Life update (02/06/2025)
[check out this post on my personal page, where it looks better]
Last night I had a vivid dream in which I went to Africa for reasons. This part of the continent was made out of irregular “islands” of cement amid murky-green waters. No idea why I had to cross to the other side, but in any case I saw myself in third person trying to sneak my way over there without alerting the wildlife. Suddenly I spotted a bear. My brain had apparently forgotten that you’re unlikely to come across bears in Africa, and I found myself having to escape from the beast until a crocodile or something alike interrupted us and started chasing the bear. At some point I found myself pursued by the bear again. My dream self, in fight-or-flight, had the bright idea of trying to swim across a considerable span of murky-green water. I saw myself in third person as I hurried along, only to end up tugged by something, then pulled underwater. The dream camera stayed still, aimed at the spot, as if I would surface again, but I didn’t. I ended up waking up spontaneously while feeling quite disturbed. I checked out my phone; it was exactly two in the morning.
First of all, brain, thank you for the warning: if I ever find myself in Africa, I’ll try not to swim across clearly crocodile-infested waters. Was it worth making me feel such distress at night that I couldn’t go back to sleep? Thankfully I spent from two to six in the morning writing. And what is it with regularly waking up from vivid dreams at two and three in the morning? Am I actually haunted? We’ve existed as anatomically modern humans for like two hundred thousand years, yet dreams are still complete mysteries. The only possible inspiration I see for that dream is that the water of Irún’s Bidasoa River, at the spot I visited to research a scene of my current novel, looked quite murky. Anyway, I hope I don’t get eaten by beasts. That must be one of the worst deaths.
I’ve been reading Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree, released back in 1979. McCarthy is the writer I respect the most, but Suttree got started before he met who ended up becoming the love of his life (to many people’s chagrin due to her age), and both what happens in most of the book as well as what seemed to be McCarthy’s attitude to writing back then felt to me quite profligate. That adjective, which comes quick to the tongue of Roman Empire cosplayers, doesn’t entire encompass what I mean: Suttree is mostly episodic or anecdotal, featuring many secondary characters from McCarthy’s youth that are often poorly introduced if at all. Many of the anecdotes involve McCarthy’s stand-in Suttree chasing alcohol and getting in all sorts of trouble, which the writer used to do in his youth. The story feels like McCarthy had struggled to do many different things with the same manuscript throughout the nearly ten years he worked on it. The writing is godlike at many parts, but it’s consistently and conspicuously densest in the first six percent of the story or so, as if McCarthy had set himself to write the entire book by that standard, only to give up that notion lest he ended up rage-quitting. My favorite part so far, and likely the best part given that I’m at 80%, involves a girl with developed breasts but that the protagonist keeps referring to as a child. Such tragedy.
Well, I guess that’s all I felt like saying at the moment. I’m in the process of writing the sixth part of my new novel The Scrap Colossus and it’s going great as far as I’m concerned; always looking forward to spend more time there.
Last night I had a vivid dream in which I went to Africa for reasons. This part of the continent was made out of irregular “islands” of cement amid murky-green waters. No idea why I had to cross to the other side, but in any case I saw myself in third person trying to sneak my way over there without alerting the wildlife. Suddenly I spotted a bear. My brain had apparently forgotten that you’re unlikely to come across bears in Africa, and I found myself having to escape from the beast until a crocodile or something alike interrupted us and started chasing the bear. At some point I found myself pursued by the bear again. My dream self, in fight-or-flight, had the bright idea of trying to swim across a considerable span of murky-green water. I saw myself in third person as I hurried along, only to end up tugged by something, then pulled underwater. The dream camera stayed still, aimed at the spot, as if I would surface again, but I didn’t. I ended up waking up spontaneously while feeling quite disturbed. I checked out my phone; it was exactly two in the morning.
First of all, brain, thank you for the warning: if I ever find myself in Africa, I’ll try not to swim across clearly crocodile-infested waters. Was it worth making me feel such distress at night that I couldn’t go back to sleep? Thankfully I spent from two to six in the morning writing. And what is it with regularly waking up from vivid dreams at two and three in the morning? Am I actually haunted? We’ve existed as anatomically modern humans for like two hundred thousand years, yet dreams are still complete mysteries. The only possible inspiration I see for that dream is that the water of Irún’s Bidasoa River, at the spot I visited to research a scene of my current novel, looked quite murky. Anyway, I hope I don’t get eaten by beasts. That must be one of the worst deaths.
I’ve been reading Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree, released back in 1979. McCarthy is the writer I respect the most, but Suttree got started before he met who ended up becoming the love of his life (to many people’s chagrin due to her age), and both what happens in most of the book as well as what seemed to be McCarthy’s attitude to writing back then felt to me quite profligate. That adjective, which comes quick to the tongue of Roman Empire cosplayers, doesn’t entire encompass what I mean: Suttree is mostly episodic or anecdotal, featuring many secondary characters from McCarthy’s youth that are often poorly introduced if at all. Many of the anecdotes involve McCarthy’s stand-in Suttree chasing alcohol and getting in all sorts of trouble, which the writer used to do in his youth. The story feels like McCarthy had struggled to do many different things with the same manuscript throughout the nearly ten years he worked on it. The writing is godlike at many parts, but it’s consistently and conspicuously densest in the first six percent of the story or so, as if McCarthy had set himself to write the entire book by that standard, only to give up that notion lest he ended up rage-quitting. My favorite part so far, and likely the best part given that I’m at 80%, involves a girl with developed breasts but that the protagonist keeps referring to as a child. Such tragedy.
Well, I guess that’s all I felt like saying at the moment. I’m in the process of writing the sixth part of my new novel The Scrap Colossus and it’s going great as far as I’m concerned; always looking forward to spend more time there.
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