The Strange and Unenviable Task of Writing Things No One Will Read

Well hello again, persons of the internet and various strange and inhospitable plains.

When I moved out to Portland, I decided with some concrete certainty that I would forgo almost all social media and instead keep my whereabouts and eclectic activities tied firmly to this website and this blog. What better way to experience the world, I thought! What better way to hone my writing talents while wandering poetically through my new home! Well, as it turns out all that idealized self-assessment has apparently translated to me spending a lot of time on instagram looking at pictures and posting less-than-compelling content. Is that out of the ordinary for me? Of course not. I have aspirations to be the next Neil Gaiman/Christopher Moore/Edgar Allan Poe all rolled up into one, but, unfortunately, I also have the mental faculties, dedication, and attention span of a wildly bewildered stick insect who is suddenly appalled to realize that after all this time, all of his friends have just been sticks.

Anyway. This is all to say that I rather dropped the ball on this one. And if I’m going to keep paying for this ridiculous website that no one really asked for, then I might as well put it to good use. What form this “Good use” might take? Well, to be frank, I haven’t the foggiest. In the end, it probably just means I’ll ramble aimlessly in my typical “scream into the void” fashion and just hope it makes a difference. Will it? Probably not. Seems a bit stupid to think that it would. But oh well, what else am I going to do? Go out there and meet friends and bird friends and hot babes? Enough with your fantasies, let’s be realistic.

To give you the briefest update on my life out here (because that really isn’t the point of this entry and it’s rather late and I have various sleep-related activities I’m looking forward to investing in), things have been, in the words of all great minds, ‘not too shabby’. Meeting people Is hit or miss and I have yet to fully woo the crow population of the area, but I’m happy to announce that I’ll be putting about 92% of my energy into the latter while allowing for a nice 8% reserve for talking to ordinary human beings. I don’t see what could possibly go wrong. But yes, the weather out here is nice, the rain is always present, and I’m thoroughly enjoying being caffeinated and drinking IPA’s. The latter is still a shock to me. Had you told me this would be my fate, I would’ve thought there was a better chance of me liking a Wes Anderson movie or a John Mayer album like a psychopath. But oh well, life is a strange thing and tastebuds, those creepy flesh donuts of the tongue, are somehow even stranger.

Of a little more topical interest (he said to absolutely no one, devoid as he was of even rudimentary awareness and social norms), in the last four months I’ve finished Book Seven and Book Eight in my tireless effort to succeed at my hyper-vague goal of “Write More Books Until I Eventually Fall Over Dead”. That’s something I’m rather proud of. The first book is my first bit of anthology horror that will go by the title of Confessional and features (I believe) 15 tales of horror and dread. It features the sort of spook and fear that I’ve always enjoyed, the looming, the ominous, and the tonal, but there’s also going to be more than enough evocative and shuddery imagery that I hope there’ll be something in there for everyone of the scary bent. Sadly, I can’t even imagine how poorly it will do in terms of sales. Parading around a book like that in front of a bunch of folks who’ve spent the last two years buying my somber saddo books hardly seems like a winning strategy. Then again, if I was in this for glory and money and adulation, I would’ve just become a politician who lied his way into the pocketbooks of those he’s managed to deceive.

There’s still time, grant you. Sadly, as earlier stated, I’m not the most motivated person in the world.

As for the eighth book, that is something that can actually be found here. Going by the excessively long title of “The Side Effects of Waiting for the End of the World”, proving once again that I’m not afraid to use SO MANY words when fewer would undoubtedly do, it is the first poetry compilation I’ve ever put out into the world. Featuring much of my work from the past several years, along with a dozen or so written after my move out here, it realistically is probably the closest I’ll ever get to writing an autobiography. It’s personal and tracks through my thoughts on life, existence, and the sadness that tends to go hand in hand with living. I like to think its relatable, indeed I think with art most things usually are, but I suppose I’ll have to see. It may well be that It’s too much ME, too much of that strange weird guy who you used to see in the midwest wandering a bookstore: See as: An answer to a riddle it hadn’t even occurred to you that you might want to solve, mostly because you didn’t and you don’t. But, as with all of my writing endeavors, I wrote them because I wanted to write them and I put them out into the world because, in time, I decided I wanted to put them out into the world. I think they’re quite good and, I truly do hope there will be people out there that happen to think the very same.

At the very least, there will be something out there. And it will be the sort of something that wasn’t there before.

No matter what, and even if absolutely no one reads it, that will be enough for me. I suppose, in the end, it will always have to be.

So please, throw $12 at the titanic Amazon machine (that now apparently my most liberal and most conservative friends and family both hate with equal vigor for wholly separate reasons, proving once and for all that time is a darkly comedic flat circle) and make my life a little bit easier. Who knows, you might wind up enjoying it. At the very least, you can live with a certain bit of comfort in knowing that, if I ever starve to death, it probably wasn’t because of you.

Then again, maybe buy two copies. Just in case. I’d hate for that guilt to follow you until your tragic and inevitable death.

Buy THE SIDE EFFECTS OF WAITING FOR THE END OF THE WORLD. It’s decent, I promise.