25,194

That's the final word-count of my NANOWRIMO entry for 2008.

Ah, well - a little more than halfway to the 50,000-word "victory" total. Considering, however, that I didn't even register until Nov. 11, didn't start writing in earnest until Nov. 15th or so, and that I hardly wrote at all last week because Dami was home all week and we spent quality time together instead, that ain't bad. Next year, I'll start on time and write with the same focus that I used last week, when the majority of Holy Creatures To and Fro was written.

Even if I had achieved the 50,000-word goal, the book would not be finished. The adventures of poor, haunted Silk will take more like 75,000-100,000 words to depict, and there might even be a sequel in the works. I'm not sure about how marketable this book wil be - it's not anything that can be easily defined by genre expectations - but I definitely want to finish it. At over 25,000 words, this is my longest non-game work to date(*), with the possible exception of Crossways, which - as a screenplay - uses a different "scale" for completion. The book has a hold on me (I wrote over 3000 words of it today alone), and I want to see it through.

Congratulations go out to snybod, innowen, mutantenemy, gryphonrose and saharial, all of whom passed the finish line. Yay, guys! You inspire me. I'll get started earlier next time. And now, another excerpt teaser from the raw text of Holy Creatures To and Fro. Assuming the book sees publication, it'll probably read differently once it's polished, so here's a chance to see the words from my fingers to this journal. Enjoy!


----------------------

I ran off down Tivoli Terrace, phantom sirens in my ears.

Actually, I doubt they made a sound. Cops don’t roar through suburbia in the middle of the night unless something awful’s going down. Sure, my world was a screaming mess, but for everyone else on Tivoli Terrance, some teenage kid was just having a spat with Daddy.

In hindsight, I suspect it was all discreet: a single cruiser, maybe with its flashers on, sloping to a stop in front of the yellow house. A cop gets out, maybe two of them, possibly wary, probably bored. Nothing to see here, folks. Go to bed. I imagine stern old deputies taking statements from my parents. She’s gotten so wild, don’t know what we could do with her, etc., etc., etc. I imagine a cop’s cold stare, nose wrinkling, perhaps, at the odor of my father’s booze. Would they have taken his word over mine, if I’d talked to them? Or would they have carted me off to a crazy house, dulling me with pills and therapy until I looked more like a zombie than a wolf?

I didn’t risk finding out. I ran.

Behind me, I saw bursts of bright blue fire flickering off the neighbors’ walls. The concrete strobed beneath my pounding feet. I heard garbled bits of alien chatter, the grizzled static of police radio codes. At the end of Sandra Lane, I ditched the sidewalk in favor of the woods. There, I ran toward a path that would take me deep into the woods. I knew that path from long acquaintance, and so as the rough pavement gave way to soft green grass, I charged down the hill and into the woods.

Branches whipped me as I bolted down the path. Stones and sharp twigs prodded my bare feet. Roots tried to trip me. Dirt slid beneath me. Heavy pine scent blended with the smell of my own sweat and musky sex. The path looped down steeply over treacherous falls. Gravity and momentum pulled me along, almost helpless in the dark. My ankle twisted. Pain shot up. I stumbled, but kept running.

I didn’t stop going until the pain in my sides overwhelmed my ability to breathe and the path leveled off at the edge of a creek.

Silence. My heartbeat and heavy breathing became the only things I could hear.
For God-knows-how-long, I hugged myself in the middle of the woods. The breeze tugged lightly on my hair, cooling my sweaty shirt and skin. A yard or two away, the creek trickled in its midnight bed. The sound seemed to rise as I calmed myself down. I breathed the slabby smell of clay and the mossy green coursing of the creek itself. Gradually, I opened my eyes again and looked around.

Heaven, or something like it.

Here, the mist deepened until the moon was almost lost in the sky. My eyes had accustomed themselves to the dark, and a palisade of trees rose proud toward Mother Moon. She lent her glow to the mist around me. It seemed to shimmer of its own accord. The creek slopes arched out and down, carved out by generations of rain and snowmelt. If faeries had existed, this would be their temple, a holy shrine to Earth and Moon as one.

