Well, well, well, dear reader, it’s Monday again, that cruel, coffee-sucking beast that lurches into our lives like a hungover, ‘roided out bouncer at a dive bar.  And here I am, your battle-scarred scribe, fresh off a nine-day bender of a writing marathon – call it a full-throttle, no-brakes assault on this sprawling, hydra-headed bastard of manuscript I’ve been wrestling like some demonic rodeo bull.

The mission was simple, or so I thought: take this shaggy, half-feral draft of a book – my latest attempt to claw some truth out of the chaotic void – and beat it into something resembling coherence.  Nine days of caffeine-fueled, sleep-deprived madness, hammering the keys until my fingers ached like the keys had been hammering back.  And the verdict?  Victory, of a sort.

There’s a draft now, a real, tangible beast, rough as a three-day bender and twice as messy, but it exists, goddamn it, in the digital ether.  An exceedingly rough draft, for my taste, with all the structural integrity of a sandcastle in a shitstorm.  But here’s the bright side, the one big, beautiful, undeniable fact I’m clinging to like a drunk to a lamppost: it’s good.  It’s not the polished diamond it needs to be before I put it out, but the fundamental shape of it, the raw architecture, is the best it has ever been.  So I’ll take it.  I will snatch that win from the jaws of chaos and hold it aloft, even as the to-do list stretches on into what feels like infinity.

One of the biggest successes of the week came from me experimenting with the chapter order.  This has been bugging me a long time.  I tried arranging them thematically, which, while common in memoirs, failed as badly as I thought it would here.  I tried arranging things purely chronologically, but that didn’t work either.  Ultimately, I had it arranged the way it’s supposed to be.  It jumps all over hell, timewise, but there’s no other way to tell it.

Of course, because the universe is a sadistic prick with a twisted sense of humor, nothing in this adult world of ours ever goes down smoothly.  The last week was a parade of distractions, obligations, and cosmic middle fingers – everything from Wi-Fi betrayals to existential crises that hit like a liver kick.  So, yeah, I didn’t check every box on my grandiose and erumpent to-do list.  The dream was to emerge from this nine-day gauntlet with a draft so tight it could swagger into a publisher’s office and demand a corner suite.  Reality, as always, has other plans.  But I’m not flogging myself too hard over it.  Perfection’s a myth, a siren song for suckers, and I’d rather have a flawed, fighting draft than a pristine fantasy that never leaves the page.

So here we are, Monday night, the world still spinning, the book still breathing.  I’m battered but unbowed, ready to dive back into the fray with a sharper blade and a meaner grin.  Stay tuned, sexy reader – you’re riding shotgun on this weird ride, and I promise you, it’s gonna be one hell of a show.

N.P.:  “Tron Ares – As Alive As You Need Me To Be – Metal Version” – Artificial Fear