I, Writer

Last night on the GO-Train I got some advance writing done for my experimental "I,Death" online blog-story. I recently entered the August 9th entry, continuing the disturbing tale of Peter O'Mallick, a teenager who is attempting to come to grips with some sort of death-curse that surrounds him. It's a story filled with sex, profanity, violence and death -- it's sort of like the evening news broadcast but without the politics.

I'm rather enjoying taking that story and reworking it -- I'll likely also start re-writing the sequel to it that, IMHO, is a far better piece of fiction to begin with than "I, Death" ever was.

I'd originally written "I, Death" back when I was a young teen. I was fascinated with "Twilight Zone" type stories (still am, of course) and also fascinated with Death personified. I'd enjoyed Piers Anthony's On A Pale Horse -- my Godmother had even sewn up a wonderful "Death" costume for me to wear on Halloween -- even though I hadn't been going out for Halloween, I still liked to dress up to scare the kids. My buddy Greg Roberts sat at the top of our front step handing out treats. I'd hide around the corner, the kids would walk up the stairs, I would quietly step out from hiding. When they turned there I was in my costume with it's dark hood, the skull mask on, a scythe in my hand -- priceless looks on their faces . . .

It feels like my writing is all over the place . . . and I guess that it is. I'm currently scrambling to get through reading submissions and get back to contributors for North of Infinity III: Parnassus Unbound, finalize the layout for Stephen Graham King's Just Breathe (a brilliantly written biography that I'll talk more about soon), continue working on my werewolf novel, maintain the ongoing online story of "I, Death" as well as work at re-writing my "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep" tale.

No rest for the wicked, I guess.