Not in the Mood

I'm not in the mood to blog, so I shall. 

Gurney Halleck (from David Lynch's Dune): "Moods are for cattle and loveplay, not for fighting!"  But my mood is marred by running out of my anti-depressant.  I've been five days without and I'm in profound withdrawal.  I never expected this!  I feel completely wired, as though from speed or way too much coffee.  I have bizarre flashes like electric shocks, and moments of inexplicable rage.  But my neighborhood pharmacist has kindly provided me with three days worth (which is by law all he can provide me with, sans Dr. communication) and I've taken my dose for today and so hopefully things will return to normal soon...

Jared Leto now claims that it was all a joke.  He's the joke.  What a pathetic attempt at free publicity.  What a jerk.  He probably is gay, but now nobody will ever care again.  Asswipe.

I'm wanting to do some graphic arts.  I recently bought this great new artists pen from Rotring.  Sounds like a venereal disease, but it's a fine arts manufacturer in Germany.  "Rot" auf Deutsch means "red".  Ring, I believe, has the same meaning in both languages.  So "red ring" which may be a reference to a target?  Dunno.  Anyway, I have a desire to do some portraiture in ink--stark black and white--with a decidedly gothic bent: I envision portraits of Lizst, Wagner, Poe, Lovecraft and Oates.  If/when I accomplish this, I'll post results here, as well as on my Deviant Arts site.  (I'm not posting a link because my gallery is currently <empty>.

Here's a little toot of my horn: My novel A Diamond in the Ashes (currently unpublished) made the final round of judging for the Pacific Northwest Writer's Conference Literary Contest.  It's a mixed blessing.  On the other hand, my novel After the Fire did not.  And I consider After the Fire by far the superior work.  So I'll be interested to look at the critiques.  Perhaps my judgment of my own work is severely flawed. 

Maybe I have to stop considering myself a literary artist and just write fantasy and gothic horror and be done with it.  Maybe I'm over reaching.  Maybe I have to learn how to tell a story first before I try more sophisticated subject matter, tone and style.

Finally, I had a letter published in the Seattle Times (scroll down to the very bottom).  It's a funny ha-ha one-liner that they love to publish from time to time.  Still, it was a concept that would occur to any fan of Star Wars so I knew that I should submit as soon as I could.  And voila!  In print.

A little background--Tim Eyman was the personality behind the referendum to vote on (and presumably repeal) the recent gay rights bill passed by the Washington State legislature.  He showed up in Olympia Monday dressed as Darth Vader to announce his failure to garner enough signatures to get the referendum on the November ballot.

The thought did occur to me that Eyman may have hijacked the referendum effort from the evangelical Christians who started it in order to impose his own political gravitas and then sabotage the entire effort  In which case, gay Washingtonians owe him a debt of gratitude.  But since that was too cynical by half, I decided to go for direct ridicule.

And that may be the problem with my fiction--I don't utilize the more accessible meat.