I thought as I intend on going through a publisher with this and won't get to put my usual warnings on the copyright page, I would start talking about how I'm writing it.
I had started We Gave the World Synthpop Dreams way back when I was a freelancer. Despite what some of my relatives may think (along with my child's old school), freelancing was and remains a real job. I was putting a lot into freelancing and my fiction suffered as a result. I do know people love Middle Age Rae of Fucking Sunshine and Reptile, but neither were the story I wanted to tell. I could have left We Gave the World Synthpop Dreams as is. It is a completed novella, but it is not the story I want to tell, much like Rae and Reptile. They both suffered because I was under high amounts of totally unnecessary stress at the time of writing them (I think I've talked about Rae in interviews). So I was already aware of what stress could do to my ability to write fiction. Although freelancing was stress I signed up for, it was still stressful and with the hours I was putting in, especially during lockdown, it was toxic stress (but only temporary, I weighed up the pros and cons of it).
In a world after all the legal changes, I know I will come to a time where I will be less busy and phone the police on those causing me unreasonable levels of stress. So, although the freelancing was stressful, I was trying to advance my career in the only option I had at the time (I think my son was around nine when I started, maybe eight, but not old enough to be left home alone at the time and then the lockdowns started). I have three of these novellas: We Gave the World Synthpop Dreams, That's Where All the Magic Is and The Daisies That Open At Midnight (this last one was started before I secured a few freelance clients, but there were too many creeps around plus trying to regain lost skills for me to focus). I decided that given my circumstances at the time, to not publish any of them and come back at a later date to make them into the books I want them to be. There is less pressure on me to provide proof of everything I am doing and to accomplish (although there is some pressure which I talk about later, there isn't pressure to accomplish anymore).
So, I've gone all the way through We Gave the World Synthpop Dreams now and part way through That's Where All the Magic Is. I am putting parts of That's Where All the Magic Is into We Gave the World Synthpop Dreams (I may use the title elsewhere but it won't be for a Neon Dream story).
And I've started writing around the story that is already there and moving things around so it is less confusing and less immersive. I thought the story should start in the 1980s with one of Gloria's debauched parties. As I'm a bit of a prude, I've done a lot of research into the Golden Age of Hollywood, plus a few of the bands from the 80s really did seem to live the life and looking at a lot of fictional versions of these types of parties. And I'm writing the opening based on a lot of research. There's always at least one cunt though that will think I'm writing from life (these people really need to be locked up for the safety of the rest of us). Due to the fact that I wasn't born until 1984, I wasn't even physically able to attend drug induced orgies in the early 80s because I didn't yet exist.
Then there's a lot of cocaine in this part of the story (and through out, going to need to work a way around cocaine and heroin incompatibility issues for the next part) - I doubt anyone snorting that much blow would be able to get it up. But it is fiction, so we can ignore how excessive drug use can result in erectile dysfunction (Viagra, which later appears in the story did not hit the market until the late 90s, I think 1998, but don't hold me to that - a lot of my freelancing work involved writing medical leaflets and ghost writing for pharmacists, before moving onto marketing medicine, hence the Viagra, there's somewhere where life overlaps fiction, I was writing about Viagra for freelance).
And that's what I spent the past few weeks doing. I like to think the world has moved on and if I don't appear busy people will leave me alone, but since the mid-lockdowns people have been absolute cunts again. I've managed to escape any harmful "help" but people still don't understand that I'm extremely busy and need time to think and research and reflect to write the sorts of novels I want to write.
And I've also been working on other projects. This first part of We Gave the World Synthpop Dreams has hints of horror and sci-fi but it is largely transgressive fiction. This is something I haven't written much of since Xanthe (I can't remember the name of her story, but it was one of those Holy Shit! a prude woman wrote this! stories, it was only a short one at any rate) so I have a full blown transgressive novel going on in my notebook at the same time. And as I think sex scenes should be erotic, no matter how disgusting they are, I have a short sci-fi bizarro erotic piece also happening in that same notebook. Then I've also been drawing and working on a practice cut up. Then I have a personal life, a career and a home life. Sometimes, I just need to rest.
And what was the point in putting myself through university and then arguing with the cunts around me (including my child's old school before anyone says oh you made a choice to be around those people - I didn't chose to be treated like that by a bunch of teachers and any other school I looked at treated me in the same condescending manner, and all the other drama occurring at the same time from very self destructive people that according to my child's old school also knew better than me - there was no escape until the law changed) if I can't have friends and a social life? I may not have any money to go out right now, but I've been speaking to my actual friends. They aren't like what has been going on in the horror community (and why I stepped away) with the same types of self destructive and very shallow people I was so thankful to finally be able to phone the police on when the law changed. It feels so nice to be able to have time for my actual friends again. Never take your friends for granted.
And on that thought, it is Sunday. Jessie-cat needs her bath and I'm cooking roast dinner and me and my son are going to watch a film and relax a bit before the week starts all over again.
