New Moon

It’s common for creative types to fixate on certain symbols, ideas or words, and repeat and reuse this same concept or detail throughout their body of work. It’s human nature, obviously, but it’s the specific details that are unique to the individual.

One symbolic hangup of my own is the number 18. Though it’s by no means the only reoccurring idea in my works, it’s often the first number I pull if I’m in need of one. Often times it’s just because it’s a self-gratifying reference, or occasionally I wield it with full intent, yet frequently it’s simply because it’s the first thing that pops into my mind when shit doesn’t really matter and I just need to write a number down so I can finish a sentence.

To fully explain my fixation on this number would take a treatise that I’m not fully emotionally prepared to do at present - nor is it neither here nor there. That’s an entry for another time.

For now, I can manage to surmise two of the easiest to explain characteristics of my personal magic number:

Firstly, it was on this date, October 18th, exactly half my life ago, that I entered a very specific chapter of my adolescence that continues to color much of my writing for better and ill. I look back on that day as one of the most important days of my life, though explaining why publicly would undoubtedly rob the memory of its power.

Secondly, the 18th Major Arcana in the tarot deck is The Moon. Often when I use the number 18 I’m secretly invoking the image of the moon, and when I use the moon, it of course represents what the moon has always represented throughout the whole course of human consciousness.

I began using this number in my writing and visual art long before I had even begun fully digging into the full potential of what it represents to me personally and possibly to the rest of humanity (unlikely as it is). One could read my old writings long before my pretentious years as a student studying Campbell and Jung and see that I was using the number 18 in a pinch as needed.

And this was the reason why two years ago on this day I made a low key post on my personal Facebook account that I’d be publishing my first novel, Codetta, within a year on the same date. Of course I did not meet this deadline, and I have since deleted the post out of shame - which these days I find hilarious.

Now it’s October 18th of 2018, so certainly I must have something to show?

Fuck no. So it goes. Hopefully this blog post will do.

It was in the late Spring a few months before my self-imposed deadline of October 18th 2017 that I realized I’d be unable to self-publish my book by that date while achieving the quality I wanted of my debut novel along with all the other things that come with publishing - a rad cover and some basic marketing materials, for example.

However, even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to reach this deadline, I fervently continued to work on improving Codetta regardless. It was actually around the 18th of October last year that I was moving to have the manuscript do one last round of professional copyediting, when disaster struck: my stupid car needed repairs again, worse than ever before, and my funds were drained just days before this last round of editing, which I was forced to cancel.

Heartbroken (wallet broken too), it was then that I set Codetta aside, feeling too defeated to make a post on any social media updating what little readership I had of the reasons for the delay. This was also around the time that I came to the realization that I absolutely abhor social media anyway.

Yet I never gave up on writing or even publishing Codetta eventually. Instead I spent 2018 focusing on improving my personal quality of life and my skills as a writer and storyteller. While my measurable output has been less than 2016 - the year that I went batshit, writing two additional manuscripts, several short stories and over a hundred pieces of micro fictions, for a word count somewhere in the neighborhood of 200k; I have instead focused on the qualitative understanding and approach of the craft of writing. This has meant mostly doing a lot of reading on the matter.

In addition to being in a significantly better place than I was a year ago, and exponentially better off than I was two years ago, I’ve managed to spend a great deal of time working on a few projects that I’d be happy to write briefly about now.

First, let me state that I currently work with some amazing people at a way cool office in downtown Birmingham - it is honestly the coolest place to work that I could hope for. More importantly, I’m in a happy and supportive relationship with another intensely creative soul (Codetta’s first fan, actually). I’m proud to say that money and overall life satisfaction are no longer the issues they’ve been in the years since I started writing seriously. These are achievements, it took time and effort to get here, and I’m extraordinarily lucky and grateful.

Next, I was very happy to help some of my closest friends launch a podcast about tabletop roleplaying games, one of my all time favorite hobbies, and a pastime that I credit as helping me get to my current level as a writer. Please check out their show Whose Turn Is It? hosted by The Earth Hotel. I merely recorded the earliest episodes on my shitty little usb mic, cohosted a bit, and edited out the garbage; it was a good time, and I’m proud of them for continuing on, so please give them a listen if that’s your thing. I love all the folks involved with the show dearly.

I’m also proud to say that 2018 was the year that I wrote my first feature length screenplay. Not my first completed screenplay (ask me about the 90’s “kids in charge” family comedy throwback I wrote back in college titled Butler Dad - what a goof), but the first screenplay that made it to the 110-120 page count that’s expected of actual screenplays. The script is called Killer Sexbots and it’s about sexbots that kill, as you can imagine.

Another long time friend and coworker of mine (who also has a love for 80’s b-horror) was working on a project and I was happy to up my chops and exercise the techniques I’ve learned this year by penning the actual screenplay. I was going for something like an updated Frankenstein for the modern tech industry with a bit of a feminist twist - was I successful? I have no clue. It will likely be getting some edits in the coming months, I’ll keep ya posted.

Currently I’m working on my 4th novel manuscript. You may be asking yourself why, as I certainly am from time to time, and all I can say was that the plan was to write a screenplay and a novel back-to-back to I could figure out which path I really wanted to focus on and so I’d have the opportunity to utilize all the storytelling skills I’ve acquired over the past year, so when I do return to Codetta it will be all the better for it.

The novel is currently under the work in progress title of “Moonbusted” - which will certainly be changed upon completion. If this particular novel is ever published, it will be so under a pen name. For reasons. Mostly genre. Don’t think too hard about it.

The new plan for Codetta is to dedicate 2019 to heavy restructural edits and a more disciplined attempt at indie publishing. I will use this new website to do a better job at keeping what readership I have updated - that said, blog entries will always take a back seat to progress on the books themselves, but I won’t leave you entirely in the dark this time.

I had planned for a long while to make this post on this date and to write it with strength and hope. However, the state of the world around me has caused me to alter my focus quite a bit. Is Codetta, a silly young adult novel, really the best I can do for a world that’s already in so much pain? I don’t have an answer right now, that’s another entry for another time. All I can think to do is stick to the plan of realizing Codetta as my first officially published work, because I need to exorcise the lingering angst of adolescence and become the writer and adult that I know I can be. I need to bring a resolution to the chapter that was foreshadowed 15 years ago on this same date. Once that’s done, I’ll go from there.

Please keep an eye out for progress on this site and for further updates on all of my works. Thank you so much for reading this.

And for those who may be curious: The Moon tarot card generally represents the subconscious and all that springs up from it, such as dreams and creative energy. It can symbolize an inner journey, a path we walk at our most vulnerable, revealing our fears, our truer selves and ultimately illuminating the way to the courage to overcome.

May we all find that courage.