Early, but none too soon.

     It's 530 in the am, and I should be in bed because sleep the last few nites has been rather hit or miss.  I know it's bound to catch up with me sooner or later, but it just wasn't happening.  I want to be curled up in bed, trying to make up for lost time.  Something isn't letting me.
     So I get this bright idea to make my way down to the shop and get some work done, but then I don't want to do it.  I cruise around facebook for a bit (mine and Avenue's), reply to a few emails and messages and book a band, watch a video and read a poem...but I just don't want to put in the time for me.
     Two days strong, and that desire to do it, but I'm like that old proverb: If there's a writer alone in the forest, is he still a writer?
     Not that I don't already love the feedback I'm getting from you faithful followers, but where's the love, really?  If I can't even love it for what it is, what good is it?  I've got Han's delusions of grandeur every which way I pilot this thing except that I can't get the ship off the ground, let alone get the hyperdrive to work right.  I could go on all morning with Star Wars metaphor...
   Here I am, though, puttering away, hopefully a bit more streamlined than the last post because I can't bear to be not good.  I need to write.  I just have to.  If you only knew the hemming and hawing I've been doing these last few weeks alone, you'd be hard-pressed to believe that this isn't some ghost writer working on this page.
     But I've got a ghost of a chance.
    

Vaugest of Vagrancies

Yah, so...about last nite.  Sorry about all that.

This whole blog thing is a new step for me, but I'm willing to give it a try.  It's sort of like a gift to myself to prompt me to write more, and hopefully hear from others whether or not they think it's any good.  I need to hone my skills and would like some way to garner a little feedback, so if you wouldn't mind...  Think of it as a little gift to the both of us: I write and you respond.  It's a win-win, no?

I'd like to be just a bit more succinct with my endeavors and try to improve my focus.  I've never really been trained in the art of writing as I thought I should be, but maybe that's not how it works.  I'm into a whole bunch of stuff as well, so I'm hoping that I can show off some of the things that I like and we can all get sharing a little bit more.  As long as it gets me writing.

But here's the real deal: I'm working on this comic.  It's this huge, sprawling magnum opus that I've been cooking up in my head for a long time, and things are finally gathering up enough steam for them to gel together and stick enough that they're beginning to make sense.  All in all, there're about four volumes in varying lengths that I'd like to tell, and you to hear. 

But the proof is in the pudding.  I'll tell you now that I've pulled out the plum and have entirely too many damned metaphors and enough cliches to shake a stick at.  I've been a bad boy.  I've not followed my heart for such a long time that at this point it's all going to flood out and splatter onto the page.  I think it's going to be a mess.  Yet I've faith.  I've had time to gather all that is in this noggin, now I just need to make it make sense.

Christmas in (The Last 4th of) July

"I shall sit here upon this rock, this new cornerstone of American civilization.  I will gaze across the barren lands with arms spread wide and I shall harbor those which this world has left behind, brought forth, through pain and suffering of the worst kind.
"Upon wings of glimmering, golden mirrors reflecting the true shape of things to come--as a phoenix rises from the ashes, life begins anew."

     So began a most epic saga half-a-lifetime ago...and I'm really just getting down to it.  Funny that I mention it, too, because one of the other members of this itty bitty life o' mine just walked into the coffee shop I closed down a half hour ago to write this.  He'll show up from time to time in pictures for a project I'm working on, too: he plays a big part in the cast of characters, not just in real life.  To quote "Throw Momma from the Train" as he leaves:

"All you ever do is sit there at your typewriter and
peck peck peck 
just like a fat pigeon."  

  
     Truer words were never spoken.

     "What is all this rambling for?" you may ask yourselves.  "Can he keep it up consistently?"  "Traveling Tales of what?"
     These are all fine questions that I will one day hopefully answer here or elsewhere in the aether.

1.  I ramble because I care.  If I don't, you (or I) might miss something important that could leave us stranded in the previously stated aether.  Truthfully, though, I have an ultra hard time focusing my attentions onto a keyboard (sans typewriter) because my fingers travel faster than my thoughts.  'course, maybe that should be the other way around...  Anyhow, I edit a bit as I write, too.  Not very well, either.

2.  I'm gonna try really hard to be on my game with this.  At least every other day.  I figure that if I've got people's attention (or keeping my own?) I'll do this for as long as I can.  I need an outlet, and though I despise sitting in front of a computer, I figure I'll be here anyhow.  Might as well do something productive with it.

3.  The Traveling Tales of Waybackwhen (TToWBW) is a little something I've been working on since time out of mind.  Seriously, I've been working in this in one form or another since I read Robinson Crusoe in ninth grade.  (Followed by reading The Stand, you couldn't expect this to not be slightly off, could you?) 
     So, TToWBW has taken so many twists and turns in the last fifteen years that I hope this newest venture into comics and graphic novels is just the ticket.  I've seem to've gotten all my personal junk out of the way (and having an illustrator helps) so now I've got time to devote to this story mostly wholeheartedly.

     What's it about?  Tune in to see...

     The Oracular Beard