allowed me a basis for understanding my behaviors and misbehaviors in a constructive fashion.

As an example, my hypomania – a state of excitation similar to but milder than mania – is a byproduct of my PTSD. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder hypersensitizes one to stress reactions. In effect, it gives you what I refer to in private conversation as a ‘crank gland,’ mimicking the effects of everything from coffee to raw meth. (Mimicking is the wrong word – it’s the exochemicals who are the big fakers.) While I’ve experimented with stimulants, they are not my drug at all. Not even coffee or chocolate. I’m much too sensitive to them. Imagine if minor upsets in temper were accompanied by a stiff line of crank, a nasty rush of volts up the spine and out to the fists – that’s a defining element in my experience of life. From time to time I get complimented on my patience and detachment – they grow out of this. I can’t need to kill twenty-four hours a fucking day, so I simply cannot give a shit about minor inconveniences. If I did? Locked up.

My hypomania is strongly seasonal. I experience it constantly during the spring and fall. I’ve always been puzzled by the fact that my SAD does not track closely to the actual seasons. This year, I realized that it tracks to the school year. The beginning and end of the school year were particularly traumatic times for me, and I suspect that my developing body simply got into the habit of going into overdrive during times when I’d have to put up with additional amounts of abuse.

But let me tell you a little something about hypomania. When you feel good? It feels really, really good. It delivers what cocaine promises. You actually do accomplish, and you do so at the peak of your abilities. Hypomania is how you find the peak of your abilities. Me, I mean, not you.

This is the secret of stress reactions. When you feel both stress and a sense of control, your body makes one of the best chemical cocktails available. Top-notch. Only love is better, and not always then. Stress and no control? One of the worst, again with love as the only serious competitor.

So this year, I’ve been treating my seasonal mood disorder as a drug trip. I don’t want to waste it. And as a result, I’ve only gotten bummed out when the missus harshed my buzz.

No fooling.

Set and setting, as that modified dip Leary wisely stated. (It is occasionally unpleasant to have culture heroes that are a fucking pack of self-important idiots, said the self-made man of his models.) I went into this knowing what I was getting into.

I have told myself and those around me that I am in a temporarily altered state, and that there will be loud talking, bragging, vainglorious claims for the future, a rapid-fire stream of compulsive witticisms, and a mercurial temperament. Interestingly, many people seem to take a particular pleasure in my company when I’m in my incandescent mode – old friends have been reappearing, people who know me are expressing strong approval of my current state, and strangers seem to find me attractive.

I put myself into a position to take advantage of my energy. I’ve been writing and arting and musicing like a ring-tailed son-of-a-bitch, starting when I get up and ending when I see that it’s much too late. It’s been a period of peak performance. I’m doing the best work of my life currently. Feels good.

If I’m a bit snappish? If I have more insomnia than usual? If I can’t shut up about my enthusiasm of the moment? So fucking what.

One of the central negative aspects of my life has been completely reversed. Instead of this being the second-worst time of the year, it is the best. I’m shining and people like it. From now on, I’m timing my major projects to take advantage of the spring and fall.

Now all I have to do is figure out a use for the end-of-winter pit of despair. You know, that thing I get about halfway through January that lasts into April? Dysphoria, anhedonia, lethargy? “Gosh, if I had any moxie whatsoever I’d gouge my eyes out with a pair of needle-nosed pliers?” “Gee, I hope I don’t apathetically let myself die of thirst. The missus would be entirely justified in getting pissed off at me for that.” Yeah, that one.

There has to be something useful I can get out of it.

Respect

Why isn't the novel done?

Right now, if I had two straight days of solid, uninterrupted work, I'd be done with the draft. Three days? Ready to send out to readers.

While I have been working every day -- more than three thousand words yesterday -- that statement has been true for a solid week now. If I had gotten two consecutive days of real work in the last week, I'd have finished the novel.

Why isn't the novel done?

I made plans. I declared limits. I asked for assistance.

Why isn't the novel done?

Well, it's not like I haven't been doing other things. For instance...

Shit.

When I broke it down for myself, the first layer of explanation involved other people. My momentum was broken by requests for various forms of assistance and companionship and so on and so forth.

So? What makes my work their responsibility? Most of the time, I never even hinted that people were eating time I could ill afford. And I wanted to do everything I did. And even when people were being unreasonable, I still had the option of yelling, "Leave me the fuck alone, I'm trying to fucking work here!"