I felt a howl rise inside, but locked it down in case the cops had followed.

Nothing. I was alone.


Tomorrow, more writing. NANOWRIMO may be finished, but Holy Creatures To and Fro is not.



-------------------* - Five or six of my RPG projects have exceeded 100,000 words.

Not Being Homeless: Ur Doing it Wrong

Note to the kids upstairs:

Generally, when one loses four jobs in five months and gets two or three previous warnings from the landlord about late rent, sitting around your apartment for a month smoking dope so heavily that it can be smelled in the hallway outside - and downstairs! - is not an ideal way to keep your place of residence.

Just sayin'.

PS: No, you are not the reincarnation of a medieval Celtic warrior, nor are you a dangerous martial arts champion. You are a neopagan pothead who can't hold a job. Sorry dude. Wake up, now.

Real Thanks - Really!

Hola!

I'm gonna forgo my usual sarcastic commentary on Thanksgiving this year (well, except maybe for this) in favor of a sincere thanks-giving for the people and things that bless my life.

* First among them, I thank my parents. I know that's supposedly corny and all, but given the perspective of my 43 years, my parents look better and better with each passing year. For all the things they screwed up - and, like any mortal or immortal beings, they screwed stuff up - the gifts with which they invested me far outweigh the fallout of their various missteps. From a resistance to bigotry (kind of amazing when you consider where and when they each grew up) to an instance on honesty and self-reliance, to an overwhelming LOVE for me and my sister, no matter how weird various elements of our lives seemed to them. Phil Brucato, sr. and Audrey Maddox are quality human beings on every level. I have been - and remain - blessed and grateful to call them my parents.

* Only slightly below that, I count my deeply beloved partner damiana_swan, her family (especially violindaine and chinchillagirl), and the many women I love, have loved and who have loved me. In no small measure, I'm thankful for my former wives Wendy and Cathi, as well as my distant sweethearts (Katie, Feral and AllieCat), previous lovers who remain beloved friends (Francesca, Ann, Beth, Hope, Chesh, Ashaya, Diane, Jenn, Jane, Elaine, and many others who might not wish to be named here), and the friends with whom that love remains platonic but no less vital (hello, Sooj, Kitty, Stefani, Tarra, Mia, Moon, Emily, Kate, Sherry, Danielle, Merryn and so many, many others). Dami once said that my true life vocation is not writing, but relationships. That feels accurate to me. I may be a Satyr - proudly so! - but I'm not a womanizer. In my friends and lovers, I experience the Goddess incarnate. Again, that might sound cheesy and I don't care. Anyone who knows me personally knows it's true. To share Love, sexual or otherwise, with someone is to touch Divinity. I cherish that sharing, and cherish even more the people with whom Love is shared.

* I cherish, also, my brothers-in-spirt: men like Mark, Bill, K, John, Ben, Andy, Aron, Jon, Ace, Kevin, Ryan, Bunche, Scott, Jeremey, Nathan, Schottsie, Michael, Todd and again, so many others - who resist the idea that Man is a dominating asshole choking on testosterone fumes. The 21st century needs a new ideal of masculinity, and men who strive to bring loving strength to this new era of ours are precious beyond measure. I'm not ashamed to say I love such men among my friends, and I'm deeply thankful to them for being present. These men are artists, fathers, lovers and friends, craftsmen of an age where "Man" is neither insult or prerogative. Whatever my relationship to them, I'm thankful for guys who are brave enough to be whole, perceptive enough to be visionary, and wise enough to know that vulnerability is the greatest kind of strength.

* I'm also grateful that the Age of the Great White Father is officially OVER as of January 20th. No matter what Barak Obama does (or has done to him) from now on, the mere fact that he was elected rings a close to the age where the White, Straight, Christian Male was the only citizen who truly mattered.(*) Thank everything holy and unholy alike for THAT!

