I’m fortunate to have a rad editor, one who gets me. One who sees past the brand and through the red tape and mug shots. Past the bad attitude and walls.
This book is dark, hard to write and hard to read. The challenge is through the re-write and editing process; to keep it that way. My first instinct is to make it more…comfortable.
Going over what to include, how to include it and what not to leave out, we landed on something solid. Something heavy and something disturbing.
I left feeling accomplished and on a sensory overload. I was awake, (it may have also been due to all of the coffee I consumed), I felt tuned in. I knew what I had to write and how I had to write it.
The general theme was how it was surprising that I was still alive. To this day I don’t understand it.
After spending over 13 fucking years trying to take myself out in various shapes and forms I finally knocked it the fuck off.
Recanting the nightmare that was my previous existence is no treat. While some parts are funny, it scares the shit out me. It’s foreign now; like I’m remembering a movie, someone else’s life. I want to run and scream and tell the girl not to get into the bath tub; she’ll pass out. I want to tell her not to take any more pills; her liver is going to fail. I want to tell her to leave that boy alone; he’s bad news.
But I can’t, because it’s all done. It’s all over. It’s been done and now it’s being written.
When discussing the more recently published book, we agreed upon how it seemed almost flip and naive; compared to the shit I handed her yesterday. A pile of papers describing the antics of a subhuman animal. Destined to make the reader uncomfortable and want to put it down; but keep going at the same time.
And that’s my problem with writing it. The shit makes me squirm. I want to put it down. I want to stop. I want to forget it; block it out. TKO.
But I can’t. It needs to be told and I need to purge. Get those blackened memories out of my head and start scrubbing the black powder from my soul. That shit has holes in it and is pieced together with safety pins and rusty staples. It feels like it’s healing, I think that’s what all of these more recent “feelings” have been from…
So over this long weekend I’ll be making myself sick, giving myself the sweats and reliving my past bullshit. Pulling the shreds of memories out of the shadowed corners of my brain. Not leaving anything out. Writing it down, passing it on.
Here goes nothing. I’m alive and I’m lucky; I’d be a twat not to do anything about it.
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