The reason this is an issue all of a sudden is that I'm having a new kind of creative experience. It is now possible for me to hold the novel in my head. I understand the story, I know the page-by-page flow, the breakdown of scenes, everything down to subtle thematic issues and obscure references to science, pop and high culture, history, etc. I do this with short stories, but this is the first time I've been able to do it with a long-form work.

This allows me to do the fine manipulation that I haven't been able to do before. I can understand how specific word choices, specific pieces of information, can affect the entire work. It's a holographic understanding, and it is kind of an incredible piece of thinking. You'd be proud of me.

The thing is? It is intensely demanding of my concentration. It takes me an hour or two of fucking around on the internet and poking at the manuscript before I can erect the whole thing in my head.

Once it's up, I can work like a son of a bitch. But any confusion, any need to think about other stuff? It collapses catastrophically, and the experience of massively disorganized thought is intensely uncomfortable. Honestly, the temptation to physically hurt myself in order to restabilize... huh. I was going to say I've avoided giving in to it, but my cuticles tell a different story. (Hey, cutters! Cuticle mutilation is our version of nicotine gum.)

Blaming others is pointless. I tend not to treat my work time with respect. If someone wants me for something, they can get me. It's assumed that as the layabout, I'm the one who needs to make way.

I make that assumption as well.

This is okay when it doesn't interfere with the work. If I am working in a way that lets me pick up and put down the work at will, that's fine. But right now?

I need a higher level of respect from myself and the people around me.

I'm getting this done, and it will finish off at its own pace. But it will be done faster and be a stronger work if I am allowed a period of relative isolation in which to work.

So. Right now, the missus has her father coming to visit. It would be a war-between-the-sexes crime if I were to insist on that right now. I shan't. I'll enjoy him while he's here, shore up the missus as she's pummeled by the brutal tides of family, and then?

Well. I need to devote a little thought to it, but I will arrange my life to temporarily accommodate a period of functional insanity from me. I will need to spend a chunk of my day in isolation, and I won't be able to read or watch any stories. Words other than the novel are active enemies at this point.

I've started hearing back from the writer's groups, and the word is good. What I've got so far is doing what I want it to do, finally. Interestingly, after I resentfully lopped out most of the drug-themed sub-plots, all of a sudden a number of different readers started spontaneously using the word 'psychedelic.' About damned time -- this is adventure fantasy for people who read Hunter S. Thompson for the adventure and Carlos Castenada for the fantasy. This is me claiming Star Wars/Lord Of The Rings territory for the stoners who form their core audience anyway.

So why isn't it done yet?

The Liebster Award

I have been sitting on this for a bit, as much out of bashfulness as anything else. I'm not sure how important this award is in the greater scheme of things -- I'm guessing more than the Nebula or the Nobel peace prize, less than a Golden Globe or whoever gets the NASCAR crown or belt or whatever they give those guys. Is it a helmet? That would make sense.

But this came to me from Neil Vogler, of A Writer, He Muttered, along with the kind of encomium I'd order from a catalog if given a choice. Check it out. I'll be posting on this later, but he's given me cause to contemplate my developing public persona. (Holy smokes, there actually is one. How the hell did that happen?)

I've been reading Neil's blog since he posted a comment here some time ago. Thoughtful work by an introspective young writer/musician, well worth your time.

So. As one of the conditions of receiving this award, I need to pass it on to five recipients with less than two hundred followers. I'm using Neil's protocol; if I have a hard time figuring out how many followers someone has? They're in.

I've recently done a post in which I covered my usual suspects. Here are some people I am not always going on about.

Glendon Mellow's blog, The Flying Trilobite, concerns science, art, and the areas of their intersection, as well as Glendon's developing career. As I've mentioned before many times, Glendon and I have been engaging in a glacially-paced long-distance conversation about art for some years now, and he's turned my views upside-down more than once. And right now he's got a post up about the development of a rather nice painting -- I'd go take a look if I were you.

In the spirit in which the Leibster award was given me, I'd like to send you to Letters From Valentina Hepburn. Valentina commented on one of my posts the other day, and I tracked her back to her blog, where I proceeded to spent the next two or three hours, enchanted.