* I also feel, on some level, like a disgusted Providence was lurking behind the spectaculalrly bad luck suffered by the agents of the neocom agenda. It was gratifying to watch this year's cascade of misfortune and stupidity finally wash those assholes down the drain. Sure, they're stubborn and infestating as cockroaches, but the last year has brought about the judgment they have so richly deserved. Hey, guys - maybe you oughtta start wondering where your God really stands with regards to your behavior!

* Oh, yeah - and a big, happy thanks to Keith Oblerman, Henry Rollins, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Sasha Barton Cohen, and the other satirists and commentators who've been calling us so heavily on our shit, especially this past year. * And also to the many folks on my various blogs whom I've never met in person yet who remain precious, helpful and informative to me and mine. (Big shout-outs especially to bradhicks, jblaque, reality_deviant, conulyand .:':.Magic.:':..) Thank you, folks! Virtual or not, I'm glad you're part of my reality.

So yeah - for all the terrible things I could (and will...) complain about, today I want to extend a sincere THANK YOU to people, Divinity, my loved ones, and Creation as a whole. For all that life sucks at times and you inevitably die, it's still one hell of a beautiful ride.

Have a good one, folks.


-----------------
* - Sure, Obama is three out of four of these things, but symbolically he stands for a greater, more diverse world where everybody matters... even if we still have to beat that idea into the skulls of certain folks in California, Florida and Arizona!

Albums You Probably Haven't Heard Yet: Annwyn, Beneath the Waves (1996)

A swirling dark tapestry of mad pretentions, this may be my favorite album of all time. Although the band Faith and the Muse has arguably recorded better albums - The Burning Season is probably their best - Annwyn sings to my soul in ways that no other album, before or since, has done.

Released in mid-1996, Annwyn grabbed me like a spectral barbarian, heaved me through the nearest wall, gathered me up in pale-skinned beauty, fucked me senseless, and danced with me till dawn. If that sounds overripe, so does the album. Annwyn may be the perfect blend of bombastic Pagan theatrics, graceful poetry and blissfully romantic rock. Produced by two seasoned veterans of the Punk and Gothic scenes, this album sounds still packs, for me, the same punch it had over a decade ago. How so? Let's see...

My fondness for the Dark Romantic aesthetic runs through almost everything I adore and create. Rooted in a youth filled with old horror movies, horror comics, Edgar Allen Poe, and books about all three (thanks, Dad!) - not to mention a collection of little plastic knights and old Aurora monster model kits - my natural penchant for morbid bygone beauty got an addition kick in the ass when I encountered Jethro Tull's music during their neo-minstrel period in the mid-70s, not to mention The Lord of the Rings. (Again, thanks, Dad!) Gothic horror and romantic medievalism combined into a heady brew of towering castles, dark deeds and heaving-chested maidens. By the time the late '70s added Dungeons & Dragons, Conan the Barbarian and Heavy Metal (both magazine and music genre) to that mix, I was ripe for the theatrical bombast of the Gothic Rock movement.

Sadly, the Gothic Rock movement (and its attendant subculture) really didn't exist at that point. Outside a few bars in London, Berlin, San Francisco and New York, the "goth thing" didn't really find its feet in the States until the mid-1980s. By that time, I had dived literally into Punk and - paradoxically - the budding Celtic Rock and New Age genres, deepening my Pagan sensibilities with lots of barefoot wenches and boffer-weapon madness via the RenFaire/ SCA scene. The counterpart to my poofy-shirt persona was my biker jacketed fondness for moshpits and Ramonian hijinks. These things seemed, at the time, incompatible(*). In college, the only person I knew who listened to The Cure and Joy Division was a pompous asshole(**). So even though I went to art school in the mid-1980s, loved The Hunger, and listened to Bauhuas and The Cult, I pretty much missed "the goth thing" until it had already been established.

Jeeze, what about the album, dude?

I'm getting to that.

