"The Chain" - INSPIRATION!

I'm trying to figure out what goes into my novel writing process. It's mostly music and comics, intravenously pushed into my system by amps and my eyes, and then condensed into whatever the heck my novel turns out to be like.

I have no faith in the final product.

But why should I stop? I've been at this for nearly a year now, and to stop now it just ridiculous. Sure, the plot keeps getting twistier and more insane, but fucking come on, 'The DaVinci Code'?. I think I can provide something much more less shit than that, right?

...Right?

So anyway. Music. A lot of it. Nine Inch Nails to Led Zeppelin to Tiger Lou. Not any one genre, mind. Not all of it with lyrics. Some of it could be classed as noise-- I mean, Clint Mansell's instrumental scores are immense, same as Charlie Clouser's. And God knows I love me some Combichrist (though I'll admit, a lot of their instrumental stuff-- noise-- does sound so similar... I just don't care), and Nine Inch Nails are my bread and butter-- but check out Ghosts I-IV... not what you would expect from the guy who won a Grammy with the lyric "...gotta listen to your big time hard line bad luck fist fuck...", right?

(Obviously the 'Grammy committee' weren't all "Oh, 'fist fuck'! What the music industry has been missing!", but come on. Bear with me.)

So a lot of it is music. Inspiration. Good stuff.

And a lot of it is information. Stuff I've read and I've heard or I've seen. Characters are people I know, mixed and matched and smudged together so you wouldn't recognise them. My main character is someone I saw in a low budget horror film*. I saw him, half way through writing the novel, and I was like "Holy shit, what's he doing there?" because that was my guy. That was Taylor Mahn, all flesh and blood and broken pieces of spirit, that was him right there. How am I supposed to take that?

(I took it well)

(*'Masters of Horror: Dear Woman', by the by. Damn you John Landis, you ruin me! In an alternate reality Brian Benben would play the lead role in the film adaptation of my novel.)

And then the literary references. Come on. Warren Ellis, Neil Gaiman, James Robinson. I owe my style to them. Heck, one's a comic book writer (they're all comic book writers, but Ellis and Gaiman have at least had novels published!) but that doesn't stop him being an inspiration (some time soon I might take a break from the self deprecation and post up a list of Must Read comics, but until then...). HP Lovecraft, even though I'm not as knowledgeable about his work as I should be (I'm more knowledgeable about the man), is a big influence, as anything with gods and monsters should be. I mean, come on:

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."

(That translates to "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming." for those of you interested)

And then comes the television stuff. Oh, God. This is the worst. Supernatural, for instance, is not as big an influence as it looks like it should be. I started writing this before some of the major plot stuff started moving in Season Four, and I was reaaally pissed when things started coinciding. I don't want this to be fan fiction because that would just hurt, but it might appear to be, right? Not that Sam and Dean and Castiel (with a little help from Bobby) are running around trying to stop the apocalypse, right? But still, some of the characters are present (Lucifer, for one. Duh) that can cause people to point at me and say I'm a hack.

I don't want that!

(Really.)

But anyway, I'm posting this because I'm winding down from some hardcore novel writing tonight. Things are coming together. I'm prowling around the hardest scenes to write, so obviously I'm procrastinating. But soon I'll be done. I think I'll hit a year.

I'm Going To Paint This Town Red.

What if the universe hated you? Not just this universe, but every universe in existence, all flat-packed together in a megaverse of reality, a super-structure of alternate dimensions all with you present in some way or another? What if the universe wanted you dead, and so it was going to kill you in whatever manner it could manage?

Why would this be happening?

I mean, what have you ever done to the universe? Well, let's just say you did nothing. Not the you that you know, anyway. Q: Who is the person the universe hates? A: The you from twelve hundred dimensions across, a person so bastardy, so evil, so freaking heinous, that the megaverse needs to get rid of you as fast as it can as universally possible.

So anyway. The universe tries to kill you using it's hand picked agents. The worst killers from across the world all with the same sudden thought in their heads... you must die. You wake up one morning with a gun at your head and a cocky remark whispered in your ear and you close your eyes and then--

You open them again. You're running. Blood on your hands, adrenaline pumping through your body. What just happened? And who is that following you that looks so damn familiar?

I think I have a story idea.

Hey, you, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Who wants to be famous?!

I have a checklist you need to complete if you want to be a presenter on any "hip/cool" new magazine show:

• Do you conform to the populist image of the day?
• Do you have a quirky personality?
• Do you have an irritating/grating accent?
• Do you have no shame?
• Are you prepared to sell your soul to the celebrity obsessed society that the rest of the world has become?
• Do you wish to perform acts of verbal fellatio upon those who should not be famous themselves?
• Are you easily sculpted by those who believe they know better than you?
  

If so...

Welcome to the 21st century. Enjoy your stay.

Get Your Body Beat- Let Your Blood Flow!

I'm making good progress on this. I'm adapting from prose and tearing it apart as I go. A lot of stuff is unnecessary, "show-don't-tell" and all, but there's still a lot of information that has to be conveyed. I'm not going to share the scene preceding this exchange until I'm finished, but this is a taste of what the hell is going down right now:

Larry 1): ALL HE HAD TO DO WAS WALK INTO A GUN SHOP.

Larry 2): AND WE’D ALL BE SCREWED.

Moe 3): THEN WE’RE LUCKY YOU WENT COMPLETELY OVERKILL ON HIS ASS AND TORE OUT HIS SPINE.

Larry 4): WHAT CAN I SAY? I’M AN OVERACHIEVER.

Moe 5): LET’S JUST GO MURDER THE BOY.

Rape It, Snake It, Don't Let Go!

Tonight's musical score is provided by a number of artists. I'll give you a run down of three, but I'm sure more will occur to me later (Akira Yamaoka, Deftones, Reuben spring to mind immediately).

Playing right now are Combichrist and their album "What The Fuck Is Wrong With You People?", which I described, when offering it to someone, as "angry, industrial, vulgar, heavy and horrifying." It's brilliant. I got into industrial big time about two years ago, firstly through Angelspit (the second of tonight's major contributors) and through them to this band, which is a complete mess of samples, heavy beats and industrial metal.

(Pick: In The Pit)

Angelspit is one of my all time favourite bands. I have all their releases, the debut EP Nurse Grenade and the two albums, Krankhaus and Blood Death Ivory. They never let me down. Thing is, I'm tired of all the stuff I hear on the radio. Nothing does it for me like these bands. I want something that's not populist, for once. That doesn't mean that once/if these bands begin to get major radio airplay I'll stop listening, but I just want something I enjoy, and I don't want to pollute my mind with... pop music.

(Pick: Skinny Little Bitch)

Old reliable and permanent staple of my listenings, Nine Inch Nails play pretty consistently throughout the night, and I'm wandering back into With Teeth territory, though you can't go wrong with Ghosts I-IV ("a soundtrack to daydreams") when you want to lean back and just get some writing done.

(Pick: Home off With Teeth, and from Ghosts III, 24)