Storms, Tuna Melts and Writing

from Flickr

PART ONE: VOLCANOS AND VIRGINS

I am waiting for the snow. It’s been a rather warm January. Snow, now. Snow now! Allegedly, there’s a winter storm dancing toward my area, where it will spread snowflakes about as it does the bossa nova with the mountains, valleys and pockets of scrub, sagebrush-dotted expanses and riparian spots. I don’t want spring-like weather during my winter of discontent, dang it. How dare the weather gods omit winter weather for my area this year?? What’s that about? Do I need to find a virgin and a volcano?

There’s a volcano up the road a bit [ several, in fact. Mt. St Helens, Mt. Hood…] and I’m sure I can find a virgin on the local Boise Craigslist. It’s amazeballs what you can find on there if you’re really, really looking.

I “finished” Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane. Which did not go at all in the direction I thought it would.

Does writing ever go in the direction you think it should?

Oh my, every January post of mine has been about either cannibal bikers or some vague political rant. I haven’t been nice or positive!

I’m going back over my many words today. I think half of it is pretty okay and it doesn’t make me want to spork my eyes out with an actual spork while shrieking that I can’t write. That’s good, right? The second half, now…eh. Er. Maybe it’s ‘better’ than I think? Or far far worse?? Oh!

Who are Fine Young Cannibals, Alex?

PART TWO: THE TUNA MELT CONTROVERSY

I treated myself, yesterday, to a tuna melt from the Starlite in Vale. It’s my weird craving. I hate fish and onions and yet…that sandwich is full of both fish and onions. I don’t get it, I don’t try to understand my fatal flaws in wanting a hot tuna sandwich full of onions. I haven’t had a tuna melt in ages, like, oh, years. [Did I ever mention how abysmally poor I am and that I’m about two inches from being an actual agoraphobic?] It was way spendy and I felt SO GUILTY all afternoon. And into the night. I should have spent that money on orphans and owl rescues.

from Trip Advisor. The Starlite in Vale, Oregon

To eat tuna– that stuff that comes in the little cans, packed in oil or spring water, as a tuna fillet or chunk of tuna ordered at an eatery or taken home from some supermarket makes me openly gag– I have to doctor it up. I do mean kill that tuna taste. Lemon, sweet pickles, garlic…so that the few bits of fish mingling with glumps of mayo–

the grossest of the condiments; just gross, BRB, throwing up a bit–

doesn’t taste like tuna. At all. It tastes like sweet pickles. So why do I crave tuna melts?

Weird tangent. Okay.

Also, that tuna melt I ordered to go…was not that great. The at least two other tuna melts I’d ordered there, in years past, were good. Tasty. Tangy and oniony. Hot mayo. I think I have some issues and problems, oh my. Yep. Anyway. That sandwich I’d ordered and taken home did not…live up to my memory of how good the Starlite tuna melts are. Maybe I’m now cured of my tuna melt cravings. And will crave kale and cucumber sandwiches on GMO-free artisan bread baked by a collective of earth-loving vegans who keep tuna fish as pets, not food.

So. I will wait for snow, mourn that iffy tuna melt and read over my collection of words.

 
I have a full day ahead.

 

THE SILVER STATE

 

from the Plate Shack

Hi again! I am ovaries-deep in Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane, my aggressively feminist scream against the patriarchy. Come back here! I am, wait for it, just kidding a wee.

I JUST NOW noticed that if you put ‘conservative’ and ‘Christian’ in front of your name, you can get away with anything you want. Like, oh, treason, chasing porn stars around with a Forbes magazine that features your own daughter on the cover, refusing to treat gay folks medically, deporting brown people mostly because they’re brown people, making it hard or impossible for swathes of people to vote in elections, blah blah blah dee blah dee blah.

I’m gonna switch to that magical and all-erasing R and then go on a murder spree. Where I murder, in the name of Jesus, everyone I find objectionable, morally repugnant, disposable and a drain on our resources, which should only go to oil companies and bald eagles.

I want that statement of ‘very fine people on both sides’ to apply to my side, a’course, only.

