Thursday, May 29, 2008

Older

Holy delay, Batman!

It's been a lot longer from my last post than I'd intended. And here is my excuse...

I went to my cottage last weekend, so I had been without internet Friday-Monday. Than I was just busy Tuesday through today.

Yesterday (seeing as it is now past midnight) was my birthday. Yay. I'm 22.

Real post tomorrow (or today as it would technically be).

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Rome Wasn't Built In A Day

This is something I need to keep telling myself.

So far the regimen is working pretty well. I ran twice today. A 2-miler and a 3-miler. I feel great too. I tried to do pullups tonight but my abs were in pain so I let it go.

I wrote only about 500 words today, so tomorrow I have to pick it up a notch. And I need to start reading.

I think my room smells gross, or it might be the fact that my sister hasn't changed the water in her fishbowl. Either way I'm opening my window tomorrow and burning incense until my room smells good again.

Tomorrow I get my ears lowered! And then my barber, Tom, who has been my barber since I was 4 is retiring. I'm not sure what to do.

Monday, May 19, 2008

I Am The Million Dollar Man, Somebody Catch Me While You Can

Ten points to the person who knows the artist who sang those lyrics...

Ok. It's summer. I have time and as of yet no job. So here's the plan.

I have a few goals this summer. They are as follows

  1. Write one novel (Bombed)
  2. Write 6 short stories
  3. Get in shape
Now here is the plan itself. I'm going to start running every single day at least twice a day for a half hour each time. As the summer progresses I'm raising my evening run beyond a half hour, while keeping my morning run the same. I need to figure out the schedule for the weight room at Haslett High School, and then start coordinating time to go there at least three times a week to lift and work muscle groups. Do what I can on the machines at home and pullups.

In terms of diet I'm slowly bringing it around, eating better as I can stand (not exactly a vegetable guy) and eating out far less (except for Sip and Snack (we all have to have a vice)). I'm eating less more often to help promote a faster metabolism.

Now in terms of writing I'm setting a lenient schedule. 10,000 words a week until the novel and at least 3 short stories are done, and then I'll shorten it and use the other time to start rewriting. On top of that I'm going to make sure to blog every day, and start sending more and more stuff out every chance I can.

And this is all while hoping to have a job I can be working at least 20-40 hours a week.

I want to keep a very rigorous schedule to ensure that everything gets done. And to make certain that my life now beyond the intensive writing drive of Columbia is still productive. I also want to start reading more across the board.

That reading is going to start focusing on research for my Jack novel, getting my hands on anything and everything and inundating myself with American Folklore so that when I get finished with Bombed I can get started right away on Jack and get that written.

~~~~~~~~~~

In other news I applied for two jobs at Ann Arbor District Libraries today and got signed up to be a sub at any of the Capitol Area District Libraries. I went to the bar with Duke and we talked a bit, and he gave me an amp that he had lying about, so now I can hear what my Baritone Guitar sounds like. I went and saw Ironman again and I picked up GTA:IV.

~~~~~~~~~~

One last announcement.

Plans are set now with Twilight Tales. I'm going to be reading there on the 30th of June. They are no longer at the Mix, but have moved to a new location called The Spread. I'm just waiting to get a questionnaire back from them and all the final details which I'll then post here and probably email everyone about a million and a half times.

Yay.

Now I sleep and tomorrow I begin kicking ass!

Sunday, May 18, 2008

First Day Home

I found a fortune cookie on my parent's counter. It says

"Listen these next few days to your friends to get answers you seek."

It kinda creeps me out how applicable this is

Thoughts From After The Fact

Straight up, I don't know what to think.

I graduated today, and here less than twelve hours later I'm back in Michigan no longer living in Chicago. I'm not sure what to think of it. I know that as of right now, I don't like it. I don't like it at all. It feels like such a massive step back. A dropping of all the good and awesome things I had going and a picking up of all the old and problematic things I'd left behind. It's not that, I know. It's really just a return to a holding pattern as I circle once again waiting to land. But like an airline I feel like I'm just preparing to land at another port, pick up a bunch of people and just take off again leaving the previous load behind.

For the two years I was in Chicago I kept telling myself, "make no roots, get in get out get done," and then, just within the last 5 months or so I really started to settle in. I started to meet people I respected, started getting comfortable with people, making real friends, getting situated, only to have it usurped. Have a life that I was growing to really really love just get pulled away. And I don't understand me, but it is never until afterward that I really savor what I had. The glory of my routine last fall where I was being UBER productive, reading, writing, exercising, and just generally kicking ass in my setting. And this semester, though i griped about the work and the stress and how much I couldn't wait to get done, I am now savoring the moments I had. Seeing my friends as I was moving couch to couch. Long talks and gripes and many many beers with Lane. Preproduction sessions including lots of smoking with Mike and Andrew and eventually Sam. Long nights watching Lost with Lisa and Dan. Lots of good things not savored enough until they're gone and I'm on my own again.