Fast forward to the early 1990s. Post-collegiate "reality" has set in, along with poverty, crushing student loans, and a bi-polar wife. Aside from some brief stints playing bass in a variety of bands, not much fun to be had. Drawn down into a darkening spiral of shitty jobs and domestic misery, my own Muse kicked into overdrive. I started writing stories, started getting them published, and - in 1992 - scored a gig writing for White Wolf Games. The doors to that Spooky Dark Castle on my horizon opened for me at last. Alongside my college-era friends Bill Bridges and Dan and Andrew Greenberg, I took to "the goth thing" instantly. Hey, better late than never!



I first encountered Faith and the Muse on their debut run with the Procession Tour in 1994. Honestly, I wasn't impressed. Their set got sandwiched in between French Bauhuas clones Corpus Delecti and the bizarre German antics of Das Ich; the sound quality was awful, and their set list seemed monotonous. I guessed at the time that FatM sounded better in the studio than in concert, so although they had a lovely T-shirt, I pretty much forgot about them for about a year-and-a-half.

"Have you heard of Faith and the Muse?" my friend Michael asked me. I told him about Procession, and he replied, "You HAVE to hear this!" He lent me the copy of Annwyn he'd bought at a concert the night before. I took it home that evening.

Holy.
Fucking.
Shit.

Be advised: If and when you hear Annwyn, turn the sound up loud and leave it there.

The fun begins with a growling swoop into the Abyss. A sweeping sludge-guitar howl dives headfirst into a dreamscape of furious passion. The implacable title cut dovetails into a thundering invocation with the second track, then bursts into earth-shaking war-drums with the third track, "Cantus." By the time Annwyn takes a breather on tis fourth cut, the Old Gods have risen again. The album pours across dark phantasmal landscapes like The Wild Hunt on crack. By the final dismissal - a ghostly blast of staticy voices called "Apparition" - Annwyn has performed a baroque ritual of sound and fury, signifying lots.

Inspired by the Welsh Mabinogeon saga, classic poetry, postmodern Paganism and an overall disgust with modern Man, Annwyn weaves a dark romantic spell. Yet despite the presence of hammer dulcimer and lyrics by Goethe, there's nothing prissy about this album. William Faith and "Muse" Monica Richards are veterans of the '80s American Punk scene, and it shows. Gorgeously thick production (with all instrumentation performed by Faith and Richards) piles layer after layer of sound upon each element. Yes, it's a ripe concoction of Pagan propaganda, but the sheer beauty of its approach keeps Annwyn from lapsing into the ponderous silliness of, say, Inkubus Sukkubus or - Gods help us! - Manowar. The overall style is a fusion of Metal, Punk, Celtic Rock and Gothic Ethereal. I'd lay odds that Evanescence listened this album to death when they were kids - its influence is all over their sound.

So if you like your romance dark and beautiful, if you appreciate vast soundscapes of demon-haunted moors, if you're looking for background music to Kushiel's Chosen or a Sorcerers Crusade game(**), or even if - like me - you like giving underrated bands a try, check out Annwyn, Beneath the Waves. It might not be your favorite album ever, but it's bound to get under your skin.

TRACK LISTING

1. "Annwyn, Beneath the Waves"
2. "The Silver Circle"
3. "Cantus"
4. "The Dream of Macsen"
5. "Fade and Remain"
6. "Arianrhod"
7. "Branwen Slayne"
8. "Hob Y Derri Dando"
9. "Cernunnos"
10. "The Hand of Man"
11. "The Sea Angler"
12. "The Birds of Rhiannon"
13. "Rise and Forget"
14. "Apparition"

PERSONNEL

All voices and instrumentation performed by William Faith and Monica Richards. Album produced by Faith and the Muse and Chad Blinman.



----------------
* - Well, aside from the sparring I did on weekends with the guys who would later form Gwar, but that's another story.

