• Contemporaneous: A Living Novel

    Contemporaneous: Chapters 42 – 44

    42. The phone rings. I almost don’t answer it, because I think it’ll be Lana, launching another salvo – part of me worries she’ll show up on my doorstep to continue this, although she’s only ever done that when she incontrovertibly knows she’s the one who’s fucked up, and wants to be conciliatory. You can place those visits along with Halley’s Comet. And my head’s raw. My ears are raw. I’m raw. Like I’m recoiling in expectation of some inexorable, scathing deconstruction of all my inadequacies. I wonder if this is how tortured prisoners, where the expectation now is just as horrifying as the experience itself. Fuck that. What I…

  • Contemporaneous: A Living Novel

    Contemporaneous: Chapters 38 – 39

    38. The creative spirit is wonderfully erratic, sometimes quick and irresistible, and other times sluggish, if not apathetic, or maybe it’s just pathetic. I’ve learned over the years to just write, so I’ve narrowed the gap between the two extremes. Lots of writers wait for inspiration, or think inspiration’s going to fuel them the whole way. It’s not. It’ll get them 1% of the way. The rest, as the cliché goes, is perspiration. And, right now, given the mess of the meeting with Regina, and knowing I’m off the Melody edit, I feel this awesome resentment. People talk about positivity and shit like that. Anger and resentment are great motivators,…