Moving down to Columbia was an interesting situation. Fresh from a breakup that had a lot of strings attached and a lot of pieces to pick up. I'd planned on doing my time and getting out (which made that great opportunity sound like a prison sentence) and the feeling stuck for the first year. The summer started to fix it, being in a new apartment with a new roommate. Then in the fall my friend Kristy finally dragged me out and forced me to be sociable and it's been all uphill since then.

Only to hit this frustrating bump of switching tracks and having to start running on a new direction. It feels like a step back when it shouldn't.

I talked to my parents a bit about this on the way home, and it helped a bit, but not really. I've just got to figure out what I want and where I want to be. Some of it, I'm convinced, comes from being single. Some of it comes from having a fairly lax plan. Some of it is just life, man, I mean that is what this is I'm dealing with, just that next step in life.

Dan Rather spoke at our graduation. It was very interesting. He had lots of good things to say about being the now. Not just the future. I liked that.

This summer is going to be a writing summer. If I'm stuck at home then I'm going to be productive. The idea is 6 short stories and 1 novel by the time school starts in the fall.

I don't know where I want to end up after. And I know that is a lot of thinking ahead, but longer plans feel so much safer and more malleable than figuring out how I'm going to deal with this move.

My friend Lane called me not long after I crossed the Michigan border and was asking about when I planned on coming down next. He sounded bummed that the soonest I was thinking was end of June, and he talked about how we should shoot to get together sometime in the next month. It hurt. It hurt knowing I've made these friends that are built on so little time to just turn around and say goodbye to them again.

That's really all the thoughts I've had. Lots of thinking in circles. Trying to figure what I want and who I want to be around. Sorry if this post was so rambling. Back to the writing tomorrow.

Yay I'm graduated.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Done

I'M FINISHED!!!

Really that is all this blog post should say. I should wrap it up here and go back to working my last day and be happy with being able to say I'M DONE!

But I won't.

Yesterday my last class, with Tina Jens, got out and I went straight to the bar and proceeded to drink myself embarrassed. Then I went to bed, slept till 7, showered, came to work. And I have no right to feel as good as I do right now. In fact I should be in massive amounts of pain. But I'm not because I have an iron constitution (and I got rid of most of it). More than anything else I was surprised at how loud my iPod was from the walk home. I stepped out the door this morning, put the earbuds in hit play and tore the earbuds out of my ears because it was on full.

Now I have to go work my last day, but I'll make a real blog post later...

Monday, May 12, 2008

At The Desk....Again

It's starting to feel like I never leave this place, the library. Once written and looked at, the idea of never leaving the library doesn't seem as bad of a problem as it did when I wrote it.

It's Monday. The last Monday of Columbia. That sounds like a great apocalyptic story title. "The Last Monday Of Columbia." Maybe I'll write it once I get my free time. It would have as a main character the Columbia of the Chicago World's Fair.

I'm feeling punchy because it feels like I got out of work, went and watched a couple of episodes of Family Guy, fell asleep, woke up, and was back here a half hour later (which is all in fact true).

Homework is almost done. Semester is almost done. Living like a bum is almost done. I need to shower.

I started trying my hand at a Cthulhu story, but I feel like I need to read more. Haven't been writing much else though in the last couple of days.

Now back to work

Sunday, May 11, 2008

The Last Sunday

I'm working at the library all day today. In a nutshell this means I'm sitting at the desk working on homework while around me students bustle and hurry to do their last minute homework also. Sunday is quiet enough that the most complicated question I've got is about printing and Oasis, the wonky page that allows classes to be somewhat internet based, that's if it ever worked.

I just sent a short story to Doorways Magazine, the one that Mort edits.

Also I'm hammering out the details with Twilight Tales about being their featured reader in June. The date is currently looking like the 30th of June, which would be very good because it falls on the same weekend as the Wizard World Chicago. So maybe I'll make a long weekend of it and come down and get my geek on.

I've got less than 7 days left here in Chicago and it really hasn't set in yet. I've been so busy just living on the road between couches and friends houses and the craziness of actually getting projects rolling and submitted that the fact that by next Sunday I won't be living here anymore has not set in. I know I'm going to need to start making serious plans to see as many people as I can before I finally bug out and off to the future.

