PlugInMatty

So, I'm writing again. I'm sure that'll excite the 2.7 people who remember when I used to post stories here. I don't think I've had writers block, it's just rare that opportunity and inspiration intersect in my schedule these days. The only reason I'm even writing this week is because I'm recovering from surgery to insert plates in my face. Bad hockey injury, cheekbone broken in three places. Do not recommend. Anyway, would really appreciate feedback on the prologue I've been working on. I have thirty-two chapters mapped out in Scrivener, so hopefully the words start to flow nicely now that I've figured out the beginning. Enjoy!

I've been thinking about getting a tattoo. That may seem like a strange opening sentence, considering my five-and-a-half year absence from GA, but I guess it'll do. I can always go back and edit it later. Anyway, back to the tattoo. I've been tossing around the idea of getting a tattoo down my right forearm (my writing hand), with the first line of the very first story that I ever attempted to write on GA. I won't bore you with the details, as I doubt any of you will remember it, but I do like the idea of having a little in-joke tattooed in plain sight. Who knows, maybe I'll even meet my future husband when he walks up to me in the street and asks, "Why do you have 'It all started with a potato' tattooed on your forearm?" Then I'll be able to tell them all about my mad writing skillz and how I used to write stories for public consumption and oh-my-god-marry-me-you-amazing-attentive-man. Anyway, enough of that. You're probably wondering what I've been up to for the past five-and-a-half years. The answer is: A LOT. Won't bore you with all the details, but here's a pretty reasonable snapshot: - Put a deposit on my first house, then withdrew the offer two days later and bought a one-way ticket to London instead. - Lived in London for two years. Worked as a barman for a while, then got sick of that and worked as a tax consultant instead. - Did the tourist thing. Visited Dubai, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, France, and Spain. - Went to Toronto for Christmas, twice. Flew from London to Toronto to surprise my best friend the first time, slept on her couch for two months the second time. Fell in love with Tim Horton's. - Spent a couple of weeks in the States in early 2016. Did the gay pilgrimage to San Francisco, then caught the Amtrak from SF to New York. Spent time in Chicago, DC, and Boston, along the way. I also marched in my first pride parade in London, which was pretty cool. Almost as cool as the time my live-in landlord terminated my lease because I had a boyfriend (not even joking). And finally, I did a whole lot of writing. Hours and hours and hours of writing. In coffee shops, in bars, in airports, in aeroplanes, on trains... you name it, I probably wrote in it. I also joined a writers group in London, and met some of the most insanely talented people on this earth. Critiqued a lot of work, did some public readings of my own, and made some lifelong friends along the way. ...which brings me to what I'm working on. I'm probably sitting on 120,000 words' worth of material right now, all in varying stages of completion. Some of it good, some of it great, some of it absolutely rubbish. Most of you probably won't care, but for the 1.15 of you that do, here's a brief rundown of my two major projects: Project 1: Novel-length, coming-of-age, approx 60,000 words in. Teenage protagonist makes a stupid mistake that almost kills his younger brother, and leads to the breakdown of his best friendship and the separation of his parents. With his closest relationships now in tatters, protagonist begins exploring friendships with two intriguing new characters, one of whom is harboring a dark secret. Project 2: Novel-length, suspense/thriller, bit dystopian, approx 50,000 words in. Twenty-something protagonist gets caught up in a biological terror attack on the Tube. Thousands die on the spot, and thousands more fall terminally ill in the aftermath, including our protagonist. Protagonist subsequently learns of an underground casino operating out of a disused Tube station, where the alleged prize on offer is a cure to his disease. We follow the protagonist as he tries to hide his illness and his participation in this dangerous underground casino from his friends and family, while he effectively plays for his life one poker hand at a time. I might eventually get around to posting project 1, as it involves a gay protagonist. Project 2 is way too hetero for this environment, though. Anyway, that's enough for my opening blog. Once you've finished rejoicing in the fact that I'm still alive (or simply wondering who the fuck I am), feel free to leave a comment and say hi. Give me some reading recommendations, as well. I've no idea what's good around these parts nowadays. Later.

so, my housemate's ex-girlfriend came to visit last night. she was running early and my housemate was running late, so we ended up hanging out on our own for an hour and a half, watching Back to the Future and having a really intelligent conversation about product placement in Hollywood. fast forward to now, and my housemate's current girlfriend is sitting on the couch, talking about how funny Will Ferrell is and shouting quotes at the television while watching Step Brothers. fuck my life.

me, way drunk, wearing my (female) friend's train conductor hat. bringin' sexy back, y'all.

