Moby Love

Just when I’ve painted myself into a creative corner and I can’t find my way out, when all my inspiration is gone and the air around me feels dry and empty—that’s when I know I need some new music.

Gotta have it.

I hear some folks can get by without music, specifically without a new fix on a regular basis. But I’m just not that person. Sometimes I wish I was. Seems like life would be so much easier.

It’s like being hungry. But you don’t know where the food is. Somebody keeps moving it, hiding it, giving it to other people more worthy. By the time you get to the store, it’s all gone or worse, stale and spoiled.

Nothing worse, really, than stale, spoiled, yesterday’s leftover music. I’m not talking about the tried-and-true favorites. They last forever, like blue jeans and vintage jewelry. But I just can’t sit around, listening to the same stuff, over and over. Not if I’m trying to be creative too. I need some new rhythms to shake up and wake up my brain synapses, to make the thought patterns travel down a different corridor, hop over that brain canyon and finally, hopefully, come to some new conclusions.

Dead music. Dead ideas. Dead me.

Gotta get me some of that sugar, that sweet keep-me-up-late candy, that take-me-to-another-world-and-let-me-wander-around-all-by-myself snack.

So just when I think I’m never gonna find it, gonna have to make do with what I already got, then I find it. And I dance. All day, all night. I write and I get myself plugged into something bigger than me. Again.

It’s like love. Really.

And tonight, I’m in love all over again. I just stumbled across Moby’s new album, Wait for Me. It’s cherry sweet. Just downloaded it from iTunes and already I can feel the current flowing. Pale Horses broke my heart, but it needed to be broken. Division set the stage and I’m in my seat, ready. Mistake reminds me just how much I’ve missed Moby, how much I love his voice, his melodies, his pain-sharp musing. The almost holy chant of A Seated Night, the haunting chorus in Wait for Me, the minor chords of Slow Light. All like brand new friends who laugh at my jokes and know that sometimes, a girl’s just gotta cry.

So I think I finally found something to help me through those long hot summer nights. Something to keep my fingers pounding keyboard.

Something sweet. Got me some Moby Love.

Monsters Under the Bed

I’m a big fan of everything that goes bump in the night. Vampires, ghosts, goblins, twisted branches that thump against the window and sound like someone is trying to break into the house. In particular, I’ve always had a soft spot for monsters under the bed. Creepy, tangled in cobwebs, hiding in shadows and much too flat to look human.

I just always wished they were under someone else’s bed.

Well, I finally got my wish.

Apparently all these years, those very same monsters that were tormenting me were also hanging out under the bed of good pal, Rebecca Razo.

Who knew?

And now she’s gone and exposed them for what they really are. On top of that, she’s telling folks all around how they can capture one for themselves. On paper, that is. She’s put together a really cool, I mean scary, book about how to draw these horrid beasts, and she’s revealed a dastardly secret. Sometimes they aren’t nearly as creepy as you would think.

Oh oh.

Monsters R Us might get mad. Monsters across the universe might rebel.

Then again, this could be exactly the kind of PR they’ve been wanting all along. Make friends with the children. Then later, when said children grow up, they might just decide to write a few monster books of their own, from a different viewpoint this time.

The misunderstood monster.

He’s my favorite. Can’t wait. For all these kids to grow up and start writing their own monster books.

But first they have to pick up The Monsters Under My Bed. That’s the first step to making friends with those furry beasts who might not be so creepy.

After all, when you really think about it, don’t we all turn warm and fuzzy inside after a glass of milk and some cookies and a good book?

NASA Wants YOU!

Actually, they want your help. Yes, your help. Apparently a sweet little Mars rover named Spirit got itself stuck in Martian dirt.

Basically, the little guy has fallen down and he can't get up.

So, maybe in your spare time you could come up with a few ideas, jot them down and then contact NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Questions, comments can be submitted via Twitter (let's hear it for Twitter, YAY!) or Ustream.

Twitter: send to @NASAJPL using the hashtag #FreeSpirit

Better hurry, though. I hear the Martians are just about ready to toss the little sprite into the recycle bin.

Hot Dog!

Next time I won't ask for home delivery.

Linked by Blood

Black and white

Photos floating, spiral of images. Never like it when this film noir starts in my head. The wrong music on the radio, the light in the sky fading through trees, the wind changing course, everything turning pale and chill.

We stand, quiet, in a half circle, dirt beneath our feet. Linked by blood, separated by death. He lies, quiet, in a box, lined in silk, eyes forever closed.

My heart beating. His heart still.

My heart breaking. His heart gone.

My life ending. His life a memory.

Clumps of dirt surround the deep chasm. Too much earth, hole too big. Box sinking down into the cotton quiet ground, earth swallowing human.

Dust to dust. We say it because we must—

Find a way to forget, the knife in our chest—

Ashes to ashes. The wind blows where it will—

And the journey of the spirit, we cannot follow. Never like the songs that played on the day my blood all went their separate ways. Never liked the car that brought me here or took me away.

Never cried, because he remained in my dark nights, in my heart. Even though the live blood all faded away. The blood that died never left.

How to Make Stuff Up

If you want to learn how (not) to write dialogue, how to make stuff up at the last minute, or even why Stephen Parolini's alter-ego is named Pedro, then you should check the recent post at Novel Doctor.

And then again, you could drop by any time. It's always fun.

Oh, I almost forgot. There's a contest too. At Novel Doctor. Go on, you know you want to...

The Great Jeff Goldblum Death Conspiracy

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Something I Would Never Do

This five-year-old girl is laying on a glass balcony on the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower.

A) I would never let my child out there.

B) I would never let ME out there.

Fear of heights? Maybe. Kinda. Okay, yeah.