Oh. Shithole countries. Lest we ever forget. Shithole countries is how 45 referred to Haiti, all of Africa, El Salvador…and probably a host of other places. Why can’t we have more people from Norway come here…was, I believe, 45’s lament.

And most of actual Norway started puking or laughing right after that. Or so the liberal media claims! Don’t check with CNN, they’re in Killary’s pocket! NBC works directly for Soros! ABC, might as well be We Hate Trump Wah network!

from History.com and the History Channel’s Vikings. Lagertha–Katheryn Winnick– leading her troops into battle. 

You know, “Vikings”. I guess they can leave their socialist shithole of a country on their longboats and invade us and take our gold, our women and our land. Like oh, they used to, way back when. i viking is, I believe, the term used, to describe those raids, where, I assume, the term ‘viking’ originates from. Maybe we should ask Europeans about that, since they still seem to have history classes at their socialist hellhole places of indoctrination…

from Vice

Oh! Our gubbermint is shut down. [America, in case you thought I was Canadian.] Which is, somehow and laughably, passed off as the fault of the two or three Democrats still holding office right now in DC. Ummm???

 

 

We also, yes, had Fake News Awards, compiled by Pumpkincunt AKA Stormy’s Spankmonkey.

Yep, everything’s a go if you put an R behind your name. Good to know.

This has now become normalized. It’s normal for the American king wannabe to publicly go after news organizations…as it garners them ratings and cash when the White House does so. I noticed that. It’s a national version of Yahoo Answers right now. Fuck you, lol versus no, fuck you, lol.

Which draws in viewers on both sides in record numbers! It sells papers, it brings hits on websites, it creates smokescreens when actual shittery is brought forth or some piece of truly heinous, unAmerican legislation gets rushed through.

But.

I digress. I meant to post a small update on my rewrite of a gritty novel into a more commercial-friendly, happy, funny, light-hearted sweet-esque dark fairy tale romp.

Novel! Must focus.

The ideas churn through my brain meat, oh yes. I am tying up this, that, the other, so it all makes a sort of sense that Western lit readers really seem to prefer in their Western literature.

Unlike real life, where things just happen and entire threads go nowhere and people do things without a tragic backstory to explain their every last little action in the present…my novel happily chugs along picking up easy-peasy happy little this and that to explain why X is X.

As my novel is art and not a ‘real life, let them see the long hairs on the beauty’s chin, sort of effort’, I think it best I strive toward a coherent three-fourths sort of project. As it will never be whole or perfect and is that not the entire beauty of novels, writing, art itself?? That the artist never declares, weeee, that’s perfect, never gonna obsesses about that one sentence in that one paragraph ever ever ever again!

Of course, that’s how we got those three weird and awful Star Wars prequels…so. Grain of sand, babies. Grain of sand.

from Nevada Design. 

Oh. So. I got a flash about the Snitty Ratballs and the Glitterbugs of Boise, Idaho. What if the Ratballs are…oooh. You’re gonna have to wait! But it was HUGE. It was BIGLY. I had to go back, to nearly the beginning, and INSERT tidbits to support the story that reveals itself in tidbits to me throughout the day. What if Amy Octopus and Vance Romance came to Winnemucca because Boise had been…ooooh. Oh yes, I have actual thoughts where ‘Glitterbugs’ and ‘Amy Octopus’ march through alongside ‘should I microwave a burrito for lunch or make a sammich’.

I did get a bit political this time around but I also managed to swing it back around to my desperate bid to fill my silly time on this earth with writings about cannibal bikers and the Silver State. Surely, that’s worth a bowl of oatmeal? As ever, thanks for reading and BUY MY BOOKS. They’re awesome. Awesome!

from Easy Rider. The Telegraph. 

 

The January of my Discontent

 

from Twitter. A lion figures in my story, a lot. As metaphor and deus ex machina and convenient convenience. Yay!

The snow remains a teasing little flirt, hinting she might show up but then sending flipping rain or fog or record-breaking temperatures instead. I sigh! Wherefore art thou, snow? I needeth thou! I enjoyeth walkies in your depths.

