I’ve always been introspective, but lately I’ve been working to go beyond simply dissecting my life and why I live it the way I do and instead trying to craft some meaning and purpose into it. It’s actually mirroring what’s been going on with my main character. For the first two books Konowa has essentially been a slave to his emotions. He reacts to external forces and they, not Konowa, dictate his responses. Now as the trilogy reaches its climax he’s finding out who he is and choosing how he responds. What I can’t tell is if my character is inspiring me, or I’m inspiring my character (and yes, I’m aware that only one of us is really real…uh, me, right?) Whichever way the energy is flowing it’s working for both of us.

In other news I do not hear voices and twin ghost girls are not appearing down the hall. I am a little concerned, however, with the red paint in the elevator…

I go in phases with watching television. In the past ten years I’ve lived a few of them – intermittently – with no television at all. Turns out life does go on. In fact, it improves. Every time I turn the television off I rediscover so many things that I otherwise would have missed. I’m girding myself for another stretch of no tv and the challenges are significant.

First, I live alone, and having the tv on as background noise helps fill up the space. Second, I spend all day every day reading, writing, and editing, and my brain needs a break and television is soooo easy. I imagine I could come up with more reasons, but I don’t want to. I want to turn the box off and keep it off and use my powers for good and that sort of thing. Of course, television is really a gateway drug to something far more sinister in its ability to eat up time. The internet. It’s like tv except with several billion channels. I used to read one actual newspaper in the morning, maybe two. Now I can surf the net and read the news from around the world. In the span of an hour I can bounce from BBC to CBC to The Times of India to The New York Times to Der Spiegel to Le Monde and on. Despite all of that I don’t know if I’m well informed or simply stuffed with data.

It’s not going to be easy, but the rewards are great. I’ll never make it to the Luddite hall of fame, but in my own way I’m trying to take back my 24 hours a day and use them on my terms, not that of network television and internet providers. So, guess I’d better turn this thing off and get –

Went to the Gracie Mews this morning for breakfast and had real French toast. Two pieces of light fluffy goodness. Read the paper, chatted with Anna (she’s originally from Poland and is studying to be a nutritionist and doesn’t give me a hard time if I order bacon once in a while), jotted down a to-do list, and now am back home gearing up for work. Ah, the wild life of a single guy in New York City.

I’m staying at a hotel in Mechanicsburg, PA near Stackpole HQ and thinking about my breakfast. Specifically, I’m wondering why I ate the French toast. It wasn’t really French toast, it was more like strips of rubber colored to look like skin carved off a dead whale washed ashore.

Two weeks ago.

I did have yogurt and an orange, but the consumption of the French toast that wasn’t suggests I do have a self-destructive streak in me.

In other news…er, now I’m thinking about whales made entirely of French toast, their blow holes spouting maple syrup with blueberry eyes. Hmmm, I wonder what the psychotropic properties are of really bad French toast?

Here’s a link to a 2:30 minute trailer on his art. His work is easily identifiable with insanely muscular men, voluptuous and barely dressed women, and really big…swords 🙂

http://www.deadline.com/2010/05/r-i-p-frank-frazetta/#more-39412