It's been raining nonstop since sunrise.
Sunrise in this case being a misnomer because there has been no sight of sun at all, which depresses me to no end and catapults me to the deep ends of low-energy fatigue.
Will have to cook something nice and curl up with a book later.
Wrapped up thumbs on THE SOLAR GRID, Ch. 8 (#9) and started on pencils. Feels good. The 198th newsletter was sent out a few days ago, considering taking a different direction with the thing come #200. Perhaps something more column-like.
Bicycle thieves are the scum of the Earth.
“There’s no question that cyberpunk had a shockingly brief existence as a cohesive entity. Born out of science fiction’s new wave, literary postmodernism, and a perfect storm of external factors (Reaganism, cheap transistors, networked computing, and MTV), the genre cohered as a tangible, fungible thing in the early 1980s, most famously exemplified by the aesthetic of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) and the themes of William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984). The term cyberpunk itself, as coined by Bruce Bethke, came into being in 1983. The neologism captured the zeitgeist: the potential of, and simultaneous disillusionment with, techno-capitalism on steroids.”
From Jared Shurin's excellent introduction to THE BIG BOOK OF CYBERPUNK in which I have a story called CRISPR Than You.
“Cyberpunk was born of the punk ethos. A genre that, in many ways, existed against a mainstream cultural and literary tradition, rather than for anything definable or substantive in its own right. This is, at least, an argument posited by those who believe the genre peaked—and died—with Bruce Sterling’s superb anthology Mirrorshades (1986). Accepted as the definitive presentation of cyberpunk, Sterling had pressed a Heisenbergian self-destruct button. Once it was a defined quality, cyberpunk could no longer continue in that form.
“Although this is a romantic theory (and cyberpunk is a romantic pursuit, despite—or perhaps because of—the leather and chrome), it is not one to which I personally subscribe. While collecting for this volume, I found that the engine of the genre was still spinning away, producing inventive and disruptive interpretations of the core cyberpunk themes through to the start of the next decade.”
I love Jared's intro a great deal. Read more at CrimeReads.
“When the cat shit gets bigger than the cat, get rid of the cat.” — Some douchey studio executive
Choppiest sleep I've had in a long time, after weeks of less-than-ideal sleep. My smartwatch has given me a score of 53 with the notice “needs attention.”
Historically, I've always been a pretty sound sleeper, so I'm quite positive that this lack of sleep is coming from my biological alert system, the internal chemicals that tell you to stay on your feet and maintain caution. Our bodies are after all hardwired to be ready for danger. Experience passed down from one generation to the next over hundreds of thousands of years. That kind of experience does not lie.
“Write the good bit. Seriously. Just write it. That bit that you want to write, that you’re saving up? Write it. It’s the most important moment in the book, isn’t it? So write it, and bend the rest of the book towards it, rather than retrofitting it to what you come up with along the way that’s less important.” — Nick Harkaway
A book I attempted to read in my early 20's but never quite got into has been on my mind lately: HOW TO BE GOOD by Nick Hornby. I turned to it on the strength of Hornby's other immensely popular novel, HIGH FIDELITY, but despite the enjoyable writing style, I found the subject matter of divorce to be way far removed from where I was at the time. Now that I'm going through a divorce of my own twenty years later—one that is getting evermore sour by the minute—I am considering taking another look at Hornby's book, because I remember its take as being fun and humorous, which is a miraculous feat if the developments of my own divorce are anything to go by.
Attempting to codify how my week goes as well as pinpoint areas that could use improvement. The thing I'm proudest of the most is managing to maintain a regular exercise routine; everyday at noon. I've also managed to incorporate a morning walk 3 days a week (which doubles as my grocery run), in addition to the bike ride to and from my former place of residence to care for my son 4 times a week (that ride will now be 5 times a week though as he's just started soccer practice). It should be noted that a typical day clearly does not end at 7:00 pm. More like midnightish, but the 7:00 to 7:00 is the part I feel requires the most structure.
The things I'm not entirely proud of: 1. Only two days a week for writing/drawing, amounting to no more than 8 hours in total. Presently, this is the time I dedicate to working on THE SOLAR GRID which explains why it is moving at such a slow pace. Not entirely sure how to carve out more time for it when I also absolutely need to block out time to handle things like: other art stuff, fulfilling online orders, email, and accounting on top of newslettering and social media posts.
Would really like to make blogging a daily habit too, just one post a day if I can muster it.
Need to work in some time for website updates, which I haven't done in a very long time. Best if worked into the weekly routine to avoid updates becoming this big time-consuming ordeal.
Reading; Right now I read whenever I can steal a moment. It works alright, but I'd prefer a more codified timeslot.
Meal prep: I'm terrible at figuring out a good meal-prep routine. I cook every night of the week, and it does take it its toll. Need to figure out two days a week where dinner prep is intended for 3-4 days' worth of meals, but also need to come up with the sort of meals best suited for that kind of lifestyle. I enjoy devising scrumptious dinners—sometimes elaborate—a little too much.
I try to reserve the majority of Saturday as a “Day of Rest” if I can manage it; Soak in a bath, shave my chest, clip my fingernails, that sort of thing, but it rarely works out that way if I'm being honest. This Saturday I'm attending an art talk and also a birthday for example. The first half of Sunday is mostly about spending quality time with my son. Following that, there's only really enough room to cook dinner, tidy around the house, do some laundry, and get ready for the week ahead!
Finally got around to taking some glamor shots of Sim Kern's THE FREE PEOPLE'S VILLAGE. which I was very honored to design the cover(s) and endpapers for.
