Big Fat October Blah

I've got nothing to write since I don't even know if I'll ever finish/self-publish Exit The Skin Palace.  I was going to write a 2nd book using the characters, but since the first book in the potential series could be a stinking heap, there might not be much point.  

The 5-day long Kindle Select "free book" push for Lucid is due to kick off next week, but I'll be damned if I can find any sort of widget that differs that promotion from the normal widget.  

In the interim, I'm busy sketching characters.  Showing off my Fletcher Hanks-like drawing skills. That statement ill serves Fletcher.  Dude could write and draw and actually complete things. One up on me.  

Chapter 5 / Wattpad

Chapter 4 via Wattpad Widget

The Little Trump

In the wake of the Access Hollywood "bomb", this election story - GOP Voters Want The Party To Stand By The Donald - confused me.  

Until I performed a little self-research.  

And repulsion followed.  

I love Charlie Chaplin movies.  For all kinds of reasons.  

It might be in large part due to the fact that in my younger/more hopeful days, I regularly passed the old Chaplin Studios location on La Brea in Los Angeles.

Beyond that, the dude was a genius performer and genius filmmaker.  As far as I can tell, Chaplin and Kubrick are at the tippy top of my own personal best-of-the-auteur heap.

However.  

Where it counts, when it comes to personal actions, moral decisions, what to do with your junk and who to include in those junk-decisions, Chaplin stunk up the joint.  He sucked. He was akin to that old Hustler stalwart Chester the Molester.

There is little point in recounting what The Donald said.  But what confounded me were his supporters standing by him, even after the release of the damning 2005 comments.

Until I realized even though I know Chaplin was a child rapist, I still hold his creative output in the highest esteem.  And I shouldn't. But I do.  But I shouldn't.  But I do.  

Chaplin is a product.  The Donald is a product.  Same way sausage is a product.  And for years and years, I ate sausage.  I didn't care what went into it.  It was delicious.  And then I began to actually value the lives of pigs.  And so it changed. And now the only sausage I'll eat is plant-based. The same change should apply knowing what I know about Chaplin.  

It could be that since Chaplin is dead, and the girls and young women he inflicted himself upon are dead, I don't feel a moral responsibility to cleave him from my realm of high achievers. His is a sausage fixed forever in space and time. 

Which is bullshit.  It only proves I am weak.  It only proves that I am as loathe as all potential voters out there to admit my product has issues, is woeful/prosecutable in the way it exploits women, but I already fell in love with it.  I willingly blind myself to the monster and slouch beneath the comforting weight of his mighty tentacles.   

There's So

Twice in under two weeks I've committed the same crime.  

First, in the manuscript for Exit The Skin Palace, I typed the following:

"Dawn.  There's so many dead things here.  Right here."

Word for Mac 2011 failed to highlight the horror.

Second, on my website, on the fetus-stage Exit page, I typed:

I'd call it a YA supernatural novel, but at this point there's so many four-letter words in the manuscript maybe I should think of it as a Teen supernatural novel.  

Speaking of four-letter words, I aired several when it finally dawned on me that my apparent new go-to phrase 'there's so' is not only hideous, but that in at least the latter instance I signed my name to a crime the grammar police should forward to the proper prosecuting authority.   

There's so = There is so.  There is so = LOLcat.  

An inability to write/type/edit worth a darn throws a woeful spotlight.  I am tainted.  Perhaps permanently.

Even worse, my two biggest Internet crushes are on David Foster Wallace YouTube interviews and any Merriam-Webster's Ask The Editor video featuring Emily Brewster.    

I don't think either superstar grammarian would think highly of a would-be novelist incapable of taking the time to sound out sentences before committing them to the (digital/any) page.  

Pegged By Sarah Palin

Lucid will be free on Amazon from 10/16 - 10/20.

Before and after, it's all of $.99.

The Lipless Gods remains FREE.  

God knows what I'll do with Exit The Skin Palace once it's done.  

Maybe I should post my unpublished novel The Colonists somewhere.  

It does feature an otherwise unemployed woman paid to dress up like Sarah Palin and peg a guy. That kind of shit has resonance in an election year.

In fact, here's a choice selection from The Colonists.  Enjoy:


     “I can't collect unemployment, which you knew already," said Irene.  "Dumbly, or hopefully, I quit my job in California and then moved here looking for something new.  I knew the economy was stinking when I did that, but I had to.  Fight or flight, you know?  Now of course I can’t find work.  My folks send me money, what they can, and my mom is at retirement age although given all the chaos in the world she isn’t comfortable not having a job.  My brother is one of those people that thinks everyone should build a cabin and stock it up and learn how to kill animals and plant a garden and all that shit because the dice are rolling, rolling, and can only come up snake eyes.

     “But anyways, in order to afford,” she motioned to the interior like a game show hostess, “all this splendor, I’m dipping my toes into the underground economy.”

     “Ok.”

     “I’m not selling drugs.”

     “Well that’s good.”

     She took a big sip of water. 

     “Oh, hold that.  After I tell you what I’m about to tell you you might think selling drugs is preferable.”

     She told him about attending a Halloween party last year.  She dressed up like Sarah Palin.  Irene had a kind of square shaped face, the same hair color and hair cut, the same kind of body as the former Alaskan governor.  She won some kind of stupid party prize, most desirable, basically, but put in a much more crass kind of way.  So months later, she gets contacted by someone, friend of a friend of a friend, that had seen her at the party.  This guy thought she was awesome.  Awesomely hot.  They met and he proposed a business deal of sorts. 

     “Once a week,” continued Irene, “I dress up like I’m about to address the party faithful, hair up, those glasses on, lipstick, nice businessy clothes, and when I get a knock at the door, I let this fella in, and maybe five or ten minutes later,” she paused for effect, “I’m pegging him.  You know what that is.  Do you?  Of course you do.” 

She swept her hand to indicate the living room floor. 

“Right here.  Right where those standing fans are.  He would be facing my shins or if he looked over his left shoulder he could look you in the eye, say ‘Hi, Stan.  Name’s Phil.  I pay Irene $150 a session to fuck me in the ass with a strap on.’”

Lucid

Lucid is now in the process of being removed from Smashwords, Apple, Barnes & Noble, and any and all other e-retailers.  

Except for Amazon.  It is there for the having.  $.99.  1/4th of a latte.    

Once it's no longer available anywhere other than Amazon, I'll take advantage of the Kindle Select 'free book' promotion and it'll be available for free again.  

I'm not sure what to make of the whole Smashwords v. Amazon hullabaloo.  Lucid has been downloaded a healthy amount from the former platform, but the only review I've received is on the latter platform.  

I like feedback.  Feedback makes me feel less lonely.  

Plus, I want to see if I can make more than lunch money on writing. If I can double my lunch money, that'd be something.