In writerly news I'm still hammering away at Bombed, a post apocalyptic stoner buddy roadtrip comedy (the current word count is 18,000 words). I'm thinking about some major usurpations I'm going to be doing to the Rider's story. I'm working on finishing first drafts of a couple of short stories and I'm doing some preliminary research on a short story involving Yig the serpent god of the Cthulhu Mythos and the creation of Man according to the book of Genesis.

And now I'm back to figuring out what piece of work I can regurgitate for my History of the American Working Class final project.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

The Goings On

Sitting at the Library right now ripping DVDs and working on the final rewrite for my Advanced Class.

Tonight I'm going to be sleeping on a couch just south of Wicker Park with my friend Anna. She's a more traditional Artist who I am hoping to collaborate with on a sort of comic tomfoolery that I wrote back in Mort's class and have been meaning to get out and published eventually. And conveniently enough Anna has a magazine she's getting started called The Happy Collaborationists.

Mike expressed interests in directing an animated adaptation of my short story "I'm Just A Boatman." And we're beginning to figure out the necessities for getting that going this summer. I also just heard back from Mort on that, so I'm getting ready to send that out his way.

Tomorrow I am working at the library all day, which in a nutshell means I'm going to be doing homework while sitting at a desk and telling people the proper way to print.

Library is closing soon so it's time for me to start packing up and get ready to roll out to Wicker Park.

Friday, May 09, 2008

The Vagabond Life

I went out West to La Grange last night with my friend Lane. I met his dog, the now legendary Charlie, who was the basis for the dog in his novel. I met his mom and his brother. I visited the La Grange public library. It has an amazing graphic novel selection. I read the majority of Infinite Crisis, which was just ok. Afterwards we went to the bar and I had a french dip and far too much to drink and spent far too much money. I also met Lane's girlfriend for the second time, and I'm 2 for 2 for meeting her while I'm inebriated. Then we went back to her house and I fell asleep on her couch.

The floors of her townhouse are very loud. One of her roommates, who wakes up early for work was stamping around the house (by which I mean she was stepping as lightly as is possible) and into the living room to get something off the coffee table near where I was sleeping. It was after 6:30, so already I was in a half conscious morning-after daze, unsure of most everything except that I'm on a couch, and the roommate makes enough noise to jilt me a little further awake.

"Sorry kiddo," she says.

Now, quick aside. The only person who has ever called me "kiddo" is my mom, and she does it very often. Back to story...

So I, hearing kiddo, and still feeling a little spin from the alcohol look around more scared and surprised and had to stop myself from asking loudly, "Mom?!" It was the first time ever that I had a "where the hell am I??" moment.

I'd left my phone charger and my toothbrush at Ryan's apartment, so when I got back into the city I went up there to pick it up, and also borrowed his shower. And now I'm sitting in a Panera, waiting to hear back on a couch for the night.

-----

So this post is going up later than I planned. When I went to hit the send button last night and put it up for you all to see I got this warning that I had used all my available peak time. And the above was all that was saved from the post before the internet decided to stop.

Afterwards I went with my friend Sam over to the house of my director and his Gaffer/DP, Mike and Andrew (respectively). We smoked a lot, drank a lot, and got Sam signed up to produce Mike's independent film, currently titled "The System." Then Mike and I stayed up very late talking about Star Wars and actually good movies, and future project ideas. I crashed on the couch there and now I'm at the library with Andrew discussing a potential future comic/mock movie preview for our hero, The Purple Magnificence. We're thinking of getting it together and squared away to have as something that can be passed out at the Chicago Comic Con either 2009 or 2010. More to come on that later.

Now it's time to do homework

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Coming To A Head

I'm out in La Grange with my friend Lane, staying on his girlfriend's couch tonight. Right now I'm at the library reading DC Comic's Infinite Crisis. The big event from a year or so ago. It's pretty good and Geoff Johns is my favorite writer (see his work on the Green Lantern volume 4 (Rebirth, Sinestro Corps War, and the upcoming Blackest Night)), I've just never been a big fan of DC's big events, and most of the Crisis events have been a let down. Except Identity Crisis, which is some of the best comic writing to date.

Things are starting to come to a head with school. I have 6 days left. One story is out circulating, and, for a grade for my Fantasy class, and for the sake of getting things out, a second story is entering its final draft and getting ready to head out.

A little over a week ago I had my reading with the fantasy class at Twilight Tales. I posted about it here. And I just got an email from Mike Martinez from Twilight Tales about being a featured reader in June. When I work the details out I'll be posting more information.

And with that I'm back to reading comics.