I went outside just yesterday. Spring, allegedly, decided she wished to park her buttocks on Eastern Oregon like the unwelcome crackwhore she can be at times. Get thee gone, Spring! Blue skies, mild weather, mud. What the eff??!! I left the pavement and nearly sank to my ankles in sticky goo. What the effing eff???!!! No! NO! This cannot stand. Snow, stop teasing us here and arrive in big white pretty snowflakes that we will curse with many curses once we have to go anywhere.

An update. On Remarkable Women.

I am on Chapter Ten. Yes, go ahead and applaud and cheer and bust out the Keystone Light, Icehouse Brew edition. [I bet you think I made that up…]

Yesterday, I was fuddling about, after my abortive attempt to go for walkies, when I had an actual epiphany of a moment. What if the Snitty Ratballs already….HA HA HA HA HA. Joy. My mind threw forth a hoary old chestnut of storytelling and my heart just started singin’ arias. Wheeee. Because that hoary old chestnut works. It glides somewhat neatly into place and it won’t take much tweakage to incorporate it back into the narrative. Yay!!!

Snitty Ratballs? Wha?

I’ve set up a DYSTOPIAN afterworld, so I can yank up names from my Silly Name Generator all I wish. They’re a fable within my dark fable, so to speak. Intrigued? Mmm!

I read, in a cynical and tired bid to drum up business for my words and phrases, that one needs to advertise a book before it’s even conceived. Start banging a giant set of virtual skins well before you actually write anything. Marketing. Everyone has talent! MY imaginary iguana has talent! It’s the marketing end you need to master and dominate and tie up with its own panties.

Anyway…

Where was I?

Ah, snow, a hot January and my current Important and Real writing project.

from the Nevada Travel Network. Fallon, NV. Obviously before my recounting of current events takes place…

I’m humming along, as they say. I’m enjoying myself as I type words. I’m giggling most foully at certain portions and then self-censoring at other portions because…cannibals. I’m challenging myself to come up with new words and such that people would toss about after some world-wide fuckitall war had happened. I’m looking up stuff about Fallon, Nevada, which, for some reason, presented itself as Ground Zero of my dark and now slightly funny and almost light-hearted romp of a tale. The Top Gun school is nearby. They have petroglyphs in the hills nearby. Farming community, small town, an hour from Reno. Cottonwoods. A bird sanctuary. Carson River. I’ve been there. Most of my hasty research won’t be tapped. But it’s there. It’s there and that’s a comforting feeling.

Okay! I need to return to Disney-fying my cannibal bikers versus the three old sisters Magnum Opus. Excerpt? I never thought you’d ask, my dears!

***

From Chapter One of the Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane:

“I don’t know. Men need things named so they can own them,” Laura said in her suddenly new restless way. “Wouldn’t it be better to be a part of the new world order than hiding from it or fighting against it? Shouldn’t we get our bottoms on the ground floor of whatever happens? I could eat some human flesh, if it had a sauce or something on it. You wouldn’t even know what it was. Some ketchup. You’d think it was pork. Long pig! That’s what human flesh is called, or was called. I think it’s just called food nowadays.”

“It’s a sin to eat other humans,” Lily said in her final, that’s it, way.

“A sin? Worse than being killed and eaten yourself? Or starving slowly to death in this darkened, dusty old house in the middle of the damn Nevada desert? Listening to two old biddies talk about birds and the Lord?? Worse than having to bite your tongue during that?”

“We are not in the middle of the Nevada desert.” Lily pointed out. “And what is wrong with you, sister? What?”

“I told you about those little blue and gold birds. I’m sure I did.” Violet studied her knitting, frowning. “Why do I keep dropping stitches? You’re an old biddy as well, Laura. You never talk, that’s not our fault.”

“I don’t want to sit here in this house anymore. And wait for them to come find us. The monsters always win in real life, Lily. They always win. There is no justice. None. Not for three old broads, not for your Jesus and not for anyone else…but monsters. Let’s be monsters. Let’s join them. We can cook their food. Wash their clothes. We’re women. We’re useful! Men think they always run the world. But women do the actual work. We could work for the monsters. What’s wrong with that?”

from Unpopped Cinema. This has nothing to do with this rewrite. Nothing. Enjoy!

