Within three months of my walking away, I had my first story published. I figured I was on the right track. The next year, the day after Thanksgiving, '99, I broke my ankle which turned out to be a rather profound turning point. This is also the point at which I began to coast.
I was laid up for four months while I healed. I tried to write, but it was kinda psycholgically traumatic, having to turn back home totally incapacitated. Very difficult to focus when your mom's up your butt every twenty minutes about having a sandwich.
Heh, there's some hubris. The project I started when I was laid up -- I spit out almost 60 pages in three days. I assumed I'd be able to jump right back into. As of today, not a single character has been added to that. Was a post-modern zombie thing, too. I'd have beat Keene to the punch. Maybe I'd be the Zombie Guy now? Well, speculation is for suckers.
And it's notlike I didn't get anything done. I was constantly subbing, constantly being rejected, but I have a very clinical perspective about all of that, and my heroes have always been renegades. It's the truth. If you want something done right, do it yourself. People, no matter how pure their intent, are either incompetent or full of shit, and your creative blood will never be more important than their personal problems. Which is fine, until they start making promises they can't keep.
Which I guess then merrily brings us to the point of THE NEWARK DAILY.
I've learned a lot in the past ten years. I made a hundred percent comittment to my craft. I have become an excellent technician. That's something that isn't up for debate. You can see what you do, how you do it compared to similar work by others. And I've tested it. I don't have the publishing legacy of many of my peers, but that doesn't negate what I'm sure is a body of good work. I set the room cold after my reading at Horrorfind back in '06 -- exactly the reaction for which I hoped.
I used that time to mold my craft and to pave the road. I worked the cons, made many good friends, tried to keep involved. The social pressure turned into a bit of a burden only because it is not in my nature to be warm. I got the job done in some regards, dropped the ball on occassion. My coasting situation, you see, was not open. I had no room to play. Just enough to cover rent and bills and accomodate some food. I liived on a bean, rice, and salsa mush for the better part of that decade. My friends sprang for a meal here and there.
Oh, pot, my other vice next to cigarettes. Even that I had to give up for two years because I just couldn't afford it. I became pretty dark after the broken ankle. I'd been shoved out of the loop. This thing came up with FANGORIA right after I was healed -- the first time I went to talk to them about fiction on the web was my first day walking without a cane, a month after the cast had been cut off -- I thought it was destiny, man. I didn't know I'd be waiting on my hands for three months while they held on to a friend's story only to deliver me a copyright agreement that I can only describe as obscene. I didn't stand for that, I burned a bridge. I still can't shake off that stigma. No one's held it against me, though I know the editor's bad mouthed me a bit. I have never said anything ill of anybody involved, but it did check me. I went forward with a fair degree of cynicism, but went forward nonetheless.
Then my situation got the better of me, and I returned home in 2005. I tried out a tech school which turned out to be a total waste of time. Then this opportunity came up in NJ in 2007, cigar store clerk. I knew Jack shit about cigars, but they hired me when no one else would, and I've been there ever since.
-- Well, MT yet again approaches. I am especially tired today, and have only had that Subway sandwich in the last two days. I prefer a state of slight delerium at work. Until tomorrow, faithful reader.
