Mister Groin!"
"Here, sir."
"I'll be needing a body for this!"-- Mike Mignola, The Amazing Screw-on Head
Well, the plague of frogs story is complete in its first draft form, titled "Half-Frog Beast with Bulbous Eyes." Yes, it's a really weird title. Yes, it may only be a working title until something else occurs to me. But I like it quite a lot. There's still quite a lot of problems with it - I'm not sure if there's enough build up to the climax, I could do a lot more with Marian's dialogue to make the themes subtler, and I need to even out exactly what people's reactions to the frogs are. Some of them see it as quite mundane - Stewart thinks it's "fucking ridiculous," but Samantha freaks out, that kind of thing. But it's amazingly nice to have the time to spend on drafting before it gets anywhere near workshop. This makes me wish for fewer stories in workshop, so that we have more time. But, on the other hand, it's nice to have such massive output. I've finished three stories in three months! That's amazing. It's a double-edged sword, I guess. Anyway, I'm really excited about this story because it was such a blast to write.
Next on my rotating knife block of stories? I'm going to write something like a pulpish noir story. Probably some kind of occult detective - I have one called Mike Saturn that I want to write about - because it'll be a lot of fun. There's going to be a talking gorilla in that one. A talking evil gorilla.
I really hate being tickled while I try to type.
Talked to Joy on the phone for an half an hour last night before the marathon plague of frogs spectacular. Good conversation. We have this tendency to flail at each other on the phone when we can't deal with things, are questioning our worth, have convinced ourselves that we won't influence generations or have far-reaching sociopolitical ramifications. There's also going to be a poetry editors meeting on Monday to finalize submissions and argue over split votes. Joy and I will meet our anti-selves, Caroline and Gay Matt #2. I fear a potential catastrophe. But we love catastrophes here at Wildcat.
Michael and I just got in from a trip to McDonalds. Ugh. But my apple pie was good. The stupid, gaydar-pinging worker forgot my fries, though! If only he wasn't a slave to the military-industrial-commercial complex.