On Still Being Alive

Yup.  Still here.  

I've been plugging away at "Instant Gratification" in between my current temp job and spending time with friends I haven't regularly seen for months.  This is set to change--I'm gunning to finish this one before August hits, though given my current word-counts and the fatigue of my job, this is looking less likely with every train-ride home.  

Two of my stories are currently slated for posting on Story Shack Magazine's webpage--the first one, "Prerogatives", is already up.  Check it (and the fine work of illustrator Daniele Murtas) out here  A few other stories are simmering--some nicely, others not--on the back-burner at the moment.  Wanted to take a few thousand words to poke the ridiculousness of sound bites in general and Ontario televised election campaigns in specific--look for "Talking Points" to appear somewhere on here in the next few days.  Or weeks.  

Or whenever I finish this monolith of a section.  Novel chapters really drag when you let them, and this one is an almost-continuous series of journalistic FUBAR's on the part of the reporter and SNAFUS on the part of the setting in general.  Sounds interesting in a notebook, but 8,000 words plus is making an IED explosion and slow bleed-out of a character I've come to find compelling and empathetic a dull, slow affair.  You'll see what I mean when I finish this thing.  

Hope to fill up the green gallery to your left at a faster rate than present as the summer progresses.  In the works are the eventual editing and polishing of "Pit Stop", the planning of "Sirens", and, if time or inspiration permits, the outline for a graphic novel I'd be interested in working on with several other like-minded artists/writers.  More on that later.

Not writing for almost eight months is getting to me.  As the Lawrence Arms song goes, "The words don't come to me so easily/Don't believe what you hear/'Till you've heard it from me."  As of this evening, there will be radio silence.  Time to finish this chapter.  And the other shadows lurking under the bed.