I suppose I need to provide a bit of context here. A while ago, the missus picked up a Billy Joel collection at a yard sale. Due to my keen ability to move away from the radio, I've never heard a Billy Joel song all the way through. I thought it would be a giggle to listen to it. I don't mind simplistic pop, I have an occasional taste for musical garbage...

Big mistake. Big, big mistake. It damaged my brain. And I'd like to single out the song Pressure. In any truly civilized nation, the hook for Pressure would place Mr. Joel outside the protection of law.

I had that hook jammed in my brain for days when I started reading Letters From Valentina, and it immediately evaporated, to be replaced by the infinitely-preferable Dave Edmunds version of Girl Talk. Valentina's blog is very feminine in a very particular way, and honestly? To me it reads like a fairy tale. A place of wonders and perils beyond my (sullen, brutal, unwashed) imagining. A world so distinctly removed from my own that I can't bring myself to believe it exists.

But I really hope it does.

Let's head to the other end of the spectrum, shall we? I suspect that Nick Mamatas may have too many followers to qualify, but I believe I've already weaseled my way out of that one. Nick's blog is as political as well as writerly. He has a tendency to point upward, and you look, and by golly, there's the sole of a boot coming right at you. Over and over again. He won't participate in this, of course. It's not his kind of thing, and if you were to put that banner on that site? The internet would evaporate.

E.F. Kelley's Port Terra is an insider view of media-based pop culture that places the current science fiction tradition squarely inside the larger world of the media. Frankly, he's one of the reasons I'm less dismissive of movie and television-related material than I used to be. The thought he displays in his discussions of Star Trek and comic book babes makes them interesting to me in the same way that Glendon helped make fine art more accessible to me. (If I don't expand in both directions, I might warp.)

Finally, I suppose there's no excuse for this. But he is a pal. And he's a working father developing a writing career and editing/publishing a literary magazine, so if we can lure him into posting more frequently, we might be able to deprive him of sleep entirely. What jolly fun!

And anyway, don't you want to read about Jesus, The Egg-Laying Bunny?

Of course you do. Ladies and gents, Rob Pierce, Two Verbs!

What Happened At Homework Club

So, for the record? Not gonna make it on my novel writing challenge. I am closing in on it, will be done in a few days, but I found that I had a choice between working well and working quickly, and I chose the former. Still, the experiment was a rousing success. I am getting better at getting work out of myself. And this finally feels to me like something that has a chance in the market.

Next novel? Massive preparation, rapid execution. Probably won't be the next volume in the trilogy, because I want to do something fast and goofy and commercial.

Also, I lost a good chunk of time on Swill-related issues. The next issue is solidifying nicely. But in the course of that, I ran into an... amusing situation.

One of my pieces that might see publication in the next issue of Swill is also the piece that's been accepted for an upcoming Lip Service West. It originated in a blog post that I put up a while ago; I'll include a link later. You don't necessarily want to go there. But when I wrote about the dangers of working with horror? Here's a cautionary tale on the dangers of memoir. (Of course, in my case it may not be possible to distinguish the two.)

Now. I've written before of the particular lust that falls upon one when a story is submitted that is not... quite... there. It's a form of pimple-squeezing, let's not dignify it any more than we have to. When Rob Pierce saw the piece, he said, "I want more details. The little things. I want to be grossed out. And this isn't a romance. Where's the fucking love? You're not tearing my fucking heart out."

Rob has a distinct editorial approach.

So I ponder. I think back. I summon mental images. I return to that frame of mind.

Ooh, there it is. I kind of hate Rob, but not as much as I hate my brain.

So I beef up the gore and the emotional content, and send the revised version out to Rob and, since it's going to Lip Service West, Joe Clifford as well.

Joe responds with terrifying promptness. And his request?

My depression needs to be more visible.

Well, that's a new one. It's certainly something I could do.

So I did it.

And I sent the newly-revised version on.

So then comes the Wednesday night Homework Club meeting. I wish I could show you a clip of how this went. You kind of need to know the cast of characters in order to get the full effect. Rob's small, lean, blonde, bit of a roosterish affect -- verbally aggressive, forward in his body language. Warren Lutz is tall, gentle, soft-spoken if not particularly quiet. I am about what you would expect. Maybe a little more so.

Rob: The ending reads like a punchline. This is a romance. Romance needs to be like a spike through the chest!

