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When I was a kid, one of the strongest memories I had was of being afraid of serial killers. California seems to attract the weird ones and watching 'Zodiac' by David Fincher brought that back to me. When I was 8 or 10, the biggest one on scene was Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker. There are other notables: Chuck Manson, the Zodiac killer, the Freeway Killers, Ed Kemper and 6 or 7 others.
I've always had an interest in the macabre - even as a kid, as much as stories about boogeymen who killed in the night scared me, I couldn't stop reading about them or listening when the grown-ups discussed them. When you're a kid and your sense of security, right-and-wrong and safety is punctured by hearing such things - I guess it remained with me to understand how you could remain safe with such twisted stuff going on in the world.
Now I just want to keep my boy safe. I hate to come back to something like "Sling Blade", but Karl was right when he said 'you need to think good thoughts while you're young'. Once you take that away, there's no getting it back.
Cracked 75 pages...I just checked. I don't want to make a big deal out of it but I'm very excited about that.
Took a break from writing this week. I guess it's true that you really need a chance to recharge once in a while. I'm continuing to work on several creative projects and maintain the day job and spend time with my boy. Yes, it's more difficult than I could imagine and yes, occasionally I burn out.
Caught "Iron Man" yesterday; it was an excuse to sit in an air-conditioned space for 2 hours and the movie itself wasn't too terrible. Like other movie fads that have occurred over the years, the Superhero Movie Fad of this decade will burn out and we'll do a 'Top Ten Superhero Movies That Suck' list on Radar or Blender 5 years from now.
Walking around Sunol yesterday, the Niles Canyon Railway is running and I highly recommend it if you live near the Bay Area. Niles Canyon is home to a lot of obscure, strange history. Old railway trestles and tree-covered hills hide a lot. I'd love to shoot a film here and just kind of explore the general weirdness that living away from prying eyes can bring out.
A DC Madam hangs herself. Roger Clemens is in the middle of two scandals (his steroid use AND a 17-year affair with a country star that started when she was 15). A cyclone in Myanmar kills tens of thousands. The dollar has dropped and oil is $120+/barrel. It's election year 2008!
I've been keeping the TV off - turned off my regular downloads of The Daily Show and started ignoring the paper that's in my driveway. The sea of information is overwhelming me and all I want to do is get my kid to stop crying when his next molar or eye tooth pops through.
We're setting up for another Drought Summer in California. We haven't had a round of drought in over 15 years - I guess we were due. Drought summers are gross and depressing - something that works well for what I want to address in my novel. The weather system prevents any major moisture from dropping on us - at the same time the temperatures never get that high and we cruise through to September with chilly mornings and dank, cool evenings. I always feel cheated by a drought summer - it robs us of so many quintessential experiences that summer is supposed to be about.
'My Brother, My Keeper' is a short I was working on and posted a first draft of a few weeks ago. As I'm sure you'd agree - it needs a bit of editing. The deeper I get into it, the more it seems that it needs to be a novella. You can't successfully navigate a family's politics in 8 or 10 pages. I'll re-post that in a few...
Sometimes I look at pictures and stories spring to mind - what story could you write from this? Click the picture for a larger version...
