Hold On, I’m Getting At Something

The backer copies of Asteroid Made of Dragons have all shipped and the wave is crashing down on the East Coast. By tonight – tomorrow maybe – they will have all arrived. My Facebook profile is awash with pictures – pictures of my friends with their copy, the copy they bought a year ago because I asked them to. Some have one, some have three, or five, or more. A gesture of love, of confidence, of faith and it wrecks me.

Writing is lonely. Being a human is lonely.

I don’t do well with moments of connection. Socially, sure. Joking, sure. But a real moment? Something important and true? Not my scene. We’re so unstable, the most unsuitable of symbols. How can I know the things I say are being received in the moment, in the blur of memory and sense and thinking of the next thing to say while half-hearing what you are saying now while also feeling the echoes of other versions of this conversation from before and beyond  on TV, in dreams, from splinter-blinks of fragmented now? I mean, how? Maybe it’s just me.

Being lonely is writing. A human is.

Hold On, I’m Getting At Something. This should be my coat of arms. I’ve written three books now (THREE!), and thousands of other words off in the Grand Margins.  And all in the service of this dimly perceived quest of discovery of meaning – of this THING I’m trying to say, but cannot express. Only glimpse the edges of as I travel forward and back in time. It’s hard to connect with humans – but with words, you have a puncher’s chance. This word connects to that, shapes form. Things stay where you put them. Mostly. Rime is Rime and Jonas is Jonas and Xenon loves graham crackers and Linus snores just a little bit. Now, on my desk is a red ball, the color of summer sunset and it is red, red, red. And it will stay red as long as I believe that it is red.

A lonely human is writing. Being.

So now – I see these pictures, I see these signs of love and faith. And all I can say is – do you see the ball on my desk? Is it red? Is it summer sunset or is it more of a cranberry? Why are you listening? Why are you picking up the signal? Why are you dreaming with me of the three moons that have no name and the Lost and the stupid, stupid power of friendship that keeps the dark at bay?

Being human is writing lonely.

Ah, the simple words. I’ve already said them – but they don’t land right. Thank you. Thank you. You thank, you are thanks. Thanks You. A tic, a nod, a thing we say to strangers and waiters and cats when they heed. An empty thing, not enough, a hollow gourd. A blob of ink at the end of emails and yammering sales pitches. Useless, sere, not enough. I pick up the pieces and slam them together, that’s all that I am, all that I do – all that I can do. With whatever art I have I try to say the Thing.

Lonely is being. Human is writing.

Thank you. You thank. You are thanks. Thanks are you.

Lonely human thanks you. You are writing.

Writing is you.

You are thank.

The ball is red and it is not so lonely. Thank you for coming so far with me.

WE DID IT! We got the #1 spot in the Nerdist competition! 

Thank you all so much. The outpouring of support from you guys BLEW ME AWAY. To everyone who pre-ordered a copy (or three!), I just want to tell you again how much I truly appreciate it. If I had any human feelings left I might almost be moved, but as you know I got rid of those around 1998.

THANKS TO YOU, Champions of the Third Planet will be in your mailbox or your inbox or on Amazon or at your local bookstore later this year! I really can’t thank you guys enough.

Now everybody QUIET! I have to get back to writing...

--Chris

WOW! Thank you all so much guys and gals!  My inbox just blew up!  Whether it was the movie tie in or the latest chapters I posted I don’t know, but I’ve gone from zero to 120 followers in a month and broken 100 pre-orders…I can almost feel the feathery touch of Quill publishing on my cheek!

Again thank you all for your massive support. As the old comic once said, “I wear it constantly.” But seriously I’m immensely grateful and shocked at the interest in my genre mash-up story.  I’d like to personally thank Peter Ryan author of SYNC CITY for his support, and if any of you are into gritty sci-fi thriller with a great lead character check it out!  For those of you that recently pre-ordered my book you will have already received the original screenplay of LOUISIANA BLOOD and I hope you enjoy it.

For those of you wanting a copy of the screenplay please pre order HERE as only one hundred of these screenplays will be released.

One of the reasons Louisiana Blood seems to spark so much interest is its quirky mix of a love story spanning the centuries, horror, conspiracy, action and mystery thriller within a re-imagined Jack The Ripper historical framework.

So to whet your appetites and to satisfy my curiosity I’m going to post an extract below which is in the horror genre part of the story. If those of you who favour the horror genre would like to pre-order, or just like the post that would give me a heads up on the overall theme of my supporters.  I will then do the same with excerpts from the Love, Thriller, Mystery, Conspiracy and Action parts of the story…looking forwards to this experiment.

 Okay here we go, coming up is a horror scene as the characters discuss a possible theory to explain how the hell five of the original victims of Jack The Ripper ended up in a Louisiana swamp five years after they were murdered in Victorian London!  We dip into the action as two of the Ripper suspects are stage managing one of their victims for release into polite society…it ain’t pretty! (Ghoulish laughter off stage.)

 LONDON - 1888

“It would need organisation, money and power to mobilise the necessary pieces of the conspiracy”.

A tearful couple stand next to a slab, on which lies a shape draped in a blood stained sheet. The mortuary assistant pulls back the sheet revealing the pale face of the Ripper’s first Victim: Mary Anne Nicols. The couple nod. The sheet is pulled back over and the couple leave. The shape under the sheet sits up. Mary Ann Nicols is helped off the gurney.

She uses a cloth to rub pale makeup from her face as she’s led out.

“A few willing female corpses...not a problem with the amount of unethical and experimental surgery that went on in those days.”

Dr. Tumblety operates on a female patient in a Victorian lecture theatre. Outside a hospital a Policeman watches as a woman’s dead body is loaded into a carriage.

“They’d get somebody to do a slice and dice number on them to sensationalise the whole thing...”

A BLACK carriage stands in a pale shaft of moonlight. Nervous horses vent steam from their nostrils into the freezing night air.

“Somebody who enjoys their work, and who they have a hold over...someone who won’t talk...”

Inside the dark velvet womb of the carriage somebody hacks at a body...blood is everywhere. A sharp surgeons knife glints in the dark. Organs spill across white flesh. In a deserted London side street, a bloodstained body is dumped by the side of the road from the carriage. The carriage clatters off down the street and disappears. A police whistle sounds...an officer appears, a passersby stares at the corpse.