(Do you ever have difficulty refraining from comment? I did, right then.)

The Oaf: Okay, okay, I'll turn it over in my head and see what I can do. But Jesus! I send you an amusingly macabre little anecdote (Yeah, I do talk like that.) and between you and Joe it's turning into this fucking nut-crusher. It was supposed to be a fucking punchline!

Rob: Anecdote? Anecdote? When I first read your fucking anecdote on your blog it wrecked my whole Saturday! It was the most fucking depressing thing I ever read! And now I've read this like seven or eight times and I can't feel anything anymore! I've broken something! You've ruined me!

(Of course, nothing can live up to Rob when he is at full flood, but here's the appalling story in question. The current version is much, much, much worse.)

Warren: Well, it looks like you made Sean's day.

Sean: Rob, it ain't like I like to see you miserable. I just have to take pride in a job well-done.

Countdown: Five

Today's starting word count: 36,198

I know, the count seem puny, but what I've done the past couple of days? It's been about taking words out of the remainder of the manuscript.

Or to put it this way -- the pile of finished work is 135 pages thick, and there's only 83 unfinished pages left. There are a few scenes-from-scratch, but I'm well past the halfway mark. Regardless of whether or not I get done in time, the experiment is an official success.

And I'm polishing two short pieces, so there are three short works soon to be released into the wild. One goes into Swill, but I want to submit the sensitive story of the single mother and her raccoonabe child to The New Yorker, the puberty story to McSweeney's, and the autobiographical horror porn to Salon. I like the SF world, I will have my photo taken next to the SF world, and the SF world can come to my birthday party. But I don't want to limit my options. I'm sure you understand.

Here is one aspect of the novel that's the kind of thing they don't cover in classes or workshops. When I realized that I was writing a novel with strong horror elements and that the protagonist was strongly autobiographical, I entered into a minefield.

Many difficulties in people's lives come about as a result of falling into unconscious patterns of behavior. There is a certain point where these patterns overlap with ritual. The execution of a large-scale work of art, one requiring months or years of effort, is a ritual. It was important that I was conscious of my intended goal when I set out on the ritual of writing this novel.

At that point, writing strongly confrontational, abrasive horror was one of my primary creative goals. I was putting my rage and self-disgust down on the page as directly as possible.

Hey, I still do a bit of that from time to time, but writing that kind of material is the result of self-excoriation. If I were to do it as a career? I'd be using self-excoriation as a tool to generate material. Horror can be an emotional bitch to work with.

So I needed to make the work one that ended well for the protagonist, and as it developed, I realized that despite all the weird trappings, I had a straightforward hero's journey story here.

While that story form may have its roots in tales of ancient kings, its real strength is that it serves as a metaphor for maturity, for the process of developing yourself, taking your power, and finding your place in the world.

My thought was that I'd write the book, and by getting it finished and eventually published, I'd complete the hero's journey on my own.

But the book grew too large, was split into thirds, and so I was working toward a different end, one I hadn't clearly thought through. Where was Matt, my stand-in (or 'fiction suit,' in the terminology of Ellis and Morrison), supposed to be at the end of the first volume?

Well, he would end the first volume having had his first real taste of using his power intentionally. He'd be someone just starting to come into his own, with a freshly-minted and hard-earned sense of himself. He'd have established a small, but real place for himself in the world.

Up until the past few days I hadn't realized that I needed to reach that state in order to successfully complete the book. I thought the completion of the book would achieve that end, but it doesn't work that way. If I wrote about that feeling without having experienced it, the book would have been a lie. I would have been making a promise to the reader and myself that was not founded in truth.

I'm a lot of things, but I ain't that.

Once I processed the idea that I actually do suffer from serious psychiatric conditions, I started to realize something. I'd spent my entire life in a struggle against my own nature, trying to make myself fit in to the norm, because the norm was right, and healthy, and successful.

But an inability to plan and execute plans, poor focus, constant conflict with social norms, and so on and so forth, have all rendered me an utter failure as a child-engendering car-driving job-having regular guy.

I spoke to the missus about this, about how letting go of the idea of ever being normal has been such a relief, that the only thing I was any good at was being me. That while I am completely inadequate at the Fred-and-Barney level, I am more than adequate on other levels, and that I wanted to live on those levels and just be who I was. And she responded with such genuine warmth and support that I still feel the glow.

