I’m still locked in the 2-hour sleep cycle. Imprisoned by it, actually. I tossed and turned all morning. Two cats walked over my restless body like I was some author lying awake in his bed thinking about his brief career as a writer. That belch tasted like corn. Even Jack Daniels couldn’t put me into a coma last night. That’s the thing. Hey, I can say that. That that That’s the thing. I’m allowed. When you are young, you do shots. And you probably chase down your shots with beer. When you are a man, you pour your whiskey into a glass and drink it right proper. Chasers are for kids and amateurs and woosies and wimps. You chase down your whiskey with another sip of whisky, goddamn it. That’s the simplicity of it. Blah. I’m not really into the taste of Jack anymore. Not that it ever really tasted like a cute little ice cream cone. Drink tequila. Low carbs. And the agave plant is a good source of Omega-3 fatty acids. How much you wanna bet that they’ll set us that horse shit someday? Huh. Booze is good for you. Booze is good for the soul. Oh my gawd. Drinking is the most selfish thing you can do besides smoking. And writing.
I had no idea how hard it is to sustain a writing career. None. Until now. Now, I’m doing it. I’m not sitting around and dreaming and making excuses. I launched Cases of Pain in February 2009. Ha. For once, I fooled me, in that asmuchasain’tawordiknowthat I did not add the requisite hyperlink to the Cases of Pain home page. If you want to know who links into Cases of Pain, well, read this blog. I’m the king.
This is a goddamned job. And hey, I already have a full-time job. Being a writer is a job. Do you hear me? A job. That thing you hate. A job. You become the thing you hate. We all do. We hate what we fear. Yoko told me. And, say, not only are you an author, but you are a DIY enterprise like Cases of Pain. oh, shit. You are the author, agent, editor, marketer, PR, HTML janitor, therapist, etc. Oh, man. Oh, man. The creator did a number on me. He put this idea in my head. Furthermore, this goddamned job isn’t fun. I don’t get paid for it. I enjoy the writing part, but that’s the thing thingie thing, the writing has become a part of the process. A part, not the whole. I signed up for the whole. I didn’t bargain for this job.
I’m trying to decide whether Cases of Pain is a career path, or a hobby. How much of myself do I put into this creation? Do I go full-steam ahead? I don’t know. Right now, I’m in full-steam ahead mode. I do, in fact, want to grow a modest entertainment franchise. I believe there is a market for a hard-boiled detective who happens to be a geek. Christ, there are detectives who cook and knit. That’s their shtick. Somebody’s buying it. I know there are fanboys out there who are goddamned tired of remakes and pretty boy bullshit. Can we put a stake in vampires already? goddamn, that’s been overdone. I’m trying to give you Cases of Pain. A story about a hard-boiled detective who takes on the assholes with his attitude and wit. A man, David Pain, who is tortured about a past mistake. David Pain struggles with sadomasochism. David Pain hates authority. David Pain takes on the fascists (hate typing that word; never spell it right). David Pain is stalked by a psycho ex-girlfriend. David Pain cannot get the love of his current girlfriend. David Pain pulls out the geek trick bag. David Pain, like Andy Taylor, does not carry a gun. David Pain has a drinking problem. David Pain unravels the intentions of a ruthless crime syndicate. David Pain lives in a fanboy fortress. David Pain compromises his own moral code to conspire with the bad guys and that eats him up. Man, it eats him up. Goddamn you. That’s real. That’s soul. That’s original. David Pain is you. David Pain is me. Fucking simplistic, but that’s the truth in it. That is Cases of Pain. How far do I take this thing? That’s my struggle. Is this a career path or a hobby? I do know one thing. This is hard work. I’m definitely not as good as I think I am. I have to keep writing. I have to get better. I have to learn.
Another part of Cases of Pain is the aspect of David Pain being a child of television. Of course, David Pain is my alter ego to a certain extent, but as I get older, I think I’m more like a supporting character who has become jaded with television and popular culture in general. It goes back to the old Happy Days TV show. When you hear about Happy Days, you think Fonzie or Ron Howard or Jump the Shark. To me, it’s about the episode where Fonzie goes blind, goes through all of the emotions associated with the blindness AND gets his vision back — all in the span of 30 minutes. Whoah. That’s just fucking poison to a kid. All of life’s problems can be solved in 22 minutes probably, not counting the 8 minutes of commercials. David Wong made it worth getting up this morning. Read this. I get it.
