ALTHOUGH I'M JUST THE COMMON BREED

Okay, so I have to ‘fess up. I had my ass handed to me this morning. The person who had initially started talking to me about the Faye Wong article mentioned in my last entry read my last entry, and was justifiably pissed. I had already realized I had overreacted to the e-mail when I read it again later (and also realized my original pitch wasn’t too far off the mark for what was being asked), but when I had my actions pointed out to me, it was immediately clear what an ass I was being. To make it worse, I instantly realized that if I was the editor in question—or more accurately, if I had introduced someone to James Lucas Jones, and said person posted about J-Lu on their blog like that—I’d have been furious. Shit. So, my apologies to unnamed magazine. (And my thanks to Charlie Chu for offering to assist me in my Faye Wong search.)

As I get into the homestretch of The Blind Assassin, I find it increasingly hard to stop reading. I will likely be done this weekend. It’s been such an inspiration. My Novel #3, They Are All In Love, has some technical elements in common with Atwood. The themes of doomed, sensitive thinkers. The playing with text, using newspaper clippings, etc., to illuminate backstory. I am in awe of this book.

Atwood’s protagonist, Iris, is an older woman who is suffering the perils of her age—and I realized that old age is not unlike adolescence. You know better than everyone, but no one will listen to you. Your body is turning against you, rebelling in unpredictable and inconvenient ways. You just wish it would all be over. So many of us focus on our teenage angst when writing, but maybe we could all just change the ages and quit cluttering the market with nubile woe.

Been percolating on an idea for a graphic novel, which previously I had intended to be a screenplay—but it’s not too soon to switch gears. It’d be a little more abstract, I think. It’s telling would be more clipped, stylized—but it could work. I had one artist in mind, but in talking to another artist, am thinking maybe I would want that artist instead. Really, that artist would have been my first choice, but I didn’t think I could get said artist on board due to time; ironically, that artist would be into it and it’s less likely the artist I was going to replace them with would be available. The twisty snake of creation, eh?

Also finished Ai Yori Aoshi 4 about twenty minutes ago. Nearly a record, but I think Man of Many Faces is still the fastest manga rewrite I’ve done.

Current Soundtrack: misc. Suede live tracks (currently "The Power" from Norway in 2002)

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