Regardless of whether this book succeeds or fails, or even if it's possible for me to make a living writing novels, I know that I am a real artist, and that I have acquired a substantial and respectable body of skill. I know that because of that, regardless of where I go or who I am with, I am anyone's equal.

My greatest fear has always been my own inadequacy. I'm now at the point where I am not dependent on success in the greater world to feel a sense of value in myself or my work.

A couple of years ago, I put this up on the blog.

When you're in your element you're different than when you're not, and it struck me that real confidence is the ability to create your proper place inside yourself so you can carry it around with you, so that when it's appropriate you can withdraw without feeling diminished. Ponder ponder.

I've finally done that. My faith in my ability to achieve highly in the arts has been confirmed by people who would know in terms I would pick out of a catalog if given the opportunity.

I needed that in order to write the ending of the novel truthfully. And that is the real reason the damned thing has taken so long, and so much work. It's not just a novel I'm writing. It's myself.

Of course, this has me terrified of the fact that Matt doesn't get laid until the third volume. What makes me do these things?

Countdown: Seven

If the Dizzy Toilet Devils ever finish another goddamned album, this is going to be the cover. The album will be called Girl Hammer.

Today's starting word count: 34,187

Yesterday's experiment was very interesting. The writing proved to be much more difficult than I'd thought -- I'm having to do much more from scratch than I'd thought, I'm encountering plotting and continuity issues, etc, etc. I was expecting yesterday to basically be a cut-and-paste situation, and instead I had tons of hard composition.

But did you see those numbers? Seven thousand words in a day -- good fucking words -- is a feat entitling me to a blue ox.

Interestingly, though. If you were watching a movie, and someone intentionally overclocked their brain, what would happen?

Last night, I got a nosebleed. Just like in the movies. I wonder if thinking too hard can raise your blood pressure.

Still. Seven thousand words. Damn. I said I could hack my brain and I did. Exactly when do you get to define something as a superpower?

Just remind me I'm a silly-assed fool who's been broke his entire life and has never asked a woman out if I start quoting Nietzsche.

from
GHOST ROCK
(copyright 2011 Sean Craven, all rights reserved)

The silhouette coming toward me is taller than I am and only approximately human. It has two heads, one centered on its shoulders, the smaller one back and to the left. The broad torso is made of two bodies fused together. One arm is normal, the other too big, with an extra elbow and a hand that has more fingers than I can count in a glance. It has a blanket wrapped around its waist, partially concealing three legs, and another around its shoulders.
The little head has short brown hair and a bald spot. The front head has a yellow beard on a red face.

It’s Arnie and Jeff.

“Let’s just get out of here,” Jeff says. “We don’t know him, he could have a gun or something.”

“If you’re scared you can wait for me,” Arnie says.

“You don’t have to be mean.”

“Well, you don’t have to be a little bitch.”

Fuck me. Is this Hell?

No way.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey boy,” Arnie says. “You must be lost, huh?” He grins at me, big yellow teeth. His flowing golden teeth. “I bet you got lost and now you’re scared, right?”

Jeff is just visible over his shoulder. “Hey, I know this guy.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Arnie says, then looks at me. “Hey, I do know you, don’t I?”

“Yeah, we ran into each other before.” I look right in his eyes.

“Wait a minute, it’s starting to come back to me,” the blonde head says. “I think I remember some fucking Nazi likes to beat people up, people littler than him. That’s you, right?” He steps forward. His ugly hand drags its clustered knuckles on the walkway, then whips up to stroke his beard. They look at me, Jeff half-nervous, half-friendly, Arnie just plain mean.

I’m not getting past them. They fill the fucking walkway. I step forward. He’s a fucking monster now. I beat him before and that is still there. Face still and gaze steady. Look right in the eye he tries to hide.

His eyes are primary colors, red veins, yellow whites, blue iris. They are soft. Stare at the soft eyes and think about the brain behind them. Break the bone to get to the brain. He moves once and I take his eyes I punch his throat when he’s on the ground he gets the boot. Keep staring. “Yeah. Arnie and Jeff, right?”

Arnie’s head goes to one side and he grins, looks down, slaps my shoulder. “Shit, dude, I’m just fucking with you. We’re the only ones out here, right? Got to stick together. I ain’t the kind of guy lives in the past.”