 

LOOK AT ME, I’M BLOGGING!

from Flickr

Let’s get some bidnez out of the way first, m’kay?

BUY MY BOOKS. There. We all feel better now? I do!

House on Clark Boulevard, in case you didn’t see that title SPLASHED ALL OVER THIS SITE and of course, the lovely and talented OREGON GOTHIC featuring short stories no self-respecting cat hoarder would ever be without.

Surely, some of you housebound hoarders out there need some new stuff to hoard? 

I do actually have a topic. Patience, grasshoppers. Patience.

Me, myself and I have restarted, from scratch, my novel about old ladies V. cannibal bikers in the small town of Fallon, Nevada. Oh my, I can hear the intake of shocked breaths from HERE.

The Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane.

from 2 Chronicles. 

Now, the previous and finished product held elements of gut-wrenching horror and gut-churning forays into the heart of darkness. And my publisher dude just went…fuck this, what the hell is wrong with you. No doubt in a veddy posh British accent.

Posh Spice snorting about bloody Americans as they sip their tenth cup of Earl Gray for the day. Yep!

I was understandably X. [I can’t write, wah!] I went extreme! I let people see how extreme I went! [Believe me, kiddos, there’s a whole flipping ocean beneath my extreme, don’t even worry.]

“Never go full extreme!” seemed to be the lesson here…or at least, shop your extreme stuff to those in the extreme bidnez. Don’t be an Albert Fish in a world of Dr. Seussian polite murder mysteries and sweet little ghost tales. Lesson learned! 

The street in that title, THE REMARKABLE WOMEN OF BROKENHEART LANE, by the way, is an actual street name I saw in Nevada. There’s also a Chicken Dinner Lane [it might even be road] in Caldwell, Idaho. I love those wacky street names. They ‘inspire’ me.

A year or more goes by.

Imagine that flippy calendar visual. Got it? Okay! We’re hopping from a June of perhaps over a year ago to–

It’s December of 2017.

I think, ah, I need a new project. Candy Crush cannot become my new project, even though HOW THE FUCK DO YOU GET PAST LEVEL &&$. Yes, I am a bit hooked on a damn game, and it’s sad and silly. It’s sild. Slad? I’ll work on combining those two words into one awesome one. New goal for today! Where was I?

Oh. New project. Christmas time.

Lurking in my muzzy, wuzzy head is the idea that Remarkable Women needs a REWRITE. Because, allegedly, that’s what writers do. Take out something laid aside and torture it into new, probably sleazy, crackwhore-ish shapes. All to make a buck eventually somewhere in the land of the not really free and the home of the sneeringly can’t be bothered. Most of whom don’t even know the words to their own National Anthem yet have strokes over how patriotic they are. Amen, Baby Jesus. And the socket’s red blare, the fights bursting in fair! Gave proof to the lie that our frogs were still hair!

What’s YOUR NOVEL about, you ask. Thank you for asking!

Oh these three elderly sisters have survived some sort of world-ending event. They live in a falling down house and try to avoid starving to death, when they’re not trying to avoid the gangs of human monsters roaming about through the Nevada wastelands.

See why I went all dark and Cormac MacCarthy? Yeah, me either. Because that premise just screams for a lighthearted romp with zingers, witty observations about modern manners and a sneer sent toward Millenials, because…that’s what everyone else is doing.

The seed of Remarkable Women was actually three sisters going to visit their childhood home to visit the grave of their childhood dog. Which I did actually write and send off somewhere to get SOUNDLY REJECTED.

But then another moldy seed split from my original kitchen sink reality seed…cannibals, bikers, Mad Max-like scenarios, old ladies.

from Moviefone. The Road Warrior, anyone? 

