Killing Me Not-So-Softly

I told you updates would be infrequent! I’m writing this at half past ten in the evening, thoroughly exhausted from a day which mostly consisted of wandering around downtown and sitting in Jimmy’s Coffee writing. I’ve written so much of this book, Jesus, I don’t think I’ve ever written this much, this consistently in my life. I’m currently standing at 29 thousand words with this novel, ready to hit the 30-thousand mark, with only another 20-thousand until I’ve finished my goal for this month.

But I know (oh, I know!) that the novel is going to end up being much, much longer.

It’s funny because I am proud of how many words I am churning out, but for 75% of the time (perhaps even more) as I’m writing, I am CRINGING at my syntax. Honestly, I have some really clunky stuff in there. Most of it is garbage, but as an artist you realise you gotta trawl through the garbage, get all there garbage out and then start refining it. Kind of like Neil Buchanan with his massive Art Attacks that you look at from above. Kinda?

I told you I’m tired, and this is probably going to be a very incomprehensible entry. Blah. So we must continue.

I also made up some little graphics to kind of create moods for each set of characters in the story. Have a lookie:

We’ve got time-travellers, sulking schoolgirls, velvet-draped interstellar trophy wives, lost loves who deal in nuclear power on the Pacific, heartbroken space-historians, military commanders with paranoia issues, philosophers, not-so-secret police, double agents, mysterious amputees, Beverly Hills princesses and big friendly Russian men with black beards. It’s all there! Now to just make it something worth reading…

In other news, I went to an open mic with my pal Angele the other night. Unfortunately we were a little late for sign-up (blame that on… the book, duh) and so got a really, really late time slot. Neither of us could be bothered to play at 1am (I had an interview the next morning as well), so we decided to head to the park at the bottom of Kensington Market and play some songs there.

Note: never do this.

We sat on a bench and took out our guitars, strumming and taking turns to play songs. Some people stopped by and listened, smiling and nodding along. Then this short guy with 40% of his teeth and wild hair came up and started telling us all about how he plays guitar in a church and could show us several chords or so — oh, and also he didn’t have any money to offer us but he could get us the “best pot in Toronto,” so there was that. We nodded and did that thing where you’re going along with the conversation and trying to be jovial but all the while saying with your eyes “JUST LEAVE,” to no avail. He took us through the same spiel about several times before finally waving goodbye, telling us that he would be in the same space tomorrow morning at 10am, with his own guitar, we should come and get taught by a real master. A real master indeed.

So that guy left, and we got back to the playing.

And then another one came along. This was a big guy in a white t-shirt who stopped us playing, and insisted that we had to listen to a song he wanted to sing for us:

(to the tune of Killing Me Softly)

I heard you singing your song

I thought you sounded good

I wanted to go over, to tell it to my son

hrhhuhruhmmmm…

killing me softly with your song

singing your song with your woooorrdssss…

And so then I started playing Killing Me Softly on the guitar, and we all sang together, and it was totally weird. The guy then insisted we move up on the bench so he could sit between us, which we did, Angele and I giving each other the look. He then instructed Angele to play “the fourth string” and I to play “the third string,” while he sang us a song. It kind of went like this:

over there, in the square

that’s where she left me

she said i don’t love you

and so she left me

that’s where

over there

with the things

like the rings…

A masterpiece of our time, surely. Then, to make things even more interesting, an bedraggled angry man with a red beard and a backpack came up to us and told the guy in the t-shirt that if he didn’t stop fucking singing he’d get punched in the mouth. I was a bit wary because the guy was brandishing his fist, but it turns out they knew each other, so it kind of turned into a fist-bump. Then the angry man told us that he was half-Viking, and that he could play guitar better than the both of us put together. Neither of us let him have a go on our guitars.

Then more people came, out of where, only god knows. More fist-bumps and “hey man”s ensued. Angele was starting to mention that we should get back to the bar, but everyone was now hanging out by our bench. That’s when the guy with the chinos and the briefcase came up to us, his shirt unbuttoned several times too many in the night heat (it wasn’t even that warm, old man). He addressed t-shirt man:

“You got any crack? Or pot?”

T-Shirt shook his head, “No crack, sir, but if you want pot then you should speak to my guy here,” he said, gesturing to one of the guys standing around us by the bench.

That’s when Angele and I decided to leave, walking quite quickly to make sure that we weren’t being followed by Angry Beard Man.

And so that’s how we ended up accidentally having a jam session with a bunch of jovial drug dealers, as you do?

Toronto, eh?

The next day I had an interview — yes an interview — for an actual job which I am apparently actually hired for. It’s this beautiful Parisian-style cafe which will be opening in a swanky hotel way downtown. I will be a barista, and will be saying things like “Ah, good morning Mr. Smith — your double espresso?” It is also an excellent job because the doorman at the hotel is a male model, I swear to god. That’s something I will be working on during my time there, obviously. *makes hand into fist and does determination face*

Anyway, I totally apologise for my lack of artfulness with this blog entry, but all my creative energies are currently being poured-but-not-poured into this bloody novel, as yet untitled. Hope you’re all having a good week!