** - I listened this album to death and beyond during the creation of Sorcerers Crusade.

Holy Creatures: Life as a Paperback

An excerpt from my work-in-progress, Holy Creatures To and Fro:

I wish life came in paperback. Books have symmetry of character and language. Everything’s clear and, if not simple than at least discernable. A book would have given me foundation and conclusion for that mess with Karma and Cheerio. I might have seen them walking hand-in-hand afterward, or found secret love notes passed between them… or maybe even from her to me. But no — I got none of that. Neither of them spoke to me after our showdown in the hall. I’d occasionally see each of them off in their own corners, but if they remained friends or not afterward, I couldn’t say. It was one more high-school mystery, another blank spot that made me want to leave.

I’d always preferred my own company until then. After Karma’s betrayal, though, the loneliness felt crushing. I’d wander the hallways between classes or after school, plagued by whispers and shadowplays. Were people still laughing about me by the time summer finally rolled around? Or were the chuckles that I heard in every corner simply products of my isolation? I felt so empty by summer that even insults would have been welcome. Instead, I got silence. And so silence is what I returned.

Before then, I’d been quiet. Now I was speechless. Teachers gave up on the idea of calling on me at all. They graded my papers with workmanlike disdain, marking time until I was no longer their problem. Occasionally, some teacher tried to engage my interest or inspire my confidence. One of them, Mrs. Egglehart, even tried shocking me out of my silence by insulting me each morning in class when she took attendance. I didn’t bother to respond — just filed it away with the din of voices in the background of my life. Eventually, she gave up. I slid through the cracks without making a sound.

It’s not that I wasn’t paying attention. Quite the opposite. The weird shattering of my pack had shown me just how important it was to watch for signs. My alpha had denounced me, out of nowhere, in front of strangers, and then turned me out alone. If there’d been signs of trouble, I hadn’t seen them. And so, like a lone wolf in a forest full of hunters, I watched every twitch and tilt in my surroundings. I noted shifts of mood and gossip, even as I stayed downwind of them. By summer, I could tell you who Jeniah Morrison was sleeping with that week, how many beers Gale Forrister had downed between classes, how much further along her pregnancy Alabaster Smith had gone, and how scared she was about still hiding it. I could tell who was on the rag by the scent of their blood in the trash cans, and watched the bags grow dark under the eyes of honor students whose study nights had grown too long. I caught snatches of conversation each time I passed nearby. I knew who was breaking up with whom and why. Through it all, I never got involved. I drifted through the rest of my sophomore year like the ghost beside my bed — always present, always silent.

This girl is seriously starting to get inside my head and under my skin. As I told Dami this morning, writing this book has become a strange hall of mirrors. I'm drawing bits of inspiration for Silk (the narrator) from several real-life people and incidents in my life. She's a bit of various people, a lot of me, and a fair amount of invention all swirled around. The real-life elements are the most disconcerting, though. As things are, I'm recalling - in great emotional detail - events in my life, both from my own perspective and from the imagined perspective of the other people involved. It's a very... interesting... emotional ride - and quite an inspiring one.

Stay tuned!

Street-Walkin' Cheetah...

Woke up to a typical foggy Seattle morning with Iggy Pop blasting through my synapses and a drowsy salt-and-pepper witch curled up in my arms. Outside, the breeze dances plants around our neighbor's yard like triffids on ecstasy. Orange scatters on the trees like faded pumpkin sunlight. It's been raining again, but that's no big surprise. Outside, our neighbors dump a clashing heap of last night's drinking into our glass recycling bin. Maybe if they'd cut back on that a bit, they might be able to hold jobs for more than three or four weeks at a time.

Two cups of cold chai later, and my imagination smashes through the glass window of an abandoned mansion once owned by an Anne Rice wannabe and now occupied by a feral squatter who used to be her fan. 40,000 words to go on a novel that began as a short story and now races to hit the NANOWRIMO finish line. A dredlocked cat slumbers on the living room rug while I cue up Metallica and get to work again.

I'll say this about my life - I'm often restless, hectic, playful or all of the above, but I'm very rarely bored.