2008-O-Rama

Happy belated new year. I began it with much sickness. I'm still pretty under the weather but I am up and walking around and also at work with such a thin voice a man actually called me 'some Arab' today. I informed him kindly I spoke English and could give him lessons if necessary, as he did not seem to recognize it.

Teacher and author Martin Roper has an interview at the Dublin Quarterly.


My novel mutates. I think it wants to be a Miyazaki film. Or an Elseworlds graphic novel. (Gaslight Batman or something.) It takes place in a world slightly - slightly maybe isn't strong enough - different version of our world. The history is different, but contaminated. The polluters are people from our history, and the most toxic bit of 'waste' is a document utterly integral to our history, and utterly alien to theirs. My research has led me pretty far from the path I thought I was going down, so there's been some stops and starts, but overall I'm pretty excited about it. When I'm not sneezing and coughing and so on.

My one resolution this year, if I have one, is to not only finish this novel, but sell it. I feel a lot of the time like I am circling the same drain day in and day out, going to work, eating the same thing, watching the same pointless TV to unwind my head, going to sleep and back at it again. Maybe selling a novel won't change that. Probably won't, except it will keep the embers going. Some days they seem pretty faint.

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