Apropos of Nothing, Monday at 3:45pm i want to smack you so hard, your ears pop i want to smack you so hard, your clothes come back in style and your thinking goes out of fashion i want to smack you so hard, you fast-forward to the middle of next week past your next three mistakes inevitable as the waning moon i want to smack you so hard, right in the mouth that your momma feels it in the dark parts of her brain like the guilt she bears for bringing you into this world
Like so many things with me, once I get past the hump of actually getting started on something, I tend to jump into it completely and, as much as possible, make the most of the moment.
Like spring cleaning, of the sort we did yesterday after continually putting it off for the past few weeks. It ended up being the equivalent of a good meditation session, clearing away the cobwebs that had built up in the corners of my mind and enabling me to take a closer look at some of the little things that tend to get missed in the crush. Like how great our apartment is; how nearly every single toy I picked up from the floor I could picture the kids playing with at some point; how a messy house makes for a messy mood, and a clean one exposes the silver lining.
Babe in the Woods, NaNoWriMo Word Count, Day 14: 11,509 (-11,829)
Squeezed out another 635 words last night before bed, officially bringing the first act to a close. I am now almost exactly one full week behind my word count which means I officially arrive at the Week 2 Wall – aka, where the hell is this story going? – today! Going to have to pull double-duty this week, with lunch sessions and a few late nights just to keep the gap from growing any larger, never mind reaching 35,007 words – the Week 3 goal – by Sunday.
Babe in the Woods, NaNoWriMo Word Count, Day 13: 10,874 (-10,797) Roughly 50 double-spaced pages so far, surpassing the length of my old screenplay's first draft, many moons ago! (Though that was cranked out over three days, so perhaps it's not so impressive.) Still deep in the Word Debt hole, though, but the past couple of sessions were extremely productive as the plot is finally starting to come together in my head. I think I'm at the end of the first act, having introduced the main cast of characters, given most of them at least some background, and covered the…
2007-2009; United States of America The United States’ second Civil War finally broke out in 2007, after three years of boiling following the controversial 2004 Presidential election. Strangled by a two-party political system that over the years had, for all intents and purposes, merged into one, unable to convincingly differentiate themselves on the major issues like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nuclear proliferation, health care or corporate control of the media, political campaigns had come to depend on so-called cultural and moral issues to rally their supporters. Gay marriage, abortion, reality television and pop singer Janet Jackson’s left breast…
Wednesday, October 30, 2013: Mt. Pleasant, NY, USA Eric Pearson took three lunging steps backwards, his stomach still clenched tight, threatening more dry heaves if he didn’t find some fresh air in the next 30 seconds. Clear of the puddle of blood, gore and half-digested sliders, he turned and stepped back out of the door he’d entered through, gasping for air to clear his nostrils and lungs. There was a foul stench in the air that reminded him of his time in Iraq, bringing back flashes of memories he’d spent years trying to bury. PFC David Johnson’s torso, separated from…
For all those who scoff at anything that even remotely suggests so-called “conspiracy theories,” believing they’re all far-fetched fictions made up by paranoid whack-jobs, here’s a little something to chew on: right-wingers looking to inflitrate comic books!
At Bill Jemas’ zenith as President of Marvel Comics he commissioned “4/11,” also known as The White Album, an anthology series telling stories about world war, politics and terrorism with a slant towards fixing problems, finding new solutions and making the world a better place. Mark Millar and Frank Quitely’s short story about Irish sectarianism was a highlight, but the project faltered after one invited writer had her work rejected and went AWOL, and the third issue and subsequent collection were both cancelled – seen as an initial sign that Jemas was on the skids. And he skidded out of the door to be replaced by a safer pair of hands.
We wonder what he’s make of Marvel’s upcoming “Combat Zone: True Tales from GI’s in Iraq.” Not only has this book been waiting for publication at Marvel for a while, but a number of artists have been approached, started on the book and then left when it’s true nature was revealed.
While a number of Marvel’s previous titles involving war and terrorism have tried to explore issues from different perspectives, reports I’ve had are that this is not the case here. America is the One True Hope, all who oppose her or disagree with her current thinking are evil scum, and the world would be better off without them. And thank the Lord we have these plucky brave soldiers to do her bidding.
Thursday, October 31, 2013: Bronx, NY, USA Liberty Sou was what the kids in her neighborhood referred to as “the crazy cat lady.” And, oddly enough, they were actually right. An up and coming folk singer at the turn of the century, she’d become politically active during the pivotal Presidential election of 2004 and had quickly worked her way on to the Department of Homeland Security’s Domestic Terrorism watch list. She spoke out against the President, harshly, at each of her concerts, not an unusual thing in those days, but it was a random quote in a Rolling Stone interview…