most despised

Since the decade is winding to an end in a couple weeks, I thought I'd post some of my personal favorite blog art pieces from the past year here on Ghost Medicine.

From January:

From February:

From March:

From April:

From May:

From June:

the emerging trend

Okay.

I realize that when you post stuff on your blog every day, sometimes those posts are going to rock (like yesterday's and Thursday's -- which kind of creeped some people out), and sometimes they're going to suck.

I figured if I really wanted to write a sucky blog entry that I'd be pretty good at it. I'd probably do dumb stuff like tell the truth about what I'm going to do today, or confess that I'm stressed out because I'm meeting some people later and I've developed a zit on my chin. Those kinds of posts. They suck ass.

Lately, too, I've noticed that a number of people whom I follow -- writer types -- are posting things about how they're forcing themselves to take a break from their computers because they're on them too much.

How can you be a writer and take a break from your computer?

I don't get it.

I guess they'll just get a box set of last season's Mad Men and watch more television.

Which I don't get, either. In fact, I don't even know what Mad Men is, I just said that because it seems lots of people who want to swear off computers know stuff about Mad Men, or Glee -- whatever the holy hell "Glee" is, too.

I do not watch television. Not one second of one episode. Ever. I wouldn't know Ugly Betty from Adam Lambert. I shit you not. You want to kick my ass? Play me in TV Trivial Pursuit. I'm about as good at that shit as Rush Limbaugh is on the balance beam.

Now, I'd watch that shit on TV.

You know why I can name off these people? Because I read. I read blogs and newspapers on line every day. I have to. And I don't feel the slightest remorse about it, either.

twelve twelve

Two years and counting.

I am not a hoarder. Things pile up, and, periodically I throw them all out. There are certain things I hold on to, though.

Like all the ammo and weapons I bought ten years ago in preparation for Y2K.

What? Don't judge me.

I guess I should probably throw out the barrels of wheat grain, though.

I am not a big believer in Mayan prophesies, either. As a general rule, I try to avoid taking pointers from people who practice ritual sacrifice and play soccer with the heads of their enemies.

Call me a freak if you will.

I had a neighbor one time who did that shit -- Crazy Jim. You know where he is now? In jail, my friends, in jail. And the only advice I ever took from Crazy Jim was if the pigs ever come looking for me, just tell them you don't know my real last name.

Which he never told me, anyway.

I always just thought his real name was actually Crazy Jim.

That said, if the world actually does end on December 12, 2012, I will be sitting out on the deck with my sunglasses on and a glass of (good and expensive) whiskey in my hand, watching the shit go down.

I hope it takes a while, too. Nothing worse than buying expensive tickets for a concert only to find the band you're coming to see plays a twenty-minute set of stuff from their not-yet-released album and then won't come out for an encore.

Give me a break.

I hate that.

I hope it takes a really long time and people are running around naked, flailing their arms and shrieking insanely.

Come to think about it, that conjures up images of some of the better concerts I've been to in my life.

idea spring

Well, it's likely that were it not for the nameless throngs of anonymous readers, there'd be a significant dearth of chits in the ol' suggestion box. So I'll try this one.

A couple days ago, someone asked:

Where do you get your ideas from?

What ideas? I have ideas?

I don't think so.

If you've got some kind of idea that I get ideas, you've got the wrong idea, buddy.

The other day, I had what seemed like a great idea: I was going to take a shower. But when I got into the water, it became strikingly apparent that my water heater was broken. At that moment, not a second sooner or later, I got the idea that taking a shower was probably a bad idea.

That is exactly how I get my ideas.

And who knows where they come from?

I could just have easily gotten the idea to have a ham sandwich.

But I will tell you an idea that's been bugging me lately. It has to do with Carl Jung. You see, when I was young, I had the idea to read a lot of Jung. I had this idea that he knew what he was talking about. Still, to a large extent, I suppose, I still have this idea.

Even if he was a nut job.

I wonder if he ever played with sock puppets.

In any event, throughout history there have been scores of thinkers, inventors, and artists who believed in this idea of a sort of "collective unconscious" that's out there -- capable of being tapped into. Carl Jung wrote of it, "It ...seems something like an unceasing stream or perhaps an ocean of images, figures which drift into consciousness in our dreams or in abnormal states of mind."

Two things:

1. Abnormal states of mind??? Me???

2. I believe that's where my ideas come from.

Any questions?

ten december

more on the process

Okay.

Yesterday was a very bizarre day for so many reasons. There will be more existential sock puppets coming your way, though. Because, yes... they do, indeed, represent a cry for help.

When I went to the speaking event over the weekend, one topic that came up (as it invariably does with writers) was about work regimen and the revision process. One of the things that makes my process differ from a lot of other writers, I think, is that when I'm finished with a novel, I'm finished. That's when I send it off to agent and editor land.

The main reason I work this way is that I revise and revise and edit and edit as I'm writing. So, when I am finished, it's about as good as I can get it to be on my own (until my editor or agent can give me input).

So, here's where I'm at right now on novel number 7: I will be finished with it -- finished -- some time this month. I figure it's going to weigh in at about 450 pages or so.

And so here I am, for the seventh time in a row, near the end of something that has totally consumed my energy, waking and sleeping, and, just like every time before this, I find myself wondering what the hell I'm doing.

It's my special place: self-doubt.

It hits the hardest when I get into transitional parts of my books -- parts where something minor has to happen just to set up for the big bang up the road. Because, being the immature person that I am, I don't want to delay gratification by actually having to work for the payoff.

I hate that about myself.

I think that's the element that effectively separates writers from people who just want to tell stories. But what do I know?

b.e.s.t.