I mixed Doomsday, the Road Warrior and those movies featuring women far past their prime [ anything over fifteen years old, amirite, gentlemen??]. Those movies usually starring Judi Dench, Helen Miren and Maggie Smith. Actual Dames! Kind of like those movies starring a raft of ancient creaky actors still creaking around, usually studded with Morgan Freeman or Michael Caine.

from Rotten Tomatoes.

Who doesn’t combine a bunch of rando thoughts into one big whirling shitball and then make ART from it? Everyone does it. Everyone.

from Roger Ebert

Now!!

This outing, this new rising from the dead ashes of another book, [not dead, just resting. Just resting!]

–this time taking on that dusty world of death, destruction and impossibly narrow escapes…

I find the story wishes to float along in a truly breezy, just write the damn words sorta way. I also find the story wishes to be told from two POV’s– those of the sisters and those of the bikers. I’m giggling rather foully to myself as I write so that’s a good sign. For me, at least. I’m having fun! Writing is fun! Look at me! FUN FUN FUN.

It’s foggy here so I can’t go outside. It’s also non-snowy so my rage at the lack of snowiness rages.

Candy Crush and total ass out, balls to the wall rewrite in the works. I’m not consulting the finished draft I already wrote ages ago. I reason I can make up silly post-Apocalypse names without having to copy my own silly made up post-Apocalypse names, as that just seems like cheating.

Lily, Violet and Laura, hello again! It seems like we’re old friends and you all have a fresh tale to shout in my ear. A sort of dark-ish fairy tale about ogres and witches and my own version of a Valentine to Nevada, that Silver State that oftentimes leaves a bit of shiny fake gold in my noggin. Let’s raise our typing fingers to THE REMARKABLE WOMEN OF BROKENHEART LANE. Long may she languish in don’t wanna touch that publishing purgatory!*

*If I say something like that, the only place I have to go is up. I’ve read the inspirational quotes, for the love of fucks and money. Start low and go high! You can’t start on the high road without wading through the cow pond, my dears. A bit of homespun Oreeegun wizdum. Wheeee.

New

 

from Active Calendar

Oh it’s January. Again. It’s very early in the morn. My face is swollen from some infected tooth or perhaps evil spirits sent by Satan. Yes, America is indeed trying, as hard as possible, to return to such times as those. When unseen spirits caused problems and witches sent storms and turned the milk sour. Where church and state were one and the same and the lives of peasants were owned by the nobility…No safety nets, no medical care, no hope at all, really, of anything but hard work and a harder death.

What a sour thought so early in the morn.

from Student Voices

Fie upon me for being so overly cynical. And simplistic about the Middle Ages. Fie upon me indeed! For being so overly pessimistic.

It’s by-God and Sunshine-y Jesus and Exploding-Papyrus Osiris– 20- flipping 18. Wheeeee! Unloose the mad dogs of exploding stuff!

It’s also, I understand and gather and so forth, Year of the Dog. Dogs rule and cats drool. Aye, make it so, captain.

I watched some of the Twilight Zone marathon, as you do, when you’re a near shut-in and the thought of OTHERS causes you actual bodily harm. [My face swollen. People did that. That’s how my reasoning works these days.] I had no wish to pour myself into ten year old party clothes [a shirt, some pants] and slither off to a bar. Or slink into some party, with my hair sprayed into place and my smile lopsided. Because my face is swollen and I look like something out of a sideshow right now. Not exactly at my best.

I saw the Invaders, where Samantha’s mom battles tiny aliens. Bewitched, darlings. Endora took on tiny mean aliens! I saw a woman devil, played by Catwoman’s Julie Newmar, with the cutest little horns glued to her head or however hair and makeup did it. Cute little horns!

from the Twilight Zone episode– Of Late I Think of Cliffordville. Julie Catwoman Newmar. See the cute horns??? I know!

Oh and the ever-popular one with Captain Kirk and the guy in the gorilla suit. Where the guy in the gorilla suit [a gremlin!] fucks with the airplane wing and Captain Kirk, losing his shit because no one can see this but him, steals a gun, then proceeds to cowboy up and take that gorilla-suited gremlin down town. There is a scary actual moment in that one…when Cap’n K slowly pulls that curtain back from his window and the gremlin is RIGHT FREAKING THERE. We expect it. We jump anyway. Every. Single. Time. Richard Matheson wrote this episode– Fear at Twenty Thousand Feet.

