Hi!

I am still alive. Slightly. 

Fuck everything, but in an optimistic sense. What am I doing with my life? Why am I living it like this? Is this genuine and authentic to who I am? I don’t think so. 

I completely stopped writing my short story collection, but I would like to revisit it in the future. Instead, I spent December and January writing This Bites. I wrote a real book. I never thought I could do it, after perhaps ten years of trying to write a full novel and fizzling out each and every time. Then, one day, I just did it. The first draft is terrible, but I immediately started the second draft, and I think…it might actually be kind of good? I keep asking people to read the first act so I can get feedback, and people keep saying they’ll do it, and NO ONE DOES IT. DUDE. No one reads my shit when I ask them to. Just say no!

After This Bites, I’m going to be writing the sequel, and I have a rough idea of the story I would like to write next (assuming I don’t suddenly feel inclined to dedicate myself to a new writing project). I’ve been consuming some pushier movies and books. I had a Cronenberg kick earlier this year; I think my favorite is Videodrome or Crash. I’m looking for more splatterpunk media to consume—I want that to be a strong theme in my writing, but not the primary one. I’m not sure what that will be. Genre research is something I’ve been focusing on as I write the second draft of This Bites and outline the sequel. I've been reading Drawing Blood and Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite, someone I am discovering is a favorite writer of mine for his unflinching exploration of taboo themes. It is very fearless writing. 

I feel a strong connection between This Bites and: Crash, The Summer Hikaru Died, The Secretary, and Exquisite Corpse. This connection is mostly on a thematic level, and I love the unbearable tension woven into each of these narratives. The dark and exploratory nature calls to me, and I feel this may be the genre I will reside in as a writer: transgressive, taboo, focused on the underbelly of society. I hope someone would be able to describe my writing as raw or uncomfortably honest. I want it to be a bit uncomfortable. I want it to make people think and push their own limits (as well as mine). I think most people hide their dark parts, and I want us to feel exposed and represented in all our good and bad. No one is a saint. 

I am going through an odd period of internal transition. Perhaps I’ll dive into this more in another post—I am feeling rather hasty right now and am just trying to get out a quick update so my mind can be cleared. I may regret it, I may not. I’ll be dead one day. I want to stop feeling like an observer and live my life for me. 

H. Salt