Fresh Eyes

It's written. It's edited. The book is almost done. Everything but the final chapter that is.

Now, I plan to set it aside for two days and not think about it. I'll look at it again on the weekend and hopefully it will be a wrap by Sunday night.

One Nocturnal Son of a Gun

My hours have become ridiculous. I do my best work between 9 to 5. The other 9 to 5.

Intro

The wind was tearing through his hat, rustling the straw and biting his face. The snow was falling sideways. And there he was freezing: A battered leather briefcase, crummy leather gloves, and a black jacket that he’d scored in Sweden for twenty bucks.

He squared his scaly shoulders and looked around.

He was in France, on a bridge that was covered in snow. To his left was a cavernous drop of hundreds of feet to a frozen river, to the right: same thing. He was in the middle of the road, in the middle of December, at midnight and no one was around. Behind him, the Swiss border was closed.

Jimmy had a briefcase and a bottle of gin. He gnashed his pointed teeth in the chill. He was so tired he was delusional. He had been on the road for over twenty-four hours. Hitchhiking. Blitzing Europe. Trying to migrate from Sweden to Spain in one shot.

They’d dropped him off at the border about an hour earlier, and he started walking across this bridge for a place to catch a ride out of sight of the guards. No cars were coming through, so he turned back, and by the time he got there, the border was locked down.

He was stuck.

This is what you get when you drop all attachments. You never know where you’ll end up. This is what you get when you surrender to the fates, like a sailor at sea. You get adventures. You get a taste of the universe. And sometimes, you get stranded.

He stood there for about an hour. He turned blue. His fingers were freezing. This was no place for our lizard. When, suddenly, a brown delivery truck pulled up. This dude jumped out, in grey trousers, with his urchin hat in his hands, like something out of David Copperfield. He ran sprite-like to the guardhouse and picked something up. He punched in a code on a keypad and the gates slowly opened. Jimmy chased him down in the sleet.

Back to the Front

It's all down on paper: Just under one hundred chapters (about 350 pages at this point). I've done a once-over edit.

Now I need to go to back to the beginning and really sift through it for the real gems.

More Sea Monsters

How's It Coming?

I know, I know, it's been a while since a post. I've been busy, but this thing is taking forever. It's soul-wrenching work.

Either way, I'm hoping I can have a first draft ready by the end of the month.

I ran into someone the other day who can put me in touch with a publisher, which is sweet. Also, I'm looking to print a couple hundred of my own to start. If anyone knows a cheap printer in China, let me know.

Status Update #4

Yes. I realize that I am now 11 days into extended time.

The first draft is still not done.

I am editing Chapter 53 as we speak.

All the chapters are written, it's the editing that's tough.
Either way, I'm at 53. I'll work my way up to 100 and then back through the whole thing.

She's coming together nicely.

Spidey Senses

W+K are onto something and I want to know what it is.

There is something about their Nike ads that strikes a primal chord.

Every time, around 10 to 15 seconds before they show the logo at the end, you can feel it. Something. They create a physiological reaction through sound and image alone.

They create emotion.

Sometimes it’s a chill up the spine. Sometimes it’s that lump in the stomach, reverberating heartstrings, the sinking crest.

But you feel it. You feel something, every time, in exactly the same spots.

I want to know how they do this. I am dying to know. Hungry. I want to capture the smell of glass.


This one it's the 50-second mark. If you watch it from the beginning with complete focus, you get a cold chill at exactly the same point, every time.



Same deal. If you lose yourself in the character: Chills. Guy Ritchie directed this one, so maybe that's part of it. I love the music.



I always show this one, but it's fantastic. This one you get the tug around 0:23.



0:42. Love this music too.




What's the secret? Our empathy to raw, real human emotion? The choice of music? The editing?

I have to get back to writing. But this is what my writing needs.

Freelance English Copywriter in Hong Kong

Life's not all beer and skittles, sometimes we have to work too.

So if you are looking for a freelance English copywriter click this link.

In the meantime, it's been a while since I've posted some ads:

Strange Hours

I do most of my writing between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. It's quiet and I have the place to myself.

It seems like they are always doing construction in Hong Kong. Everywhere you go, it's jackhammers and honking horns. It can drive you nuts. So I work at night, and get woken up early by traffic, and jackhammers, and honking horns.

So, yeah, I never sleep.

Extended Time

This is the first deadline I have ever missed in my life.

Let’s face it: A month to write a book from scratch is tough.

I need a few more weeks.