Cinebelle: formal poetry about movies

On By nicholasdayonlineIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

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If you’ve read any of my work, then you’ll notice my affection for poetry. There are are pieces of poetry in every single book I have had published, thus far, and that will likely continue. Formal and informal, often rhymed but certainly not always.

In my spare time, I will try out creating my own formal devices. Last year, I began sketching out what I came to call the Cinebelle (meaning “beautiful cinema”). It is composed of four tercets and a quatrain, meant to represent the “sting” and the “story” and the “end” but need not follow that rigidly. There is a rhyme pattern, equally optional, that goes like this (numbers representing lines and letters representing rhyme):

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OCTOBER ANIMALS has been a ride

On By nicholasdayonlineIn Book News, Cover Art1 Comment

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What you’re seeing above is a very small glimpse of Daniele Serra’s beautiful work for OCTOBER ANIMALS. And, besides some snippets published online and in my newsletter (which you should subscribe to), this art makes the book finally feel… real. If that makes sense? I mean, I wrote the damned thing, you think it’d be real to me. But, you know, life has been rough. Continue reading “OCTOBER ANIMALS has been a ride” →

Now I am become out-of-print, the destroyer of sales

On By nicholasdayonlineIn Book News, Cover Art1 Comment

Man observes snow

Until very recently, I had several active titles in print. No longer. After some internal deliberation, I have reacquired the rights and interests in all my solo work. There may be a few copies floating around out there on various retail platforms, but the books are very much out of print. Every single title.

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Projects, projects, projects

On By nicholasdayonlineIn Art1 Comment

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Hard to believe it, but those are two pics of the same skull. Now, I have used resin in the past, but never on a project quite this big, and certainly not with pigment powders. But I quite like the marbled effect I managed to get out of my first time. And, hopefully, this is the first of many times.

Not having any manuscript acquisitions on my plate (from either Rooster/Strangehouse or Bizarro Pulp Press) gives me something I’ve been sorely lacking lately: time. I plan on spending a lot of time on personal projects, this year and next, and one of those projects is sculpture and mold making. I mean, I did just buy 4.5lbs of Monster Clay, and I fully intend on making something ghastly/gorgeous.

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Taxes and Homeschooling and Writing and Publishing and Art and, sometimes, Naps

On By nicholasdayonlineIn Uncategorized1 Comment

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I will keep this short and sweet. Once Covid became a giant clusterfuck, I started homeschooling my kid. I helped her wrap up Kindergarten. First grade was all online. Some of second grade was, but I have taken teaching over completely since moving last fall. It isn’t hard, but it is time intensive. And, happily, the kiddo seems sharp as a tack.

But, that means every week is non-stop. And, you know, I love writing and all that, but it takes a backseat to my kid’s education. Nothing here is happening fast, that’s for sure.

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Little Revelations While Reading Jim Thompson’s SAVAGE NIGHT (and a bit about how The Iliad Bookshop is the best place on Earth)

On By nicholasdayonlineIn True StoriesLeave a comment

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I found myself re-reading Jim Thompson’s SAVAGE NIGHT, this week. May be my third time, but it is a slim volume and it never fails to pack a punch. I mean, you are set up from the get-go for violence and you wait and wait and when it finally hits… holy hell. The last handful of chapters are a goddamned ride, man. Straight to Hell.

Jim Thompson is a beast. I see other books of his recommended more often, but SAVAGE NIGHT is the one I always come back to. Lyrical and, at times, surreal. And violence that just punches off the page.

And then, that got me thinking how much I probably owe noir, like SAVAGE NIGHT, for its inspirations throughout GRIND YOUR BONES TO DUST. I always jokingly referred to GRIND as “Magic Nihilism” but I think, in hindsight, you could just as easily call it a “Horror Noir” and not be too far off the mark. Continue reading “Little Revelations While Reading Jim Thompson’s SAVAGE NIGHT (and a bit about how The Iliad Bookshop is the best place on Earth)” →

Social Media Marketing Is A Buffet; Take What You Want And Leave The Rest

On By nicholasdayonlineIn Book News, True StoriesLeave a comment

Firstly, if you’re reading this, then thanks for stopping by! I truly appreciate it.

Secondly, I’m (mostly) migrating from social media and utilizing this site AND a newsletter. I long ago dumped Facebook. However, I will keep the Twitter account running, as long as it does what I need it to do: move books.

I will be 100% honest: I am only on social media because it is a free and easy marketing tool. I do not have representation and, thus far, the presses I have worked with do not have marketing departments or marketing budgets. So, social media is where that proverbial buck stops.

“Now I am become Marketing, the destroyer of disposable income.”

And, there’s a lot of “cult of personality” types on various social media platforms. I am not one of those. Now, I certainly do not begrudge one’s interest in flexing their cult-building skills. If that’s your bag, then go out and drop those hot takes! There’s a whole load of folks who love hot takes. Hot takes, I’m sure, have even nabbed a sale or two. In general, I don’t give a single shit for hot takes.

