03Feb2020

I spent much of last night shaking the dust off the email account where novel notes are stored like slabs of aging beef, to thaw out some old ideas and add them to a new file.

Much of this was done while Shakira and J Lo shook various body parts on the stage of a very Not Aimed At Me halftime show.

I don't like revealing titles in advance anymore, so for lack of a better name at the moment I'm calling this Project Torpedo for now. A shiny new Moleskine has been purchased for the bloody, visceral Idea Mongering process. Writing things by hand again may cripple me, so please have Speyside Scotch and Nurses at the ready.

The last two attempts at writing Novel #8 (Project Purple Sky and Project Shadows) were shouted down like any voice in the room planning the Super Bowl Halftime Show that mentioned the word "Metallica". So I'm going back to the old way of organizing my thoughts. It's obvious to me now that I require the structure and organization of my Moleskines.

The solace of blank pages. The smell of potential. The cruel backhanded slap of Occasional Lack Of Progress. The tender caress of each finished page of the story's "character bible."

After two months spent breathing in the soot and dust of the Deep Stress Mines, it's time to breath a little creative air again. I think I need it. I'm pretty sure I need it. Okay, fine, I'm fucking POSITIVE that I need it.

As for Project Purple Sky...it's...simmering. I'm not sure about that one right now. I might still try to convert it into a comic book script and suggest it as the elusive project that Scott Rosema have hinted that we need to do together. It just hasn't felt like a novel when I've worked on it. I can't explain it any other way than that. And I can see his art making the story look like a million bucks when I think about it. If I think hard enough, I can smell the ink from the printed issues.

So as Cosmo Shelldrake sang: "Come along, catch a heffalump. Sit with me on a muddy clump"

I'm off to sit, chase something improbable, and maybe get a bit messy.

Regards.