"In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.
I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;
There flowers or weeds at will may grow,
... The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away;
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair..."
~selections from the poem 'And Thou Art Dead, As Young And Fair' by: Lord Byron 1812
(this poem inspired one of my imaginary childern... you may be able to guess which one)
God ye and good den fair gentlewoman... and men... and whatever other creatures may lurk around the bend or in disguise. You've found a most bizarre creature. One who is equipped with a pen... and nothing more. I can tell you that at times I will drive you crazy... or bore you to tears... or sicken your head with my nonsense.
For my returning readers, below you will find an old friend split in two. While the beginning half hides in the shadows as I attempt at sewing it back together ... I have decided to grant you access to the ending as my one dangling like a carrot. I understand that what I've done to The Journal may not be conventional... if not blasphemous, but I ask that you take the time to give it the chance to grow on you again as it germinates into it's final hours on stage. In return... some words of encouragement would be most assuredly appreciated. Good, bad, or indifferent, it helps me more than it hinders me. So please... leave me a comment. I'll even add a smiley face for good measure :)
Look for updates (and perhaps a surprise or two along the way). Till then, I'll keep at the grind... for it's the only place I feel at peace any more.
Confessions:
You will never find a person who adores the creepies, crawlies, and other macabre things of this world than I. I will only be content to die after I have seen the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. If it's strange, than I've read it. If it's detestable, then I adore it. If it would give you nightmares, I could look at it for weeks on end and it wouldn't phase me. My morbid curiosity is the only sure thing I know aobut myself. The rest is all open to interpretation.
I also have a quirky side; ie, a geek with glasses at the heart of the humorous side of my brain. That little geek has been addicted to fantasy and muppets and those cheesy Ewoks since my childhood. And I'm not about to part from it anytime soon. On the flip side, the geek in me is only upstaged by my sensual side. I'm a sensory personal, so it's no surprise that I would rather described the scent of a man's skin than describe the size of his genitaila as we fuck deep into the night. I am not a romance novelist. And though I use sexual themes in my writing... I don't write erotica. I understand that we are all sexual little beasts, but I don't expect to find any member throbbing Fabio moments in my writing. I know that I just lost about a quarter of you by admitting that. Sorry it had to be like that.
Onto other dead fair. I must confess that I am a tempestous, over-emotional idiot who will (at times) surrender to my own wily spontanety at the wrong time. For this I must apologize. To be honest, I have never felt that I am very good at what I do. And for that, I often fail at finsihing what I've begun. Writing has been the only passion in my life which has ever felt completely natural. Yet, even it is not save from abuse.
Somedays I feel I'm running down a hollow path, and on others I feel that I'm exactly where I should be. It takes a lot of courage to take on a project that is unconventional and experimental. I write for adults. And even that will present it's challenges. I pour every ounce of myself into a project and sometimes feel that it is too much when it seems that I'm not making a connection to the audience the material is intended for. Keeping faith in your abilities is hard enough anyway.
I have been working on my current project The Journal for the past eight years. The road hasn't been paved with gold and I've had many a break down along the way.
If it weren't for my best friend anyway, the novel would still be at the bottom of a dirty box and trapped within the confines of an aging spiral notebook. You know, the kind that you can buy for 99 cents at any Wal-Mart across America. She deserves your thanks. My life is already indebted to her anyway.
Current Projects:
The Journal: "Creatures of the Night? If you found a book which contained the answer to such a question, would you believe it? Further still, would you read it? Would you want to?" For a waitress named Judith, these questions become her plague when she crosses paths with a quiet stranger who appears to be more than what he seems. As the heart of this stranger's mysterious narative unfolds, Judith finds his confessions to be too unreal to be true... and to compelling to put down."
For now... Adieu Pilgrims!
~D. Howard
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