Suck Out The Poison

This week has proven to be a colossal waste of time. My mind is so fragmented as of late that it's been terribly difficult to maintain focus—especially at work. I have to write a story, my first for this new job, and I have absolutely no desire to do so (it's a technical piece about airplane landing gears, so it's really no wonder that my interest is less than bubbly). In fact, having to write this piece has caused my mind to flutter in a thousand different



Pictured: A page from Kenichi Hoshine's sketchbook (2004).

directions—not to mention, make me very aware of the fact that my dayjob is still a far cry from where I actually want to be as a writer. And subsequently, the hustle of spending every remaining moment outside of work trying to further my humble yet satisfying freelance writing career can at times be exhausting. As of now, the reality is very matter-of-fact: My dayjob pays the bills while my freelance work feeds my desire to do more with writing; to hopefully make some sort of contribution for the short time I'm on this planet.

But how can that be done? Sacrifice is a huge component in this process. To achieve something that you attain to you must sacrifice time, forget about the luxury of laziness, and charge forward. But that shit is hard to do. It's difficult to work 10 hours then come home and try to stay focused, fight off exhaustion, and get back to The Real Work. The other piece to this is discipline—a detail that I greatly respect, but have a hard time adhering to. Although, the creation of this blog was part of this solution: write everyday. shake off the bad ideas. keep the contents of your noodle fresh. and wake up the next day purged, refreshed, and prepared to make haste. I suppose it's kind of working. Though I often hate what I write here, and often have the urge to self-censor and go backwards and edit previous posts... but I resist the impulse and assure myself it's better for me that I leave the past alone.

And as far as escaping from this dayjob gig, I first need a hard and fast exit strategy. Because, you see, as long as most magazines pay either A.) Nothing. This is the best kind. You know, the hey I'll give you one copy of the mag and a sticker for your troubles (Oops, I recently did this for my book Young & Reckless... but I feel that I was very thankful and made sure that everybody knew how grateful I was... or maybe I'm just a punk). or B.) 10 cents per word... which leads me to believe I shouldn't value my words as much then... i.e. spewing them forth as if I were discarding snot, dried scabbies scabs (like in the Wonder Showzen that was on the other night), or old underwear with lemonade and brownie stains. BTW - I've been reading Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing letters, and he got paid 10 cents a word back in the sixties. What the fuck?

Oh well, this wasn't intended to be a "Poor me" session. I just needed to clear my head... I wish I could say this helped. I think relief could probably be found in tracking down someone I dislike and beating them about the head with a payphone receiver... but maybe that's just wishful thinking. Oh, if life were that simple.

So here's the moral of the post: If you happen to be a bigshot publisher, magazine tycoon, or media mogul looking for a crafty, somewhat odd-looking, and obsessive-compulsive author, staff writer, or jack-of-all-trades... I'm your fella.

Fuck, that's not really the moral, come on. The moral really is: Live the fuckin' dream. I mean that. Don't fuck around until you're too old and have regrets and a bitter taste in your mouth. So, before I leave, I want to send you off with something to look at and something to think about.

Keep on rockin' in the free world.