Another hot ass day in The Creek.  But that’s all about to change.  There is now four more minutes of night than day, and that’s only going to increase from now until December 21, thank Christ.  I can’t bitch too vociferously this year, though…compared to the fiery hell that was the summer of ’24, this summer was a big, pink titty.  Only a few days over a hundred, and even then, just barely.  I’ll take it.

I’ll also take the progress I’ve made on the book in the last couple of weeks.  From a chaotic, swirling, amorphous mess of random notes and orphaned fragments have finally started to coagulate into a coherent collection of compelling composition.  I’ve started smiling when I’m working on it, which is a pleasant change from angsty bitch-face that’s been going on all summer.  The psychic effluvia that’s been gumming up the works seems to have finally been blasted loose.  The creative engine, long seized by the rust of existential dread and the sheer, mind-numbing banality of another trip around the sun, has sputtered back to life with the kind of violent, piston-shattering roar that frightens children and small animals.  The words, they are flowing.  Not trickling, not dripping, but gushing forth in a veritable firehouse torrent of brilliance, a deluge of prose so dense it threatens to achieve its own gravitational pull.

This newfound momentum, this sudden and frankly suspicious productivity, has me feeling something akin to what a normal, well-adjusted human might call “optimism.”  A dangerous substance, that.  It’s the kind of high that precedes some sort of biblical crash.  But for now, I’ll ride the wave.  I’ll mainline this feeling, chase this particular dragon until its wings fall off.  Because in this furnace of town, this sprawling monument to questionable life choices, you take your victories where you can get them. Whether it’s an extra four minutes of blessed darkness or a paragraph that sings with the unholy choir of your own manic genius, you grab it, you hold on tight, and you don’t let go until your knuckles are bloody and the bottle is empty.
So here’s to the coming darkness, to the blessed chill that will soon render our collective sweat-soaked misery a distant memory.  Here’s to the book, this monstrous bastard of a thing that is clawing its way into existence against all odds and my better judgment.  And here’s to you, sexy reader, for reading this tripe.  Now, I need to get going.  The night is calling, and I have a manuscript to baptize in whiskey.  It’s the only way to be sure.

N.P.: “Glory” – Jamie N Commons