Kevin has flappy parts

There is a can opener in my bathroom. I do not know why. I am addicted to shooting my cat with a Nerf gun. I would think of it as cruel, but he seems to really like it. I do not know why we have a nerf gun at my house. I do not live with an eight year old. I just gave my cat a ride in an empty box that used to be filled with cans of beer. I probably should call him "my housemate's cat" rather than "my cat."

I recently started working on my novel again after a six month hiatus, during which I did very little writing. I have been in a funk. Very little has felt right. I started many things and abandoned many things during this time.

I recently sent in my laptop for service. It should take a week or two. This is really poor timing because that means that I cannot write at work, unless I train myself to be ok with freehand. But so far the novel has been written on a word processor, so I'm also afraid that the protag's voice would be off if I used that technique.

I've also been training myself to wake up earlier because I have a reading in a little over a week and it starts at a time when I am usually in bed sleeping (and it is a two hire drive). I sleep on a mattress on the floor. I am thirty and do not use a bed spring. This is the first mattress that I have bought myself. All the others were bought by my parents or were hand-me-downs from friends with spare mattresses. I also tend to move a lot, so having a bed spring would be slightly inconvenient.

It has been difficult for me to write when I wake up. My brain takes a few hours to function properly. Back when I was able to drink coffee, my favorite time to write was after I woke up. Because I was less critical of myself.

It's been taking a couple of hours for my eyes to focus so I can read the computer screen properly. Last night, I was very aggravated about not being able read a long email from a friend for a couple of hours. Short emails are fine.

Once I was able to read his email, I wrote a long email back. It concerned a screenplay that we are plotting together which I will be writing.

I also cannot write very well when I get home from work because I am tired and on the verge of going to sleep. It is too bad that I did not get used to this sleeping schedule earlier.

Last night, I also reread the twenty thousand words or so that I've written in my book and wrote the first paragraph. I was able to do this fairly quickly, except for the final sentence which I had to rewrite many times in order for it to sound right.

I don't understand rewriting things straight through without stopping. I trying to get it right the first time. The content and rhythm of one sentence will have influence over another sentence. It's really annoying when I change something major during a rewrite. Then I need to go over everything and make tons of changes. It's like the butterfly effect. I tend to just cut lots of stuff during my rewrites.

The difficult thing about editing the work of others is that you must rework sentences that are not written by you, but you are restricted. You must walk on eggshells. You cannot make substantial changes. The sentence must continue to appear to be written by the author rather than written by you. So instead of making major changes, you cut a word or two, move a word to another location, replace a word with another word that resembles it, or offer suggestions (which usually begin with "Do something like this:" and end with "but something better"). So instead of having unlimited options when you're rewriting your own sentence, some, the sentence of someone else is limited to the contents of their sentence and variations of the contents.

The Dragons with Cancer e-anthology is nearly done on my end. Mike Young is doing another version. An HTML version. I am making a PDF. I am waiting for the cover. My layout is finished. But I still need to proofread a few stories (my printer ran out of ink while I was printing it out and I am waiting for Amazon to send me a new cartridge).

I forgot to mention a new web journal: Micro 100. I have a story in it.

I will mention another journal that I am in. No Colony #2.

With stuff by:

Isadora Bey
Kristina Born
Aaron Burch
Blake Butler
Luca Dipierro
Scott Garson
Rachel B. Glaser
Chris Higgs
Brandon Hobson
Edward Kim
Matt Kirkpatrick
Rauan Klassnik
Lee Klein
Darby Larson
Evan Lavender-Smith
Patrick Leonard
Eugene Lim
Sean Lovelace
Anthony Luebbert
Conor Madigan
Gene Morgan
Bryson Newhart
Christian Peet
Jennifer Pieroni
Kathryn Regina
Joanna Ruocco
Bradley Sands
Ken Sparling
William Walsh
Corey Zeller

I like the cover.

i like Chocolate Milk a lot.

I am back in The States.

Here are the 100 most frequently used words in my novel:

again always another asked body boner brother came chapter class come day door down during end even ever eyes face feel felt find first gave get go going goldstein good got grassy grover hand having head high inside know last left let life little long look looked looking man mind mother mouth mrs myself name need new next now nurse oh old own page people place please put really right room sally school seat see since something still students take tell thea thing think thought time tongue took towards tried turn two unnamable upon use wall want without work world

If my novel was the television show, 24, this would be the most frequently used word:

dammit!

