I’m still running behind, but at least I wrote tonight, instead of socializing and slacking. Currently, 9 days into this year’s novel-in-a-month project, I have 12,260 words written. (Supposed to have roughly 15,000 done.) I might be able to get fully back on track if I manage a boring weekend. (Unlikely.)

Tonight I cleaned up a scene in the present, where the protagonist arives back in his home town, and wrote an 8 page scene in the past, where a family pet dies a gruesome death.

Some of this is difficult shit. The modern version of the protagonist is like an imagined, twisted version of me, sans therapy. Much of what he does is just fantasy, delusion or paranoia. Everything that the childhood version remembers is something that I remember. That’s one of the challenges of this novel project for me, but that’s also what makes it cool and worthwhile.

This year’s novel-in-a-month is underway. I’m calling it His Black Wings. (Working title.)

By the end of the day, I’m supposed to have 11,655 words written. Currently I’m at 8,730…I’m already falling behind. (More coffee, less wine.)

Last year’s novel was easier to write; everything just flowed from beginning to end, for 52,000 words.

This year’s project is more ambitious: It alternates between the troubled main character’s present and past. Some of the scenes just spring to life, while other times I sit here wondering what the next major scene will involve. As soon as I figure that out, I’m rolling along, even if it’s something simple, like “goes to visit his brother.”

I need a few high impact days this week to stay on track.

There’s something magical about seeing an old picture of yourself, from a time so far back that you literally cannot remember being in that place, wearing those clothes or committing those acts. And yet it has to be you…the evidence is incontrovertible.

So much of my early life involved capes. Also, I remember this dart gun. When she told me to put it down once, I shot my great grandmother with both spring-loaded barrels. She won, by promptly whipping me. Daaaamn, Granny.

Ah, Freeport. This is the ditch I would sit in while my dad welded offscreen. Sometimes he’d send me to the bar across the street (seen here with these ‘vintage’ autos) for soft drinks or a burger basket. Good times!

Me and mom, on the see-saw. One of her many hair styles.

Doesn’t everyone love booth photos? I do.

A friend brought me this from his childhood collection. It’s him, his brother, me, my brother and a mutual cousin my friend and I share via marriage. Seeing this was surreal, since I didn’t meet my friend for another 6-7 years after this pic was taken. In other words, at some point, well before we hung out and knew each other, he and I were photographed at the same little kid birthday party.

Last one is my mom. She’s quite fetching here.