That rhymes!

Anyway, does anybody remember (what I believe was) the first Sims game, SimLife?

The other thing that made SimLife so painful to play were these really shitty graphics. I'm having a flashback and feeling kind of panicked just looking at this...

Where you had a planet and you could populate it with like dodo birds and emus and llamas and pear trees and you could also put nuclear reactors all over the place so that they would mutate OR you could change their genetics around yourself and you had this map of the world where you placed them all and then they started doing their thing and interacting and eating whatever plant life there was and (if you were me) dying off in droves and it was suddenly completely overwhelming and way too much to keep up with and manage all these mutated species and even understand why all the buffaloes on the other side of the map were now dead and so you just quit playing and never touched the game (or even really thought about it) ever again until this very minute???

That’s kind of what writing my novel is like.

Saturday wine tasting: Sober and wasp-bitten. No worries. Once I got inside this place I went to work on half of that equation.

There’s this entire world that doesn’t exist and it’s filled it with people that don’t exist and then somehow I have to keep all the balls in the air and make sure it all makes sense and ties up and fills in all the blanks without turning into a thesis and being boring and it’s making me a spaz.

For example, just ten minutes ago, I had a long and occasionally hostile conversation with myself about WHY would a certain character do something I’m having them do. Happily, we were able to come to a satisfying and unanimous decision. So there’s that.

The way the light is hitting me here you can see what my eye socket would look like if I were a skeleton. Which I will be some day. Unless someone sells my corpse to one of those 'Bodies' exhibits.

Anyway, my point is that in the back of mind I’ve been meaning to blog and I was going to tell you about my day of wine tasting (or…the stuff I remember, anyway. There are some photos to fill in the blanks.) and then I have another idea based on this thing that happened at a sports bar where this crazy guy kept squealing like a pig but I’m so wrapped up in my own little head right now that suddenly it’s 7pm and I’ve got to eat something before I pass out and people need things from me and I’m torn between feeling exhausted and feeling a little bit like I’m going to turn into a supernova.

The upside is that I’m kind of in love with the fake world I’ve created and all the nasty little twists and turns and dirty secrets, and the feedback has been positive thus far, and I just know the book is going to be really, really good. I can feel it in my bones.

Say what you want. I think I look good with purple teeth.

Let me rephrase: It’s going to be really, really good WHEN IT IS DONE.

Which it is not. And my conversation today (the one with myself) resulted in the need to develop some plot lines currently not written that way, which means more rewriting which means more time which means I need to stop typing on this here blog and go get typing on the novel.

There are magic elves that make shoes, why can’t there be magic elves that come and bang out a chapter or two while I’m sleeping?

If you run across one, can you send them my way?

Does either one of these guys have an English degree?

p.s.

A friend emailed me this morning, but it was via Facebook so I had to log in to respond (DAMMIT! Facebook is to writing a novel what kryptonite is to Superman) but the one upside was that Facebook is stalking me and apparently reading my blog and it put an ad in the side bar that Dave Attell (the comedian I mentioned a few blogs ago) is going to be performing here in a few day. I AM SO THERE.  I love him.

And now I am done. Thank you for your attention, and if I can get through the next couple days without my head exploding, I will be back to tell you more.