I had started We Gave the World Synthpop Dreams way back when I was a freelancer. Despite what some of my relatives may think (along with my child's old school), freelancing was and remains a real job. I was putting a lot into freelancing and my fiction suffered as a result. I do know people love Middle Age Rae of Fucking Sunshine and Reptile, but neither were the story I wanted to tell. I could have left We Gave the World Synthpop Dreams as is. It is a completed novella, but it is not the story I want to tell, much like Rae and Reptile. They both suffered because I was under high amounts of totally unnecessary stress at the time of writing them (I think I've talked about Rae in interviews). So I was already aware of what stress could do to my ability to write fiction. Although freelancing was stress I signed up for, it was still stressful and with the hours I was putting in, especially during lockdown, it was toxic stress (but only temporary, I weighed up the pros and cons of it).
In a world after all the legal changes, I know I will come to a time where I will be less busy and phone the police on those causing me unreasonable levels of stress. So, although the freelancing was stressful, I was trying to advance my career in the only option I had at the time (I think my son was around nine when I started, maybe eight, but not old enough to be left home alone at the time and then the lockdowns started). I have three of these novellas: We Gave the World Synthpop Dreams, That's Where All the Magic Is and The Daisies That Open At Midnight (this last one was started before I secured a few freelance clients, but there were too many creeps around plus trying to regain lost skills for me to focus). I decided that given my circumstances at the time, to not publish any of them and come back at a later date to make them into the books I want them to be. There is less pressure on me to provide proof of everything I am doing and to accomplish (although there is some pressure which I talk about later, there isn't pressure to accomplish anymore).
So, I've gone all the way through We Gave the World Synthpop Dreams now and part way through That's Where All the Magic Is. I am putting parts of That's Where All the Magic Is into We Gave the World Synthpop Dreams (I may use the title elsewhere but it won't be for a Neon Dream story).
And I've started writing around the story that is already there and moving things around so it is less confusing and less immersive. I thought the story should start in the 1980s with one of Gloria's debauched parties. As I'm a bit of a prude, I've done a lot of research into the Golden Age of Hollywood, plus a few of the bands from the 80s really did seem to live the life and looking at a lot of fictional versions of these types of parties. And I'm writing the opening based on a lot of research. There's always at least one cunt though that will think I'm writing from life (these people really need to be locked up for the safety of the rest of us). Due to the fact that I wasn't born until 1984, I wasn't even physically able to attend drug induced orgies in the early 80s because I didn't yet exist.
Then there's a lot of cocaine in this part of the story (and through out, going to need to work a way around cocaine and heroin incompatibility issues for the next part) - I doubt anyone snorting that much blow would be able to get it up. But it is fiction, so we can ignore how excessive drug use can result in erectile dysfunction (Viagra, which later appears in the story did not hit the market until the late 90s, I think 1998, but don't hold me to that - a lot of my freelancing work involved writing medical leaflets and ghost writing for pharmacists, before moving onto marketing medicine, hence the Viagra, there's somewhere where life overlaps fiction, I was writing about Viagra for freelance).
And that's what I spent the past few weeks doing. I like to think the world has moved on and if I don't appear busy people will leave me alone, but since the mid-lockdowns people have been absolute cunts again. I've managed to escape any harmful "help" but people still don't understand that I'm extremely busy and need time to think and research and reflect to write the sorts of novels I want to write.
And I've also been working on other projects. This first part of We Gave the World Synthpop Dreams has hints of horror and sci-fi but it is largely transgressive fiction. This is something I haven't written much of since Xanthe (I can't remember the name of her story, but it was one of those Holy Shit! a prude woman wrote this! stories, it was only a short one at any rate) so I have a full blown transgressive novel going on in my notebook at the same time. And as I think sex scenes should be erotic, no matter how disgusting they are, I have a short sci-fi bizarro erotic piece also happening in that same notebook. Then I've also been drawing and working on a practice cut up. Then I have a personal life, a career and a home life. Sometimes, I just need to rest.
And what was the point in putting myself through university and then arguing with the cunts around me (including my child's old school before anyone says oh you made a choice to be around those people - I didn't chose to be treated like that by a bunch of teachers and any other school I looked at treated me in the same condescending manner, and all the other drama occurring at the same time from very self destructive people that according to my child's old school also knew better than me - there was no escape until the law changed) if I can't have friends and a social life? I may not have any money to go out right now, but I've been speaking to my actual friends. They aren't like what has been going on in the horror community (and why I stepped away) with the same types of self destructive and very shallow people I was so thankful to finally be able to phone the police on when the law changed. It feels so nice to be able to have time for my actual friends again. Never take your friends for granted.
And on that thought, it is Sunday. Jessie-cat needs her bath and I'm cooking roast dinner and me and my son are going to watch a film and relax a bit before the week starts all over again.