life is a new move + writing the soup (the novel)

i’m sitting here listening to millencolin, and thinking about the big move to the new house. it’s a big stressful moment, yet despite the stress, all i can think of is hurrying the move so i can quickly put together the new book i’m starting.

i have only two or three more character studies to write as i try to nail the characters of the soup and the narrator as well as the general vibe of the nasty world in which they live – and then i’ll being the book proper. i love this stage of a book, when you’re just slapping the ideas around your skull and you can feel the story forming behind your fingers – ready to flood across the pages.

some stories you feel you have to force. others just come naturally – and these are the best.

i’m very happy with the soup – a product of many years of retail service and embittered life among customers who always feel the old saying “the customer is always right” is something they have some kind of right to enforce, rather than a general saying which shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

i’ve had a long tiring week – filled mostly because of the horror of the move (there’s a book idea there somewhere), and the thought that all our money will soon be drained out of our banks faster than a team of militant vampires could drain a bloodbank (another idea right there).

i’m finishing posting the zombies of widgeroo this week, and will begin posting the rest of the philosophica majestus before working up the final touches of the soup. as always, creepy and hatboy will keep entertaining, i hope. i just found an ocean of old lost episodes, including the choquey the lemming series and the ill-fated vampire twins series (which i’d like to post just to revist and rework as i did like the whole b-grade spirit of it). some of these old files were corrupted unfortunately, so i’ve lost a fair bit of work. ah, well. stuff happens – especially when microsoft is involved.

i recently read, at the recommendation of birthday boy, eric dando, the hawkline monster by richard braughtigan, and i would like to recommend it to you all, too. of course, it’s probably this helped influence my soup series, though i must also blame falling upon a youtube piece on the blob – which made me remember a time i used to do horror movies, and the whole b-grade feel i was searching for. i never found what i was looking for – a mix of chandler, kafka and george g. gilman, i think. this got me thinking of the thing i loved most about horror – the titles. those magnificent titles. and, in the shower, i was thinking of dinner, and the soup my wonderful wife makes, and bam! it all slipped together with me moaning out in a jack palance manner: try . . . the soooooup.

and there you go. great ideas are always found in the shower.

i’ve had a fair bit on my mind, too. lots of things from the past and my future. i dream of my own shop in ever-increasing ways, and i regret the fact i’ve wasted so much of my money in recent years. i’m not sure how, but i want a bookshop which sells my favourite authors. i am determined. start small, build big, i think.

i don’t know how to begin, but i know i want to try.

i can see it now. me, surrounded by my best friends. from murakami to dando. from kafka to mellick iii and back around to ballard. i can see it: a surreal little place where you step in and may never step out again.

a black hole of a place.

sucking out your stupid leaving only a smarter, more explorative you.

anyway. i have to go to bed. i have so much packing to do tomorrow. i wish scotty would beam all this over to my new apartment for me. i can’t stand all the packing, moving, and unpacking.

i just don’t want to think about it, really.

i love millencolin.

Tags: life, writing