Write a few sentences-slash-lines under five pages today, that's around two-thousand words. Which is a good deal of work considering I'm still sick and napped for a good two hours or so in the middle of the process. The new angle on the novel is much more pleasing to me, even if a little harder to write. It's dealing with the original inspiration for the material instead of drifting off into random territories like I had before. The underlying theme of the novel is violence in video games and can video games make people violent. All the controversy therein all wrapped up in a nice fucked up horror story involving insects and insanity. I'm still not sure about the title of the fictional video game or the book, but I might come up with something better. Completely different creature, this draft. I'm much more excited about it.

I've been inspired by life and fiction and comics.

So, let me talk about that!

My last comic shop closed down at the beginning of summer last year, and I was bummed. I don't like most of the shops in Ogden -- there are two, and they're not really comic shops per se -- and I don't get down to Salt Lake City enough to warrant putting a hold service at the comic shops down there. But not that long ago one of the Ogden shops that caters more towards action figures and toys opened up a comic shop in an awesome location. So, I bought some comics. A lot of comics.

I started with X-Men Forever # 1. Then came back the next day for several issues of The Walking Dead, Invincible, Astonishing X-Men, Cable, X-Force, and Spawn. I think that was it as far as single issues. Nagged The Walking Dead Compendium Volume 1 and The Walking Dead Volume 9, 'cause I love that book. So, I've been reading a lot of comics, and I couldn't be any happier. It was almost as though I had forgotten how much I loved the comic book medium. Now I gotta find more non-superhero books to read.