COME HERE

It's been a long time, blarg.
Time to catch your ass up.

As of this day, I have four-ninths of what is now Eating the Ram's Head and Fig Leaf finished.  I've fixed her up into a new beast with the old bones of the original, and it's something I can finish and can move on from to something new once it's polished and sent out.  Four-ninths of it is polished and ready to be sent out, few minor tweaks pending. 

After it is done, I have a four-part series that jumps off of the end of Ram's Head that I'm going to start to work on.  As of right now it's called Blackeye Trip.  Imagine it as what I would do were I in charge of a campy, low-budget Star Trek type show back in the day, and there weren't no TV censors.  It's a lot more character-based than anything I've done, so I'm excited about that.

Later down the line, maybe becoming first priority after the first of the four of the above is finished, there's the experimental, possibly two-parter Detective Antipathy.  I don't know how to prime that, but it's weird and there's a lot of stuff about irreality, murder, profiling and writing.

Things have been a lot less dank since my last holiday wishes, and the day for publishing deep, engaging, warped, cute little polished up books is soon upon us.  I'd like to be posting shit up here, like a take you all through my work day type thing, essays, letters, etc.  I have a backlog of essays and such, so I could just post them, but I don't want to make promises of weekly updates as I'm hoping to keep up my break-neck pace with getting Ram's Head done.

Let me know if you want to let me know something, or talk about something, or ask something, or something! 

UPDATE

So I'm pretty much done with the writing of Ayn and I, and just have to edit and glue it all together. It's short, incredibly long for an essay, but short for a book. It's got some good stuff in it. I think when I'm done with my first draft, I'll send it to some of my friends or read it to them and then take notes and do a second draft and figure out what to do from there. I had high hopes for it, thinking it could get published, but right now I'm in a slump and thinking it sucks and everything sucks and blah blah blah.

I'm starting to get into a sprint with my Detective novel, and I love it so. It's so goddamn weird. I can't wait to hear some people's reactions to it... Also I really want to get back onto Eating the Ram's Head and Fig Leaf and having a first draft I can start editing for the send off to the publishers that will hate it. It's just such a monster. So much going on. Don't ever be thinking I'm giving up on this thing. She's gonna see the light of day if its the last thing I do.

I'm also starting a-writing a massive analysis on the Barenaked Ladies Anthology that I'm naming Buck Naked, after their first little independent tape release. This one's been a dream project of mine for a while, trying to toe the line of that ever unpopular opinion of mine: "The band that did the 'I just made you say underwear' song wrote some of the best music ever." I'll be damned if they're forgotten or just go down as that chickity china the chinese chicken band with a couple one hit wonders (oxymoron?) while the thousands of artists a million levels beneath them are remembered and praised in Rolling Stone as the best songs of the same era BNL were making music. It'd really be against the odds for me to be a part of that, the likelihood of this reaching paperback form being slim, but you don't always write for publication. If I did half of the stuff I wrote wouldn't exist and I'd be a much worse writer on account of it.

Speaking of: I'm going to be continuing my Max on Musics dealio. Just as a joke, I gave it album art and a title: "PSYDUCK AND ME" for all the songs I cover in my little fake album. I've got plenty of music I'm thinking about doing and not just Barenaked Ladies songs too! Here's a link to my first Max on Musics, wherein I sing and write an analysis of the song I sing, in case you haven't checked it out yet and want to know what I'm tawkin about:

http://journalswilson.blogspot.com/2011/10/i-can-i-will-i-do-max-on-musics.html

The five year anniversary of the death of one of my favorite musicians is coming up in December, and I hope do an epic Max on Musics of his songs and write about them and him in general as a memorial type thing. His name was Logan Whitehurst. He was and continues to definitely be among the best of the best in the Geek Rock genre, and died of brain cancer in 2006 when he was 29. He was just really goddamn good, with music ranging from silly little songs about a lizard and fish escaping a pet store and noodles dueling to the death, to deep introspections on non-existance, working a dead end job that drives you crazy, saying goodbye to music because it can't earn you a living, and saying goodbye to living itself. And keep in mind that all of the death stuff and every song I'm referencing was way before he was even diagnosed with cancer. His stuff just varied that much just because that was the kind of guy he was; not stuck in any sort of mold, just writing and performing great music.

