FULL BLEED: WHAT IS WITHIN YOU MAY KILL YOU

Let's pretend we're on LiveJournal again. Not that I ever used it.

Why? Because Twitter is going through throes of transformation that it may not survive. Mostly because private capital got it. And private capital wants returns, any way, any how. Plus the current management seems to be impulsive and gripped by a fundamental misapprehension as to the value of the platform that he's purchased. Also, he's bought a big box of baby raccoons and some of them have rabies, but he has to keep as many of them in the box to prove that it's a valuable resource to sell advertising in. Oh and charge subscription fees for. After firing half the staff, but maybe asking a bunch of them to come back.

In short, it's likely not to look like it currently does, maybe even by the end of the year. And it's the only platform that has put text first and has offered a huge communal watering hole. Oh and immediacy, to get that rat-a-tat-tat of dialogue in the best of times.

So, right. Been in a funk for a bit. Let's call it a funk because spiral sounds bad. It's not that bad. I let it get in the way, let the weeds get higher than the garden. Had a lot to deal with. Still do, honestly. But I gotta get back to work, even if nobody else wants what I do. But then it's rough out there if you're not catering to a specific audience. Hell, a friend of mine who got a book published off a very modest advance has yet to earn that back. And the publisher bought publicity and everything. It's tough.

Figuring I ain't gonna get paid and honestly, I'd rather write than publish. Or rather, get published. Publishers are conservative and honestly shit-scared. There's good reason for that. Everyone else is asking for more of everything and they've got less to give or to hold onto for themselves. It's bad out there. Bad as I've ever seen it (unless you've already made it, then it's good.)

So to get myself fired up for what looks like the next year plus of writing and putting books out there, my books, the way I want 'em done, I went over a little checklist in my head about what actually appeals to me in this whole goddamn process. Here we go.

Nobody else is doing it.

Sure there’s antecedents. But Chandler wouldn’t touch the supernatural other than his own ghosts and demons. PKD was along these lines, but still wandering in a gnostic maze. There’s influence and there’s doing it yourself.

It’s fun to piss of genre purists.

Sure, that’s petty. I’m a petty guy. I also hate to deal with close-mindedness. Particularly in a genre that’s supposed to be imaginative.

Fuck Stranger Things.

Those dipshits were five in the eighties (I haven’t checked, but it sure reads like it). It was way more weird and fucked up than they’ll ever know. And their taste in music is *basic*.

You get to make your own magic.

No magic system to be beholden to. No RPG rules to suck the life out of everything. See also - nobody else is writing this.

Ariela is a fun character.

A bundle of contradictions. Streetwise but regal. Educated but direct. Queen goth who wants nothing to do with the scene.

The other characters are good, too.

Hopefully they ring at least a little true to other readers as well.

Los Angeles is a great playground.

Greater than even NYC or imperial Rome. Anything can happen here and anyone could have caused it to. Crime, movies, politics, recent history, rockets, science, all faintly unreal and dreamlike. Sure, those might happen in other places, but it seems more likely here.

Fuck you, that’s why.

Fuck your gatekeeping or genre purity. Fuck you for saying that anything is cringe or it won’t sell or won’t get adapted so why bother. Just fuck you. Fuck your content.

Because nobody will see it coming.

It’s going to go places nobody expects

Because you’re scared nobody will care and so what.

And that’s the money melon. Afraid of wasting time when that’s all we god. Time is the fire in which we burn and all that. It’s going to kill you not to do it. Okay, it’s gonna take a longer time that way.

It’s just scary to put that much into a work and watch it sing without a trace. More than scary. Futile. It hurts and it’s a hurt that most folks will never know. They’re safe and set. They have deals that they know will go through.

There’s no net below. It’s okay. You only have to keep writing.

-

That's it, the whole joke. I've given up on playing the game and instead am playing one that makes the slightest bit of sense to me. Which is to say, not much at all.

I'll be putting up the following, which marks Hazeland part one.

Queen of No Tomorrows (with at least one backup story, probably two.)

All Waters are Graves (formerly offered as My Drowning Chorus.)

Asphalt Tongues - collected stories

Fake Believe - more collected stories

The Missing Pieces - three novellas of horror, crime and weird intrigue, respectively.

Watch this space for further developments.