I have spent the last few weeks watching every episode of 24 (because my life is bullshit). Here are my reviews of each season so you don't have to ever watch any episodes of 24. You can thank me in the comments:

Season 1: Awesome!

Season 2: Sucks!

Season 3: Sucks!

Season 4: Awesome!

Season 5: Awesome!

Season 6: Sucks!

The made for TV movie, 24: Retribution: Sucks!

Season 6 (first five episodes): Pretty ok! But there are a couple of really lame things:

A) Every episode is an argument for the awesomeness of torture. The show is now really defensive about this.

B) A major character who had an on screen death a few seasons back has suddenly come back to life. What is this? DC Comics?

Batman is dead btw. Grant Morrison teamed up with Darkseid to kill him. If I were a betting man, a would put my money on him being resurrected shortly before the release of his next movie.

Chocolate Milk

I love chocolate milk. I did not love chocolate milk until recently. I disliked chocolate milk up until recently. I loved hot chocolate. Cold chocolate grossed me out. Cold coffee grossed me out. I drank chocolate milk recently. I loved it. I think this bullshit milkshake that I drank a few times was a gateway drug to chocolate milk. I now realize that the bullshit milkshake tasted very similar to chocolate milk. It was a little colder due to advanced cooling technologies. These technologies were very impressive because the bullshit milkshake was stocked near the chocolate milk in the cooler. It also tasted slightly richer. I think I prefer chocolate milk to bullshit milkshakes. I love chocolate milk.

Bradley, age 30

Disco Biscuits

Fans of Disco Biscuits all wear stupid looking hats and buy an excessive amount of candy.

proof the kids will submit stories to anything these days

The e-anthology, Bradley Sands is a Dick, is out. Thanks to Andersen Prunty for being totally ridiculous.

It is a PDF. Because PDFs rule the fucking universe (and I am terrible at web design). Go here to download it: DOWNLOAD IT DOWNLOAD IT DOWNLOAD IT

Here is Sam Pink's cover:


Here is the table of contents:

Bradley Sands is a Dick: An Acrostic by Jess Gulbranson
Bradley Sands is a Dick by Elizabeth O'Hara
Bradley Sands is a Dick by Jordan Krall
Bradley Sands is a Dick by Carlton Mellick III
Bradley Sands is a Dick by D. Harlan Wilson
Bradley Sands is a Dick by Mykle Hansen
Bradley Sands is a Dick by Kek-w
Bradley Sands is a Dick by Garrett Cook
Bradley Sands is a Dick by Nathaniel Tower
Bradley Sands is a Dick by Tony Rauch
Bradley Sands is a Dick by Michael James Gibbs
Bradley Sands is a Dick by Kristin Fouquet
Bradley Sands is a Dick by Katy Wimhurst
Bradley Sands is a Dick by Cameron Pierce

Fuck you, Jess Gulbranson, for making the table of contents slightly less awesome with the addition of an "an" and another word that I needed to look up to find out the meaning of. Go write a poem spelling out "I hate life" and then put out a clove cigarette on your chin.

secret messages

Blake Butler: I used to love to wake up in the morning, slam down a ton of coffee, and write. I loved this because I was less critical of myself in the morning. It felt like I will still asleep while fully conscious and completely out of my head. I cannot drink coffee anymore. This may be the biggest regret of my life.

J.A. Tyler: There was a period during high school where I lucid dreamed every night. It took me a while to be able to do this. I would often get scared when the dream became lucid and wake up. Eventually, I forced myself to stay asleep. I was really stupid in my lucid dreams. I could have done so much awesome stuff, but instead I usually had sex with girls from my high school that I had crushes on. I had never had "real" sex at the time, so it must have been very inaccurate. Now I rarely have lucid dreams as hard as I try. Some times I blame losing my virginity.

Keith Montesano: Back when I was really depressed, I used to have terrible nightmares. I would force myself to wake up from these nightmares. I would go back to sleep. The nightmare would begin from where it left off as if it were a movie and waking up had paused it and going back to sleep was the same thing as pushing PLAY. So after the nightmare started again, I would wake myself up again. And then I would go back to sleep. It felt like I did this hundreds of times each time I had this kind of nightmare, which was often. It was really terrible to experience these things. Sometimes I think all the lucid dreaming in the past was somewhat to blame.

