Monday, July 14, 2003
At the moment, I'm struggling with whether or not this really will be a day off. On the one hand, I need such a beast. I need it very badly. On the other hand, Chapter Six is chugging along, and I'm horridly behind. It's already the frelling 14th of frelling July. The short story for Candlewick Press is due in about two weeks and I haven't even started it. I need to get back to the screenplay. See. I have lots of reason to work, and only one reason to take a day off (I'm tired). Sometimes, it's nice being my own "boss" (in the limited sense that this is true), but most of the time, like now, it's just a pain in the ass.
Yesterday I wrote 1,181 words on Chapter Six (that's 5,037 words, or about half the chapter, thus far). And having written, I was too wasted to write anything else that needed writing. This is a great weakness that I have as a writer. I have never really been able to write two or three things simultaneously. I know lots of other writers who do it just fine. I don't. It's one reason my time at Vertigo was such a nightmare and one reason I'll likely stay clear of comics in the future. Were this not a problem for me, I could be writing the novel in the afternoon and the screenplay at night. Or maybe alternating — novel/screenplay one day and novel/short story the next. That would be efficient. That would be convenient. That would make sense. Instead, after four or five hours of work on the novel, I'm too fried to write anything else of substance. So, yesterday, having written and needing to write more, I worked on Nebari.Net instead and spent a number of hours on Tomb Raider. The more I write, the more I feel as though there's some unspoken obligation I have to write during my every waking hour. Time spent not writing is dead time. Something like that. It's idiotic.
The new issue of Cemetery Dance magazine has the interview I gave them last spring. It's a year out of date, but you might want to check it out anyway.
About that catalogue of the Bush Administration's lies that led us to war with Iraq, here's a list of quotes, dating August 26, 2002 to May 30, 2003: Whiskey Bar. This list serves well to illustrate the confidence and stridence with which Bush and crew claimed the presence of WMDs in Iraq, as well as knowledge of the numbers and locations of such weapons. Many of these claims are very specific. Remember: specifity is often a sure sign someone's lying, and specifity from politicians and the military is always suspect. Thanks to Karin Kross for pointing me to this list. There are others out there, I'm sure. I haven't checked the headlines yet to see who has most recently admitted to having lied about what, because I was hoping to stay in a good mood, if this is to be a day off.
I will close with a question: What nation in the world possesses the greatest arsenal of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction, and is permitted to act out its will and aggressions upon the world stage with complete impunity?
You know the answer.
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