I’m freezing my ass off in Germany and loving it. Snow is different to what I had expected, can be just like slow rain, lazy and hanging around like a bad houseguest.
Speaking of, it took me a while to settle in and get back to work on the novel, as I partied and caught a cold, but am now comfortable behind the keyboard. Eating gingerbread and drinking mulled wine is good for the soul.
Saw Prague. Pretty as fuck.
I feel like I’ve gone north to hibernate for the winter, as Australia battles insane heatwaves. I’ll be back there in it in three weeks, halfway through my trip as I am. I do not miss sweating.
Started a new job that has an hour-plus commute, and involves typing all day, so writing has taken a serious hit.
Flipped it so that I’m working on As The Crow Flies (novella, journey) on the weekend, Son of The Spike (novel, next Mark book) when I have a spare spoon to do it.
Visited Melbourne, caught up with an old friend I haven’t seen in about 16 years. Saw some art at National Gallery of Victoria, perused the RMIT University library, drank a lot of overpriced beer in a cool saloon, and ate some spicy chicken.
The scale is insane: Melbourne is easily ten times bigger than Brisbane. I like my small town though.
T-minus 44 days until I’m in Germany again, this time for Christmas. Words cannot describe how excited I am to get back there — to luz, to reasonably-priced beer, to snow.
Since I’m currently juggling two large writing projects, while adulting, not sure when I will have another short story to post on here. I’m too busy to submit the ones I do have anywhere.
Hard at work on Kill The King, if only on weekends. Hit 13,000 words, so the big life-changing catalyst has occurred and the hero is on his way to figuring out if he wants any part of it. It’s quite a cathartic story to write, as they go. My heroes are among a larger group of lowlives tasked with bringing the heads of the richest people in the city, so that they might all enjoy a slice of the money, but things are never really quite as they seem in my books. To sum it up as a logline:
“On the verge of bankruptcy and starvation, Vincent, a down-on-his-luck warehouse worker pairs up with Jimmy, a freelance criminal, to take on a series of assassination contract; but when they realise the client might be setting them up to fail, they’ll have to work together to make a real difference before the city burns down around them.”
Me, Kill The King (working title)
I got a little over halfway through the first draft before it collapsed under me, not the first time that’s happened, but I feel I’ve levelled up as a writer since then, so I have high hopes to make this a decent read, or to at least write it to the end. Perhaps some snippets and sneak peeks next time, if I’m happy with them.
Weekends are for the novel, but weekdays are for short stories. Currently working on a horror short that takes place on the moon, though I’m a couple thousand words in and the protagonist hasn’t reached the moon yet, so I might have to edit it quite heavily. More on that soon.
On other other side of the page, I read Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, and it effected me deeply. For those who haven’t had the pleasure, it’s about an American soldier in the Second World War, taken captive in Germany and held in as a prisoner of war in Dresden. He survives the firebombing there and goes on to be abducted by aliens, but that’s besides the point. What I loved most was that with EVERY SINGLE mention of death — whether it be a five-star general killed in combat or a single microbe being killed by soap — he follows that sentence with “So it goes.” I found that this made all death equal, dignified, and memorable. This alternate cover I found online (or is it just some art, I’m not sure) stuck with me:
And I’m not going to be in Germany for too much longer, so I thought, “why not?”At the lovely Erika & Kurt tattoo parlour in oldtown Dresden, I had the (agonising, excruciating) pleasure of getting this piece done, by Gustavo.
Still limping, two days later. Do tattoos get more difficult, the older you get?
Staying with my love in a lovely apartment in Waldheim (rural Saxony), making the most of what may be my most carefree year ever.
Everything is beautiful and old and made of stone, the trees are tall and everyone is kind. The tap water sucks, but the pastries are incredible. Perhaps the most disruptive thing is going from winter in Australia (sunset at 4:30pm) to summer in Germany (sunset at 10pm), so my usual modus operandi is ruined. I’d normally wait until about 6pm, grab a bottle of wine, and write until midnight, but at time of writing it’s 7:25pm and is only just feeling like 5ish as people cross the Zschopau river on their way home from work. It’s not culture shock, it’s temporal shock.
I still am writing, every day. Progress with these and those projects continues. I tried making a spreadsheet that would give me a running total, but that nearly made my brain melt and run out of my nose. The beer is cool and plentiful, which is helping the Kill The King rewrite. 4,869 words so far.
Almost made it to Dresden today, before an electrical fault on the train tracks sent us all the way home. I’ll finish reading Slaughterhouse 5 in preparation for a second attempt next week.
Matthew J Hampton 