Real life: overrated

Recently, my life has reverted to the kind of fantasy for which I, frankly, exist.

Real life is overrated. You've probably noticed this. I know what you're thinking: "yeah, but you have to face up to it, you know? It's unavoidable."

Blah blah. In my books, that attitude shows nothing but a dearth of imagination. Yes, there are difficulties and challenges. But surely fantasy is the ideal way to overcome that?

Example? Travel, which, let's face it, is like taking a trip into a storybook—a journey through all those rarified imaginings that started when you were five.

Another one? Fun. Riding a horse, sailing a boat, dipping into the warm waters of a palm-fringed beach, making a cocktail, eating chocolates in bed, playing the piano so hard you think you're going to break it. All the things you wished you could do all the time when you were young—they're the kind of fantasy I'm talking about.

Maybe I'm just easy to please. Or maybe you're just not looking at things the right way. In any case, I encourage you to come to the dark side: see life as a fantasy.

Better still, make it one.

The tally

Today marks the tenth day of my 12-day hermitage. Work has the better of me. I came home from town on January 1, and since then I have:

• seen exactly three humans I know personally
• in exactly two outings
• which were the only times I dressed in something other than ugg boots.

I have written*:

• ~129 emails
• of which 25 weren't work-related
• of which 15 did not relate to the two outings mentioned above
• and of which only one was longer than three sentences, and/or remotely interesting.

I have:

• finished Dexter Season 5
• started Twin Peaks Season 1
• watched one Alfred Hitchock film (Rope)
• finished one book and countless New Scientists
• downloaded one album and around 10 podcasts
  
• listened to music endlessly.
  

I have also:

• gone stir-crazy.
  

This is what remote work will do to you.


*I have also written an ebook, two articles and the content for two websites, but that's hardly the point here.

As one book closes...

Scene: int. bedroom, 3am. A light burns dimly by the bed. An empty whisky glass stands on the floor beside it. There among the grim black sheets lies a woman, The Heart of the Matter in hand, trying valiantly to read through a flood of tears: Scobie is about to kill himself.

So, yeah, last night, things got kind of rough. I'm glad it's over. I'm glad the moment passed. Because Jesus, and I'm talking to Graham Greene's Scobie's Jesus here, between him and King Ink, I've been taking a tour of the darker reaches the past few nights. Dante's Inferno is starting to seem like a frolic by comparison.

Ah. But let us turn our thoughts to the goodness that is finishing a book that tears you apart: the goodness that is the next read.

As one book closes, so another must open. If the last one's put me through the wringer, I like to be kind to myself with the next. So, what's the coming attraction?

Lawrence Durrell's The Dark Labyrinth.

Despite appearances—Durrell's got such a reputation for literary hijinks, and the title's certainly daunting enough—The Dark Labyrinth really is a rollicking tale of humanity cast in the setting of a Greek island holiday tour to an ancient series of underground tunnels. I'm not talking Dante's rollicking, I'm talking blatantly-humorous-holiday-reading rollicking.

I know you don't believe me. No one does. Everyone's scarred by The Alexandria Quartet and never goes any further. In any case, the point is that in books, as in life, after the great challenge and the mighty test of strength must, by necessity, come the period of recuperation in warm waters like Durrell's Greek isles. Or Capote's south. Or—yes—even Dante's vivid and fantastical Hades.

If only hell were more like Dante's vision, and less like Greene's, damn him.

Killer Lines

For your reading pleasure, kind friends, I have reinvented the Twitter account of a fictional character I created for an experiment.

Before? Fictional character.

Now? @_killerlines.

Killer lines will include, well, ah, killer lines from killer books. Books I love. If you want to take them as thoughts for the day, so be it. As distraction from work? Fine. As reading suggestions? Highly appropriate. As messages sent direct to you from a god you don't believe in? Well, hey, don't let me stop you.

Warning: Killer Lines is likely to reflect my reading practices closely. And I'm a slow reader.

Compelling

Note to self #6859465

There should be a lot of dead things in those initial chapters. And scenes should start with a detail of something on the ground. Shit self-esteem means looking down a lot, right?

Head + image

...tattoos?