Someone once wrote that Hell is a blank screen. Surely I must have sinned something terrible because I spent a better part of the evening in Hell. But redemption lies in the clicking of keys and busy fingers…so I exited Hell one word at a time.

A new story is due, this week, in my short fiction class (as well as an upcoming reading). For both, I’m writing the prologue to my thesis. That’s because, this week, I make the big shift to pretty much working on this epic thing (the one I conned my committee into thinking I can accomplish) full time. I’ve known, from the start, what the first and last sentence of this thing is…it’s just a matter of connecting them and meeting in the middle.

Agony. But, I got the first bit of it written. Which I guess is a big step. At some point you have to roll up your sleeves and realize that art is equal parts craft. That means work. That means just doing it. Daydreaming and waiting for inspiration to strike is all romantic sounding and well and good…but it’s usually a line of BULLSHIT…and, as I illustrated in the last post, writer’s are born to make things up and we can just as easily lie to ourselves (“I need more research before I can write” “I’m not in the proper mood” “I didn’t get enough sleep to do this chapter justice”). A good story is made up of dreaming and work (and caffeine…LOTS and lots of delicious caffeine).

Not to badmouth dreaming…I’m slanted more to the dreamin/art side of things – I’ve just come to realize the importance of craft (otherwise you have all fluff and no skill) and that’s what I’ve tried to hone here in Springfield (though laziness often wins out…but the teachers keep giving me good grades and so I keep being lazy). I already know dreaming…I learned how a long time ago…the trick isn’t so much learning how to dream, as it is not forgetting how, despite “growing up.”

That all being said…I have a lot of research to do this month (HA!). I may have just lied to myself. And I believed me.

In news today…GIANT SQUIDS ARE TAKING OVER THE WORLD.

Also, HERE’S AN ARTICLE by the CBLDF (Comic Book League Defense Fund) on how the current and lasting administration will affect free speech and what someone might do to help. The CBLDF is an organization that raises money to help fight bullshit cases against artists, forms of expressions, or poor comic shop owners that face angry mobs of closet Nazis. Their website is HERE.