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Interesting Quote

I saw this quote in an article in the news yesterday. You can get to the article here. The quote has been zinging around my head for a while and I'm trying to figure out what to do with it.

It has to do with the Fritzl incest case. One of the kids who had been locked in the basement for his entire five years saw the moon for the first time when the cops came and let them out and he asked the cops, "Is that God up there?"

There is something about that awe and wonder in the article that has been sitting with me. Maybe I'll do something with it later.

Quick Addon:

Miles Kurosky is starting to put out his solo stuff!!!! Check it here!

This is my musical second coming...

Fears...

I'm up early this morning and I'm stressing about money.

I look at my bank account and I see that I am living paycheck to paycheck. This is normal, Nathan, you're a college student. I can't help feeling like I am living so far beyond my means that it is going to come and bite me in the ass later.

In my history of the american working class class the teacher was talking about the need to make capital. The need for property. The need to dig our way out of the poor who live how? paycheck to paycheck.

It's daunting. It makes me wish I could turn back the clock. That I could take the last two years back and instead fade into obscurity at some university with half the debt, studying something like anthropology, or mythology, or philosophy or something that could make me some money maybe. Instead I'm studying fiction writing at a college that has sucked me clean dry of money for the next thirty years.

It's one of those things I think about now with only 8 days left of school. That I think about with the fact that I am about to go to grad school. That I haven't published anything yet. That I'm not even trying really. That I think about when I'm sleeping on my friend's couch because I don't have anywhere else to stay.

I was raised in the land of middle class. The land of creature comforts. The lands of cheerful mediocrity. And right now there is this daunting worry that I may not be able to achieve that. That I am living on a dream of publishing. Something that is so hard and so unlikely. My Fantasy Teacher, Tina Jens, tells me I have talent and that I should be publishing now, so does my friend Mort. I believe them, I do. I just can't seem to find a way to finish stuff.

This is all so daunting. And at 6 in the morning on a friends couch there isn't a thing I can do, and I have never felt so powerless.

I wrote this in my journal a while ago:

I'm dreaming of a small two story house right on the threshold between the suburbs and farmlands. On the edge of a small town, but only a short jog from a college town. Maybe an hour or so from a city. I'm dreaming of having some decent acreage with a little bit of woodland. A garden near the house with corn and potatoes and tomatoes and carrots and beans and jalapenos and strawberries like what my mom used to grow. I'm dreaming of comfort. Not of wealth. I don't want wealth. I am dreaming of a place that has areas where I can get away from the bustle, but also get to it easily. This sanctum sanctorum from which i can write my novels, and do my library science world changing. It's safe. It's comfortable.

Monday, May 05, 2008

No Place To Call My Own

I'm still sleeping over at Ryan's apartment. He is being very good to me. We've been playing lots of Grand Theft Auto 4, and reading lots of comics, and eating out way too much, but it's something I kind of expected would happen (the eating out) when I got out of my apartment.

The timer on my facebook just wound down to single digits in the days column. 9 days and 8 hours. Never have I felt closer or have been more scared. Which reminds me that I need to call the office and make sure that my scores have come in. It's been a couple of weeks and I have no excuse to have not done that already.

Well I'm going to go repack my bag so that my footprint in this house is small and Ryan likes me.

Maybe a longer post once I get to work.

Saturday, May 03, 2008

You know it

In brightest day, in blackest night
No evil shall escape my sight
Let those who worship evil's might
Beware my power,
Green Lantern's Light!


that is all

Friday, May 02, 2008

I'm Just A Poor Wayfaring Stranger

I moved out of my house today, which will actually be yesterday because it's well after midnight now. I packed up the last of my stuff and then with one last goodbye to my former roommate, Matt, I was on the train heading towards the loop, and work at the library, and my final couple weeks of school. I'm now reduced to my hiking backpack loaded with clothes and the necessities to survive, and my satchel, with school supplies, laptop and all the rest.

I feel like a turtle with my "house" on my back.

Tonight I'm sleeping on my friend Ryan's couch. He conveniently just moved down from Michigan because he got a job at a golf course just north of Chicago, and is living only a couple streets away from my former apartment. We've been killing time and playing a lot of Grand Theft Auto IV (a game that is totally worthy of all the hype it's gotten).

Tonight we went and saw Iron Man. It was glorious. Robert Downey Jr. is a god. Stay after the credits for the pant-soiling followup.

Tomorrow I actually have a chance to run to the comic store, pick up the Green Lantern and DCU 0. I'm also going to attempt to get 4,000 or so more words written. On what? I'm not sure. I've got a stack of stuff I've been revising, homework and otherwise.

And on that note I'm going to hit the sack because it's already almost morning...