Too much improv

I overloaded a bit this last week.

Class on Wednesday, show on Friday night, 3 person practice group Saturday, Thank You, Robot practice to day 12 to 3, and then a somewhat random practice group from 4 to 7 today. I had plans to go to a music think at 9pm, but that was apparently cancelled. Now I am wasting time in Starbucks before a thing at 10pm. (There is one persn out there that will admonish me for this evenings plans. Yeah, yeah. But my other plans fell through and if I just went home, I was going to be depressed. Better into the lions' den than to hide in the corner. Besides I'm feeling kind of strong.)

Anywhozits, I've had yet another brain switch with improv this weekend. Nothing huge, but I am seeingthings more three dimenstionally. Imagine that I have spent the last 2 months staring at a square. I've been staring and staring, and I feel I understand the sqaure in total but my hands just can't quite hold on to it. On Friday night I saw something strange about the square, something that didn't quite make sense. On Saturday, I was shown the other side ofthe square, the mirror image. It was disorienting at first to see this other square that was in fact the first square but entirely different. Today someone gently proded me to turn my head. And I suddenly saw that it wasn't a square at all. It's a damn cube! Now I can see three sides of the cube, some sides clearer than others. The sides are all part of the same object, all the sides are connected and rely on the others, but they are different. And I can only see three sides. There is another three I have never even seen (assuming that it is actually a cube and not some more complicated type of object... god forbid that it might be a four-dimenstional cube!).

Yes, stupid analogy, but that's as close I can get.

The novel continues apace. It took me much longer to getto the body than it should. I am going to have to cut a lot of my flashback stuff. The problem is that (1) the flashback stuff is easy to write because I can just expand on the first portion of Genesis, and (2) I have been thing about the flashback stuff for going on 15 years. Not all the time when I first became fascinated with the story of Lilith, Eve and Adam. I think back now to how one dimenstionally I used to think of the story. Ah, the heady days at college! The story means a lot more to me now... and no longer reads like a sensitive straight white boys rant against the patriarchy.

I just need to devote time to the "present" portion of the book. I got to the body too far in. The next thing is that I need to get to Eve. I've been riminating on her for awhile. She used to be so hard for me to concieve of. On the surface she seems so weak compared to Lilith's strength. But now she appeals to me. Both of them share a deep sadness, and their is a kinship bewteen the two. I have been thinking that Eve would only be in one scene, but I am thinking that she my come along for the investigation.

Adam is still dodging me. He needs to be there, he is very important, it is just hard for me to get past what a sheep he was/is. All of his choices seem so shallow and passive. I know that the hook is him as father. (Admit it, he has to be a crappy husband/lover.) His moment has to come from his love for his sons and his attempt to be a good father... and we know how that turned out.

There are some other major points I haven't quite figured out. Like who actually killed Cain. Yeah, the thing that the whole novel hinges on. Sigh.

Neil Gaiman (yes, two Gaiman mentions in one day) recently commented on finishing the first chapter to his new novel.

And today I finished writing Chapter One of The Graveyard Book, and it's a real book. I know it's a real book because there are all sorts of things I don't quite know yet, and I can't wait to find them out.

Happiness.

It's so nice to know that the feeling continues.

The Brick Testament

Those who know me know that I am fascinated by the Bible, in a way only a hardcore agnostic can be. Why? I don't know. In part because it is tied to so much Western literature and storytelling. There are also so many stories to be had. But a lot of it is that it is such a mess of contradictions and oddities. It still reads like a book in the middle of being edited. Or what a wiki-system would create.

I also love Lego.

So it is no surprise that I regularly take a spin through The Brick Testament, an illustrated Bible told through Lego. It is getting amazingly complete.

The Preacher coming to HBO

(Okay, people. Stop leading me to cool stuff today. I need to get to work, not write 300 words only to be torn way to post in the ol' blog.)

Garth Ennis and Steve Dillion's brilliant comic book Preacher is being developed for HBO.

If you are unfamiliar with Preacher, it is the tale of Jesse Custer, a down-and-out Texas preacher, who is possessed by Genesis, the bastard child that came from the coupling of a demon and an angel. Genesis had escaped from being imprisoned in Heaven. (You see, God abandoned Heaven.) The possession grants Custer with huge power, perhaps to rival God himself. Including the ability to command people to do whatever he says. A memorable seen early on has Custer telling a sheriff to "Go fuck yourself." And the sheriff does. He has to... um... cut it off first, but he does.

Custer goes to search for answers with the help of his old girlfriend Tulip and the heavy drinking Irish vampire Cassidy. Along the way they cross the Saint of All Killers, secret Papal organizations, scary Deliverence-esque family members, a Kurt Corbain-esque youth (if Kurt had been less talented and hadn't succeed in his shotgun suicide and only had horribly deformed his face... getting the nickname Arseface... and then become a happy optimistic fellow), and the totem spirit of John Wayne.

Imagine Buffy meets The Davinci Code meets Kerouac meets The Hills Have Eyes meets The Prophecy, written by Hunter S. Thompson, The Marx Brothers, and Thomas Aquinas, and directed by Tarantino.

Thank God (or whoever) that this is being sent to HBO.

C.O.B.R.A. presents the 2007 Idiotarod

As it is late in the evening, I won't go into this in much detail right now. Just that the Idiotarod... the greatest sporting event to grace this planet... is coming in just two months. TWO MONTHS! January 27. Mark it on your calendar. Mark it well. Start "obtaining" those carts. Start building that team. Get ready.

Go to the site. Talk on the forums. Sign my butt. Teach me to read. (A cookie to the first person you names that movie.)

Because this is the Idiotarod C.O.B.R.A. style. The world will never be the same again.

(I apologize for all of the labels... The Idiotarod crosses so many boundaries.)

KHAAAN!

I am spent from writing all evening. It's going a bit better.

I wrote some fun scenes tonight. Conversation with all of the babies left in limbo after the Church got rid of Limbo. The torture of a lawyer (no, worries, Papa Six... I promised a friend I would torture her ex... and he happens to be a lawyer). A glimpse of Heaven. Last night I wrote a sex scene, which is such a pain, but at least it was funny and not horrific. A lot less drinking in this book. Almost none.

I hope to get to Mexico tomorrow or Sunday. It's going to be a combination of the wedding I went to in October and a school trip I took in high school. It will be similar to the Burning Man chapter in last year's book, but less trippy and more horrific. A combination or horrific and beautiful. That is kind of the contrast I am working on in this story. Extremes and extreme points of view. I have also turned 180 degrees on the whole Job thing.

Anywhozits (I should patent that word... I think of it as uniquely mine), I am going to crawl into bed with a pint of rocky road and watch Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan. I have never been a big Star Trek fan, especially Original Crispy, but lately I've been jonesing to see Wrath of Khan. I don't know why. It may be a reptilian brain thing.