I didn’t make this up. See? There’s Cap’n K and the airplane-hating gorilla guy. Boom!

Also, note. You could both smoke on a plane and choose your own comfy-looking seat! Wah! I blame Satan. Satan turned airplane travel into a Medieval torture gauntlet. Satan!

Well, at least if you’re in peasant class. The nobles up front seem to have it made. Ah, if only my parents had been born into the aristocracy! Curse them for their low-class farm genes! I blame Satan. And witches. And Social Justice Warriors. And commies. And liberal judges.

from Bitch Media. Medieval era woodcut. This is how the current ‘murican federal sorts think storms are caused. Wish I was kidding.

Who are all controlled by Satan.

Holy crap! You can’t smoke pot, or giggle over your Gemini leanings. Fuh! Not fair, Republican Jesus, not fair!

I also saw the one with the creepy dummy, called, I do so believe, the Dummy. Yes, still on Twilight Zone. Skip this if you’re not a Twilighter. My actual urge toward those wooden things is to beat them to death with an airplane. Then burn whatever’s left because fire kills evil things. Those awful puppet thingies and clowns…here I thought a new year would magically rid me of my not-rational reaction to ventriloquist’s dummies and clowns. Oops. Buffy, the Vampire Slayer also had a dummy episode, in its first season. And aye, mateys, just as damn creepy as the Twilight Zone ep.

I also saw the one [repeat phrasing– I blame Satan] where the nasty family had to put on masks for Mardi Gras. That one. With those rather awful masks and…if you’re even a faint Twilighter, you know this one. I don’t need to do a plot massacre. [Where I badly explain whatever I think happened and then add some nonsense atop that.]

A Bewitched-Twi Zone crossover here. Larry Tate picks out a granny machine for his children. Liz Montgomery, by the way, also did an ep. With Charles Bronson. I know!

And the overly sweet robot granny one– where she goes back to the granny robot factory when the three kids waltz off to college.  I Sing the Body Electric, for those steaming at home because I didn’t name the title yet. Feel better??

Machine Grandmother admits she’ll probably be dismantled for parts…so that’s, um, good, I guess. Ahem. I Sing the Body Electric or something airy-airy in that vein for a title. [I named it twice, grumblers. Take that!] Serling did admit a lot of the eps were crap on toast. Not that one, as granny robot going back to the granny factory still makes me gulp and get uncomfortable notions about just when the toaster will admit it’s conscious and that it has some life advice for yours truly.

Now of course, I didn’t get to watch my all-time fave one, with Talky Tina. Living Doll is the name of that one. Again, if you’re puzzled and making frowny faces– Talking Tina?? What is that??– then you need to stop watching Masterbate Theatre  and take in some ‘murican old stuff. Satan probably has you in his thrall, dear.

But I did get to see a rather accurate portrayal of a god– the one where the six year old boy holds everyone around in a sort of terrorized obedience to his every last little whim. Or he’ll punish them if they don’t please him. [What the heck is this broad spluttering on about? It’s still Twilight Zone. I know.]

I also took a lot of over the counter pain killer.

And I might visit the local granny woman for a remedy against the bad spirits living like kings in my face. Hello, 2018.

Oh.

No resolutions. Nary a one. Why? I’m not going to change. I’m not magically going to turn into some Blazing Supernova who needs an hour of sleep and accomplishes more in her first give minutes than most accomplish ever in the history of ever.

The end of 2018– if I make it that far– will have me more than likely slumped on a couch, in ancient clothes that were never in style, sleep-watching the Twilight Zone marathon on SyFy. Waking up during robot granny hugging the children and assuring them it’s time she goes to a new family. Or that she’ll be sorted for spare parts for other granny robots. Mm. My illusions seem to be slowly wearing away, leaving me a slumped bit of sad bread dough clinging to life’s bowl.

I hope the witches send a snow storm soon.