He's one of those very rare artists that can make you both laugh your ass of and seriously cry like a goddamn baby. I can't think of any other artist anything like him, and hopefully I can pay fair tribute to him on here in the upcoming month. Either way, he's well worth checking out, and most of his music is free on his website. If you're interested, I'd suggest first looking at How Does an Electrostatic Motor Work? onward to Earth is Big and his unreleased stuff, and if you don't mind spending ten bucks on itunes, buying Logan's magnum opus, Goodbye My 4-Track:

http://www.juniorscienceclub.com/loganarchive/

(Archive of most of his work, compiled by the great Jason Steele)

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/good-bye-my-4-track/id97302059

(Goodbye My 4-Track)

Sew. I hope to be doing that soon. I'm thinking of posting some excerpts from Detective Antipathy, and maybe some finished bits from Ayn and I after she's all drafty. Maybe it's time for me to do an update on all my various projects, like I did in one of my first posts... Also I found this thing on my seat in my English 101 class that I'm writing about. 50 bonus gets for the lucky lad or lady that guesses what that is.

Things I'm Working On This Exact Moment & Their Progress

Ayn and I:

I've been rapid-fire writing this since I've started, and I'm about at the point of getting it all arranged and edited, as I wrote it out of order on the final doc, the rough doc and my journal. It's looking like this will be my first non-short story finalized and set out for publication.

Detective Antipathy:

I don't want to ruin this, because I've been changing this a lot since I started writing it my sophomore year and I've only started the shape it's taking now recently. It's really fun to write. A lot of experimentation and delicious insanity dripping imagery.

Eating the Ram's Head and Fig Leaf:

This one here's my baby. I started writing it for my senior thesis last year, with the idea that I'd be able to have a finished novella by the due date of the project. It wasn't long before I knew this was more than a four-weeker. Even when it's not the top priority, I'm constantly thinking about it and taking notes and continuously cracking away at it underneath everything else.

Back of My Mind & Misc. Other Stuff:

Mule: Sequel to Eating the Ram's Head and Fig Leaf

Lorem Ipsum: Collection of journals.

I've also got several letters I'm writing. A couple to friends that'll just go in my archive. One to the Grandview theater about a shadow-casting show I saw that might go up here.

Two more days 'till college. That might slow down things here. If it does, I've got some things to keep posting in the mean time, drawings and comics I made throughout high school and the like, perhaps some old papers? Wait and see, next time: on Lt. Meatface the Dream Warrior of the Cosmos!!

Introduction

Hello, my name is Max Wilson, and I want to do what writers do. Just to give you all a bit of a preview; I am going to be writing on this blog about my various books and projects, as well as about the writing lifestyle in general, and do some typical journals and essays on a myriad of topics. My books and projects right now include:

Eating the Ram’s Head and Fig Leaf

A gonzo-noir, science fiction epic about the end of humanity. Much much much more will be written about this later.

Ram’s Head also has many stories within the story, sort of S. Morgansternish, but bigger. They include:

Hickory’s Eating the Ram’s Head: Man’s Journey against God

A hero’s journey story in the vein of traditional Greek mythology about the birth of humanity as a higher concept.

The Blessed Ego

This will be essentially me channeling Ayn Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness. It’s a love letter to economic-conservatism, with some allusions to the fake author’s relationship with his dying wife and friends.

Mule

What I am sure of what this will be so far, is that is the first continuation of the original novel, will take place during the final hours of Earth, and not as in “OH NOES THE BOMB IS GONNA BLOW!!! RUN BOOMER!” more like there are only a handful of living organisms on Earth, and they’re just sort of hanging out, not really sure of what to do. It’ll be a lot more science-fictiony than the original book, sort of like Phillip K. Dick and Half Life, and it will be more bittersweet than Ram’s Head, in spite of the subject matter.

OUTSIDE OF THE RAM’S HEAD SAGA:

Detective Antipathy

This is a weird one. It’s a pulp-noir about a detective, and how he loses it, essentially. At first it’s very typical detective fiction about the pursuit of the Truth……then it takes a turn as that concept is tested by a force that exists and operates outside of the realms and rules of human knowledge.

A Powder Keg

A novella about a hyper conservative radio station in the 1930’s and its threatening downfall due to criminal charges, and a Johnny Carsonesque, late night variety show host who sets his sights to make fools of the popular station.

The Hell Baron

A dinner conversation between a Southern Baptist preacher, and a man he eventually discovers is the Devil.

That's all so far, I have another update on what I want this blog to be (and not be), soon. Thanks for reading :D