Early school closing today. Managed 1561 words in about three hours, which isn’t bad when you consider there were two old guys cussing each other out and threatening violence over whether you’re allowed to talk in a library.
I’ve been teaching myself to play “Far From Any Road” on the guitar. I need to learn more murder ballads. I think murder ballads will help me tell this story. That and possibly Drew Faust’s THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING, which is a book about how America dealt with the horrible death toll of the Civil War. I’ve also started rereading A Song of Ice and Fire, mostly so I can get another read of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS under my belt before the next season of GAME OF THRONES begins. In terms of inputs, this may be a mistake. Writing fantasy patterned after George R. R. Martin comes too naturally to me already. Whereas THE PLACE OF DEAD ROADS was supposed to make more of an impression, but feels like it hasn’t. I don’t know if I have enough Burroughs in me to make that sort of hallucinatory storytelling work. (“You look like you have a little Burroughs in you. No? Well, would you like some?”)
I’ve just realized that various disruptions have made me seriously delinquent on posting the essays. So: “The War of Songs,” next, says a bit about the setting that I’m writing in.