say a prayer for california

Goodbody Grieving, writer at large.

[astoldfromtheend]

Guess who just realized they have to axe a whole scene?

Me. This guy. Y'know, the one for the last goddamn chapter of the godforsaken book that might mean I finished sometime before doomsday? Nixed. End my suffering. xoxo, good grief

[astoldfromtheend]

Navel Gazing (I know, I know, it's been ages).

I’m not even gonna bother with excuses - I’m “recovering” from a concussion/post concussive syndrome - and it's a long fucking story y'all, so maybe just give a bitch a break.

Mostly, I need to think.

It occurred today tonight that at this point my work is a digital pinprick in a sea of light, the latter being the internet and all of this being to illustrate the point that nobody particularly notices or gives a shit about it beyond my squawking helplessly into the Void about it - they say they do, and often want to mean it, but mostly they don’t - and that’s okay.

The longer I think about it in the quiet places no one ever knows, the more I realize that writing is the theoretical physics of art. You spend ages locked away in a study or a bedroom or a lab writing and erasing an equation you've no 100% real way of testing (because NASA has not seen fit to just take me back to my home planet yet, whatever) until you've got something you're 99.9% sure of, you take it out into the world, and the very first time its proofed is in the same breath you're giving someone - everyone - the chance to tear it the fuck apart and tell you all the reasons it doesn't work.

Years of solitude and never being quite able to explain just what it looks like in your head only to come down to a moment in which everything you worked for, all tens of thousands of hours, is up for debate and waiting for be thrown on the cutting room floor.

There's something... comforting about that level of pressure, actually.

Don't mind me, my head is nothing but static and emergency feedback lately and I'm just trying to find a channel that works. -GG

[astoldfromtheend]

writing normally: But it was true.

writing for NaNoWriMo: But it was true. All her suspicions and fears had been confirmed. She couldn't believe it - she didn't want to believe it. But it was, in fact, true.

[astoldfromtheend]

me: how many words have i written

is it a million

is it TWO million

word counter: 409 words

me: LIES

[astoldfromtheend]

It's been a rough couple of days.

This election had me seriously fucked up, so I took a day off of work and spent three days indoors with limited human contact. I didn't write, mostly - just processed. But it's week three and I've got work to do, so back to it we go. -GG

[astoldfromtheend]

re: the end of the world as we know it

Yesterday was a hard day. The irony of this book being about government and corruption and a gaggle of small people with the strength to keep fighting even when it’s improbably that they’ll win, the title, my own pen name centering around the idea of grief - the irony of these things is not lost on me. Right now this is all I can do, so you bet your ass I’m gonna keep doing it. I’m going to tell our story until I can’t. I have to believe that we will survive and we will fucking dance again. I refuse to see us hunted to extinction. I refuse to see us fall. For art, for revolution, for each other now that we are all we have - we keep fighting. ART IS THE WEAPON AGAINST LIFE AS A SYMPTOM -GG

[astoldfromtheend]

NANO 2k16 - DAY EIGHT

[Sorry for missing the update. Yesterday was a hard day..]

SUGGESTED DAILY WORD COUNT: 1,667 ACTUAL DAILY WORD COUNT: 593(??)br>EXPECTED CUMULATIVE WORD COUNT: 13,333 TOTAL WORD COUNT: 13,217/50,000 WORD SURPLUS? -83

FAVORITE LINE OF THE DAY: “You realize I'm older than you, right? I'm perfectly capable of saying 'no.'” "Except," wriggling out from beneath me so we lay side by side and facing each other, "for when you are not."

[astoldfromtheend]

NANO 2k16 - DAY SEVEN

[Today is Election Day and I am fucking SKRESSED. ABOUT. IT. Belated post in light of the gym trip I took last night instead of posting. Also, Week One is in the can.]

SUGGESTED DAILY WORD COUNT: 1,667 ACTUAL DAILY WORD COUNT: 1,260 EXPECTED CUMULATIVE WORD COUNT: 11,666 TOTAL WORD COUNT: 12,368/50,000 WORD SURPLUS? +702

FAVORITE LINE OF THE DAY: “I covered the whole of his back in the ensuing quiet, a cityscape of utilitarian buildings, spires and skyscrapers whose heads made first contact with the star-studded sky I never seem to see half as vividly when I'm awake. The boundless sky of my childhood before I got bigger, the world, smaller; the bruised hour before dawn.”

[astoldfromtheend]

scenework

so I’m working on an Emotionally Charged Sex Scene™ right the fuck out of the gate - literally it is chapter one - and now that I’m past the knee jerk of “my mother is going to read this someday and find out just how much I know about bdsm dynamics/sex between two cis men,” I’m surprisingly struggling with the moment before the sex starts. Idk if y'all know this about me but I have extremely little experience with Intimacy when it comes to the Horizontal Tango so like…what the fuck am I even doing right now?

[astoldfromtheend]

NANO 2k16, DAY SIX

[Suck my entire dick, day six. Bonus excerpt victory lap.]

