I dreamed I was in a restaurant with very large fishtanks full of jellyfish, arguing/discussing/critiquing Fellini with Henry Cavill. I have no clue why my subconscious picked that particular actor, maybe because his nose reminds me of Marcello Mastroianni’s. But I do know I was drinking whiskey while discussing La Strada and Nights of Cabiria, and now I have the urge to take the day off and watch Fellini and Antonioni films. The two directors are somewhat indissolubly linked inside my head, more because I discovered their work in the same timeframe than for any other reason.
Anyway, I have coffee, and have had the morning French lesson. I was trying French, German, and Turkish at the same time, but then… lockdown happened, and the fascist coup is accelerating. At this point I’m thinking we’re due for twenty years or so of authoritarian rule unless the military removes that orange blivet from the Oval Office after the election, which will cause problems of its own.
Staring at what feels like the approaching end of the world (but is only the fall of a colonialist empire, I suppose) is playing havoc with my productivity. I’m trying not to read the news before a certain point in the day so I have at least a chance of some uninterrupted working time, but it filters in anyway.
Yesterday’s rains have washed sky and earth clean, at least. The air smells wonderful, cleansed of all smoke, though I still have a drilling pain in my lungs during extraordinarily deep breaths.
I know we got off lightly with just a few days of smoke; I’m grateful and yet feel guilty at the same time.
There’s the coffee to finish and the dogs to walk, a run to get in, and the day’s work is laid out before me. I keep chipping away at The Bloody Throne, expecting it to break loose and slide for the finish any… day… now. I’m in the phase where scenes I had planned fall by the wayside because they don’t fit the shape and momentum of what’s already been done, or I realize I already solved the problem approached by said scenes earlier in the book and just didn’t realize it. There’s also a lot of Clannad and Kpop on the writing playlist now, which goes together better than you’d think. Not quite PB&J, more like PB and banana on really tangy sourdough bread, which happens to be a particular favorite of mine.
The weekend is early enough for Fellini, despite me wanting to kick everything over and settle in for a mini film-fest today. Plus I’ve got to work enough that I can justify knocking off a tad early tomorrow for D&D–there’s a certain murder himbo my cleric is planning to hire as a meat shield, and I’ve been looking forward to that for a solid month now. I’ve got to get the paladin a date, and our ranger has a rendezvous with a dude who looks a little like Aidan Turner, so it’s going to be a really awesome session that will probably end in murder when we bust up an owlbear-fighting ring on an offshore rig.
…look, this is what happens when you have writers in your group. We start arguing over owlbear relocation projects and end up searching for himbos and catfish to seduce with a side of murder.
Or maybe that’s just D&D in general. In any case, I’d better get underway. The book isn’t going to write itself, more’s the pity. Although it’s nice to be needed to transmit said book, and fun to have a brain that serves up film critique and whiskey while I’m safe in bed.
It almost–almost–gives one hope.