But, I will tell you what I like about hot takes, even if they aren’t my particular bag. I like hot takes because I like reading people as much if not more than I like reading books. Hot takes, more often than not, are an open door into someone’s head. Enough hot takes, and you can start piecing together the inner workings of a person. I don’t mind taking a walk through your head, and I will do so if you open that door enough times.

Now, I get that a lot of shit on social media is, at best, performative… but so are interactions in the real world. Any single person is a multitude. You are getting to know someone, whether it is the subjective “real” or the projection. The distinction is awfully ethereal outside of true performance art. And, I am not picky. I’ll take whatever you’re giving.

Finally, if you’ve made it this far, I thank you for a second time. I’d be thrilled if you signed up for my newsletter, and it will be the only way to get my upcoming novella, OCTOBER ANIMALS.

 

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Read and Re-read Get On A Boat

On By nicholasdayonlineIn Uncategorized3 Comments

Life looks like it’s about to get topsy-turvy for a bit. I won’t be able to get to my computer for awhile, so I’m back to the old fashioned “pen & paper” technique. Happy to report I’m just as slow writing on a notepad as I am on a keyboard. Sometimes, though, words are a little different on a page than in a file. I don’t erase as much as strike through, or simply let the words pile upon themselves like my thoughts have just been in a terrible accident.

What definitely remains the same is my tendency to read aloud, and very often re-read. I find reading aloud akin to sharpening a tool. I listen to the sentences, and many times the cadence will come to define the way I write. I am this way with just about all the stories I work on, but especially OCTOBER ANIMALS, which concerns itself with language, with influence, and a type of vocalized spell. It is a musical book, I think, and it is very much designed to be that way.

Last week, I started writing a sestina in a rural hotel and today I may finish that work in a guest bedroom, elsewhere. This particular piece serves as a bridge between the previous reality and the reality to come, and it is composed of the many recurring phrases and details contained in earlier chapters.

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OCTOBER ANIMALS borrows quite a bit from poetry, though the sestina is (I believe) the only time I employ formal poetry in the manuscript.

Funny to think OCTOBER ANIMALS may find itself finished some 2,000-odd miles from where it started. These stories have their own lives, much like we do, and they go through emotional and physical turmoil and they, too, have memories buried inside of them, and everything seems so immediate in the moment.

I don’t know if I will record the entire book as audio, but I am thinking of select pieces from the manuscript.

But, first, I must finish the work and read and re-read to myself. Then, I can read it to you.

I also have to find a place to live.

Being Inaccessible Is OK, Actually; And An Untitled Poem

On By nicholasdayonlineIn True Stories4 Comments

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I would argue that I am not a “very online” person. I have been more online in the past, but become increasingly less so as time goes on. Simply, I don’t give a fuck about all that. At my core, I am an artist, and that moniker stretches across multiple disciplines. I create this or that and sometimes it is for me and sometimes I try to put it out in the world for people to adopt as their own. But I am not concerned with being accessible. I, myself, am not the art, though it surely comes from me. I have no love for “cult of personality” types. I figure it’s hard enough to convince people to buy art, let alone have to sell my goddamned self.

Approachable? Sure. I’m not interested in being mean to anyone. Being mean is exhausting.

Continue reading “Being Inaccessible Is OK, Actually; And An Untitled Poem” →

Memory Is Palimpsest

On By nicholasdayonlineIn Book News, True Stories, WIP1 Comment

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I am taking a (short) break from OCTOBER ANIMALS, but then it is back to work. It feels like I have taken a lifetime to work on a book so short. I even had a (for myself) pretty detailed outline to work from. But the narrative started mutating right out of the gate and anytime I tried to force the outline it simply wasn’t working. The narrative wanted something else, and I have stopped fighting. Instead, I am giving the narrative what it wants and letting it go.

“If you love something, let it go” says the old adage. Except, i don’t expect this thing I love to “come back” and be mine “forever” or what have you. I intend to let it go, piece by piece, word by word. Every sentence, this story grows nearer to completion, and further away from me. As it should be. Someday, soon, I will let OCTOBER ANIMALS go and it will be yours, not mine.

And then, over time, my perception of the book will become foggy, as it has with works I’ve previously written. Narratives are like memories, in that way. An experience so utterly involving that shatters apart with passing time, to become hardly more than idle thoughts, half-remembered details.

Memory is palimpsest.

So are books.

I write a story to be half-remembered by myself and you read said story and you bring your own life and experiences and this perception of yours is grafted onto to certain words and passages, and so the story conjures thoughts and feelings and narratives within the reader, all of which is beyond my control. And that, is a kind of magic. I may put down the words, but it is the reader who gives life to the story. In their own way, every book is a spell.

And now, I must return to OCTOBER ANIMALS. I have spells to cast and creatures to conjure.

Thanks for reading.