so, today is my 25th birthday. today is also 'R U OK?' Day. these two facts would be mutually exclusive, except one of my friends inboxed everyone on my Facebook account and told them to ask me 'R U OK?' instead of wishing me a happy birthday. so now I have 95 wall posts (and counting), all asking if I'm ok. I also had the following interaction with my mother this morning: it was somewhat amusing. anyway, on the writing front, I can happily say that I sat down and plotted A Shot of Clarity in its entirety last night. frame-by-frame, scene-by-scene. there'll be seven parts to the story (plus Prologue and Epilogue), and they should all be written in pretty quick order. in terms of its marketability... I'm not sure. I have this dream of completing a longer story and seriously workshopping it within the local writing community, but I feel that the final product will be a weird, in-between length. 10-15k sorta range. too long to be a short story, not long enough to be a novella. I'll figure it out, though. after all, if it's really, really good, who's going to care about its length? I feel like there's a that's what she said joke in that somewhere. maybe another time. Peace

- GA forum (srsly) - GA.Stories - Email account - my blog - CNN.com (always check news before bed) - TV Tonight (local tv news website) I'm a simple man, easily amused.

how did we get 24 posts into this thread without anybody mentioning You Can't Do That On Television?

not often I share something like this, but this story really does need to be shared. http://jamescamdensikes.blogspot.com/ RIP James.

for Kevin, since he asked so nicely... as you can see, my hair was being oddly compliant at 7.45am this morning.

so, I'm still alive. I feel like that's noteworthy, since I've been somewhat low-profile around here lately. you might remember, two blogs ago, that I was debating whether or not to quit my job and take a different career direction. in particular, I was debating whether or not to turn down an amazing career opportunity with my current employer and chase a boatload more money elsewhere. heavy shit. anyway, after a solid week of stroking my beard and pondering the mysteries of the universe, I decided to put my morals ahead of my bank balance and take the job with my current employer. I'm still on Struggle St financially, and still earning a shitload less money than what I could get on the open market; but really, how many other 24-year-olds are given the opportunity to build the accounting process for a multi-national corporation? hell, I got to sit on a conference call for an hour and a half this afternoon and tell our systems analysts how I want the accounting reports to be formatted. why? because that's my job! having said that, it's not all shits and giggles. we're now in Week 18 of what was supposed to be a four-week User Acceptance Testing project, trying to fix the 1600-or-so problems that have been identified with our new accounting package. that's right, sixteen hundred problems. we're finally nearing the end, though. a couple more weeks and we'll have the whole thing wrapped up. one person who won't be seeing the end though is my old boss. she announced her resignation in Week 13 and departed the company at the end of Week 16. as you can imagine, that was pretty rough for all involved. the worst part was, she did sweet f**k all for her last three weeks and left her replacement with basically zero training and/or preparation for what she was getting herself into. we managed to avert that crisis, though. being the paranoid control freak that I am, I identified the impending doom about halfway through my boss' last week and basically demanded more control over both the project and my new boss' training plan. so, for the past week, I've been the man charged with bringing my new boss up to speed and generally getting shit in order. things still aren't quite at the point we'd like them to be, but after being basically left in the lurch by my old boss, things are sure as hell a lot better than they could have been. we'll see how it all turns out over the next few weeks, anyway. in other news, I dislocated my thumb at basketball a couple of weeks ago. not the most painful injury I've ever had (that award goes to the elbow I dislocated when I was 11), but it took all of my willpower to not swear in front of the 12-year-olds I was coaching. thankfully, it went straight back in, and x-rays later showed that it wasn't broken, but it's still pretty much useless three weeks later. needless to say, I'm not doing a whole lot of typing at the moment. speaking of, there's not a whole lot happening on the writing front at the moment. it's not like I have writers block or anything, I simply cannot find the time to get anything done. I'll promise you though, when I do find the time, there's a pretty sweet little short story that I'll be putting the finishing touches on. I won't give too much away here, but it may or may not include my very first attempt at writing a sex scene. speaking of sex, still not getting any. damn it. I did get myself an iPhone, though. and finally, I got myself the first three seasons of Castle off a friend's hard drive, because Nathan Fillion is my current obsession. what a sweetheart. anyway, I'm off to watch some Amazing Race: Australia. if you've taken the time to read all this, do post a comment and say hello.. peace.

I got excited for the briefest moment, thinking this could be about NBA

heard this on the radio earlier. 12 years later, still amazing.

is it because I lied when I was seventeen? take care, dude. you know where to find me.

I particularly enjoy the soulful wailing over the top of the final chorus, and the fact that she doesn't appear to know what to do with her arms for the entire video.

"knock knock" "who's there?" "you, Dad!" "I'm always there."