I won’t bog you down with the details, I’ll only say that I’m really happy to be making some story sales here AND even getting some editing work again. Here’s hoping things are slowly but surely getting back on track…

I need it to. That’s all I will say. Because we’re going to be positive around here and look forward!!

Today, in addition to working some more on the new erotic short story (“1954 Powder Blue Pickup”), I think Valerie and I are going to try to figure out why the heck the cover art for The Guitar Hero Goes Home is not doing what it is supposed to be doing — we had a long chat about it yesterday, and it gets mindboggling –why it keeps skewing the way it does, when, in the template, it keeps matching up perfectly.

It is disheartening. But we’ll get it figured out.

Meanwhile, every time I look at the cover of the proof copy that arrived yesterday, I just sort of sigh with a heavy heart…

I’m actually toying with the idea of trying to make the new short story a novella. If you’ve read last evening’s excerpt from the new story, you can probably tell that there are actual characters in the story and a story arc is underway. Unlike “Half-Moon Bride,” which basically had neither. So the groundwork is set if I want to actually extend it into something more significant.

However, this is another one of those situations, where I have no real clue what’s coming up next while I’m writing it — the story just comes out.  So we’ll see how it goes. Basically, everyday I simply sit down at the desk and I write…

Even though the writing has been going really great lately, I have been battling the urge to get rather melancholy. So far, I am winning the battle, but it is just constantly there, in the background. I guess mostly because summer is waning. And that storm the other night really took a toll on my incredibly beautiful hydrangea bush. I don’t think it’s going to be able to get back to how it looked before the storm because it is already so late in the season. It makes me so sad. The blossoms had gotten so huge, and the storm filled the blossoms with water, so now they’re bent way down to the sidewalk — and they had been 8-feet tall. That’s a lot of weight keeping it bent over.

I keep wishing there was something I could do, but the blossoms are getting old now and I need to accept that I can’t solve all of Nature’s “problems” — and it could be that Nature doesn’t think it has any problem at all. And I should just keep out of it, right?

And my lawn care guy has had a bad back issue so he hasn’t been here to cut the grass in 3 weeks. My yard now has that look of complete and utter abandonment. Which is not the overall look I prefer.

I hate feeling like I have no control, you know? Like I have to just stand back and allow everything. Let everything just be what it is. Sometimes it’s very frustrating for me.

So, the more I can sit at my desk and write and not focus on the things that make me sad, the better the day goes.

And on that little note… I’m gonna get the day underway here.  I hope you’re having a nice Wednesday, wherever you are in the world!  I think I mentioned the other day that Nick Cave’s solo concert is going to be released as an album in November. I’m going to leave you with a video they released from that concert — Nick Cave at  the piano, singing “Galleon Ship” from Ghosteen (2019). This is what I was listening to last night, as the whole world was trying really, really hard not to go flying off into a million pieces.  Okay, thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya!!

“Galleon Ship”

If I could sail a galleon ship
A long, lonely rider across the sky
Seek out mysteries while you sleep
And treasures money cannot buy
For you know I see you everywhere
A servant girl, an empress
My galleon ship will fly and fall
Fall and fly and fly and fall deep into your loveliness

And if we rise my love
Before the daylight comes
A thousand galleon ships will sail
Ghostly around the morning sun

As the city rises up
As the city rises up
As the city rises up
As the city rises up

For we are not alone, it seems
So many riders in the sky
The winds of longing in their sails
Searching for the other side

And if we rise my love
Oh my darling, precious one
We’ll stand and watch the galleon ships
Circle around the morning sun

© 2019 Nick Cave, Warren Ellis