SUGGESTED DAILY WORD COUNT: 1,667 ACTUAL DAILY WORD COUNT: 1,881 EXPECTED CUMULATIVE WORD COUNT: 10,000/50,000 TOTAL WORD COUNT: 11,108/50,000 WORD SURPLUS? +1,108

FAVORITE LINE OF THE DAY: 1. "So...what now? Where exactly does one go from breaking the law?" In answer, he rolled up his other sleeve. "Further, I suppose." 2. “Are you asking me to come home with you, sir?" "I'm asking you to walk 700 feet through an open door and use the furniture you find beyond the threshold as it was intended to be used." "You realize that this is against all rules of conduct, no? That is not an answer in the negative, merely a reminder given that you have apparently lost your mind." "Consider it proof of our mutually ensured destruction should we be caught." "When you put it that way, I would love to. Lead the way, Monsieur."

[astoldfromtheend]

NANO 2k16, DAY FIVE

[Somehow managed to make the word count eat shit despite a very (extremely) weird day. I think I finally found the angle that will make this work.]

SUGGESTED DAILY WORD COUNT: 1,667 ACTUAL DAILY WORD COUNT: 2,227 EXPECTED CUMULATIVE WORD COUNT: 8,333 TOTAL WORD COUNT: 9,227/50,000 WORD SURPLUS? +893

FAVORITE LINE OF THE DAY: "Because in actuality we all (and I do mean all, to this day there are some places where only his name will grant you safe passage) knew him as Old Hollywood, leader of the illustrious gang of questionably-aged sex workers known far and wide as Boy Division, which operates out of the Hotel and for whom the Second Wake serves as stomping ground and playground alike."

[astoldfromtheend]

NANO 2k16, DAY FOUR

[It is entirely possible I passed the fuck out before I could post this yesterday.]

SUGGESTED DAILY WORD COUNT: 1,667 ACTUAL DAILY WORD COUNT: 1,593 EXPECTED CUMULATIVE WORD COUNT: 6,666 TOTAL WORD COUNT: 6,960/50,000 WORD SURPLUS? +294

FAVORITE LINE OF THE DAY: “…but that was over a decade previous, before Bureau blue and sub-corporate espionage and single handed lay seeing to the eventual deaths of 32 people - you know, the usual shit that comes with navigating the waters of puberty.”

[astoldfromtheend]

NaNo 2k16, DAY THREE

[Yeah, yeah, I’m late. Fuck off, I am 80% coffee and 20% suffering.]

SUGGESTED DAILY WORD COUNT: 1,667 ACTUAL DAILY WORD COUNT: 1,593 EXPECTED CUMULATIVE WORD COUNT: 5,000 TOTAL WORD COUNT: 5,135/50,000 WORD SURPLUS? +135

FAVORITE LINE OF THE DAY: Contrary to what may have been suggested to you by certain unreliable pubescent radio co-hosts in a previous narration, cradle robbing is not a fetish of mine.

[astoldfromtheend]

I'm working on two novels at once because I enjoy suffering.

I missed my deadline for Notions of a Revolution so I appear to be simultaneously tying up its loose ends and writing the first chapter of its sequel. Like, cool, fuck yeah re: my word count, but the narrator's voices are worlds apart and my WIRES KEEP GETTING CROSSED. ...God, I love what I do.

[astoldfromtheend]

NANO 2k16 - DAY TWO

[I fell asleep before I could post this last night, forgive me for succumbing to weakness. Let it be known that I struggled all day yesterday and eked out my word count with maybe fifteen minutes to spare before bed.]

SUGGESTED DAILY WORD COUNT: 1,667 ACTUAL DAILY WORD COUNT: 1,749 EXPECTED CUMULATIVE WORD COUNT: 3,333 TOTAL WORD COUNT: 3,541/50,000 WORD SURPLUS? +208

FAVORITE LINE OF THE DAY: I’m no better than my father. If anything, he made me in his Image: Viron Thrice, III. The perfect soldier, the penitent, the prodigal son.

[astoldfromtheend]

NaNo 2k16 - DAY ONE

[This is the direct sequel to last year's rewritten project, NOTIONS OF A REVOLUTION; narrated by that story's secondary character. See this post for the inaugural whining sesh.]

SUGGESTED DAILY WORD COUNT: 1,667 ACTUAL DAILY WORD COUNT: 1,793 EXPECTED CUMULATIVE WORD COUNT: 1,667 TOTAL WORD COUNT: 1,793/50,000 WORD SURPLUS? +126

FAVORITE LINE OF THE DAY: The Bureau is keeping secrets from you. This is a given - this is how any government worth its salt shows its love.

[astoldfromtheend]

NaNoWriMo 2016 Inaugural Post

Good afternoon, lives of mine! The day is upon us and I already want to drop dead. About 14 hours in I’ve done two word sprints clocking in around 939 and 800 words which I believe puts me at the day’s word count, but we all know that life is meaningless and those numbers are arbitrary on Day One, so I’m gonna keep working and see how far ahead I can get. I’ll do the usual breakdown at the end of the day, but here’s this for now: SERIES: SAY A PRAYER FOR CALIFORNIA VOLUME:TWO WORKING TITLE: DEAD LANGUAGE IN A DYING CITY that’s it! love y'all, and good luck. -GG