Daniel Bailey: Once I woke up in college and a girl who I had a crush on was on top of my chest, choking me, and I was unable to move. After a while, she vanished. It was pretty traumatizing. It took me a while to be able to move again. I knew it wasn't a dream because the surroundings of my dorm did not change after I was able to move again. My eyes were open the entire time. Later, I did research and found out that I had experienced sleep paralysis, which involves dreaming while you're still awake. It is very rare. In my case, and I think in the case of everyone else who has experienced it, I woke up during a dream and continued dreaming. This has only happened to me once. It was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. And further research tells me that the idea of a succubus was the result of sleep paralysis through the ages.

Brad D. Green: I once watched a Richard Kern movie. Soon after, I saw one of the actresses from the movie on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. I thought I was dreaming. I jumped up and down, trying to fly. I did not fly.

Brandi Wells: I just woke up from a bad dream. It was about an ex-girlfriend. I cannot stop dreaming about her even though I haven't seen her in seven or eight years.

Mike Young: I went to the UMASS library this morning to find out about job possibilities, scan some papers, and print out some papers. Doing all of these things was an extreme pain in the ass. The UMASS library was not an extreme pain in the ass back when I was a UMASS student. But we did have naked men jumping off the roof.

Jason Jordan: A billionaire bought out my whatchamacallet cart. He is now my boss. It sucks having a boss. He was my secret santa for christmas. It was not very secret because he and I or the only people in the company. He bought me satellite radio for my car. I listed to the metal station all the time. It is amazing how many variations of metal they play: Seventies metal, eighties cheese, metalcore, metalcore with cheesy eighties vocals, emo metal, death metal, black metal, neu metal, nineties metal. Metal is strange. Black Sabbath and metalcore feel as if they belong in different universes. I like metal a lot. But not enough that any of the bands that the radio station plays really distinguish each other in my head. Except for a Japanese band that I forgot the name of, I have not heard a song by a band that has made me though, "This band is awesome and I need to hear more by them!" I am a casual metal listener.

Jason Gussman: I do not understand Facebook. I don't understand when people who are really my friends request my friendship on it when we are already friends on myspace. Will it make our message exchanges more magical if we do it on Facebook rather than Myspace? I have like fifty Facebook friends. I have like two thousand Myspace friends. I use Myspace to promote. I don't think I've ever made a friends request on Facebook. Maybe I have. Unlike Myspace, I used to want to keep my Facebook account pure by only adding my actual friends. But then "reader type" people started adding me. And I started accepting, hoping they would buy my book. I am ashamed of myself.

Josh Maday: My desk collapsed, so I put my computer monitor on top of a dresser. My desk collapsed, so I put the motherboard on top of a table. My desk collapsed, so I put my mouse on top of my motherboard. My desk collapsed, so I put my keyboard on top of my lap.

Brad D. Green: Sometimes random strangers send me stories to read and give my opinion of (rather than submitting stories to my journal). I rarely read these stories and share my opinion. I wonder if this makes me a bad person. I will read and share my opinion if my friends send me stories. I will even do this if a friend sends me an entire novel as a Microsoft Word document.

Cameron Pierce: You are the worst arm wrestler I've ever arm wrestled.

kek-W: I really like the titles of American B movies from the fifties and sixties. I feel the need to write "American" since you are from the UK. It seems like the better the title is, the worse the movie is. Movie titles are pretty awful these days, except for stuff like Snakes on a Plane and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (because of it's awesome long-windedness). Most of my favorite titles for my books and stories are in the same vein as these B movies. I am going to start outlining a new book tonight. It will be called Sex Offender Vs. Evil Houses, which is derived from the film title, Earth Vs. the Spider. Earth Vs. the Spider is a better title than Sex Offender Vs. Evil Houses, but Sex Offender Vs. Evil Houses is still very good. I have not seen Earth Vs. the Spider. I am afraid the movie will ruin the quality of the title. I always thought it was Earth Vs. Spider rather than Earth Vs. the Spider, but I just googled it and am a little disappointing by the addition of the "the." I will not add the additional "the" to Sex Offender Vs. Evil Houses. It sounds better in my head that way. My book was originally going to be called I Was a Teenage Sex Offender, but the protagonist is no longer a teenager. I was also thinking about naming it I Raped Your Grandmother Last Night, but I don't want to write a book with "rape" in the title. It is distasteful. I just realized I Raped Your Grandmother Last Night is similar to a line in the Misfit's song, Last Caress. That is a good song.

Sam Pink: This made me laugh:



This too:



Matthew Simmons: This is a really good song: