This year is tearing ragged holes in my routine. I write, I stop for a day, I write again for a few days, I stop again. When I sit at the computer the words emerge as they always have done; when I’m away from the keyboard my mind is blank, devoid of any real-world impulses or energy or cues that I can latch on to and gain motivation from and build in to whatever world it is I’m trying to give a veneer of authenticity. I’m reading more than ever, but it doesn’t have the same effect as overhearing a conversation in a bar, pressing my face up against new situations and cultures or listening to other people spin their own stories.
It’s a lean period for inspiration, in other words. And that barren-looking stretch through till spring doesn’t look too promising.
Book of the month: DISPATCHES by Michael Herr. "Going out at night the medics gave you pills, Dexedrine breath like dead snakes kept too long in a jar." How do you top a sentence like that? It tells a mini story, sets the scene and overall tone and plays with grammar conventions, all within the space of 20 words. Essential post-Ballard, pre-Gibson proto- neo-noir New Journalism.
Cosmic music beamed from Space Radio Luxembourg:
the magic bus.