The Void

On February 17th, I finished* my novel.

(* – kinda sorta almost, I’ll get to that later)

This novel I’ve been working on & off (mostly on) for a looooooooong time. So long I don’t want to tell you. Basically, I really made major progress in the last 3-4 years. I started out as a poet trying to write a novel and if you’ve ever been in this particular situation, you will understand how you can work against yourself.

Sometimes you just fall in love with playing with language and the narrative gets away from you because you’re too busy with abstract imagery and not clarity. Hence the above doodled illustration of me falling over the abstract cliff.

Mark has read it twice and macheted away with his red pen and a muhaha expression plastered on his face. After digesting and incorporating some of his edits from his second read-through, I’ve given my 600+ page manuscript to a few intrepid readers and the feedback is positive but I still have more work to do. But it’s not impossible, it’s not infinite.

So since February 17th, I’ve been struggling with The Void. What do I do with my writing life now that this immense undertaking seems to be coming to a close?

It’s a strange and unnerving feeling because this first novel of mine has taken so long, how can I ever start a new novel again? Imagining my life without perpetually writing this novel is a struggle but also a relief.

But I’m close so close, so I’m not that afraid of The Void. No matter what comes of this novel, I will be so happy to have finished it.

She’s as Pretty as Brian Jones Was

There are certain songs you live inside of – She’s as Pretty as Brian Jones Was by The Drovers – is one of those songs.

It’s music that fills the intangible space between your head and soul, where you discover something different and compelling every time you listen to it.

It is a song that haunts me, the needle prickling the turntable in my head. Of course, without even having heard this song, it would have had me at the title. Brian Jones was indeed very pretty, (I read somewhere that he and his girlfriend Anita Pallenberg used to wear each other’s clothes) but he was also a very menacing character. So before you listen to a single note, this song has the potential to be dark and layered. An enticing combination.

And when you do listen, you are immersed – everything is psychedelically saturated in this song from the dreamlike vocals to the lush instrumentation which adds to the seductive plunge.

If you’re lucky enough to be in Chicago on March 15th, the Drovers are playing a reunion show and hopefully they’ll play this epic song.

And maybe one day I can find the official lyrics to this song so I can check it against what I think they are.