State of the Freeman Address

Namaste, bitches. This is the first State of the Freeman post; an overview of the past and the future.

What I am working on

Last year, I completed my first novel, Shades of Jack. This year, however, I have several projects that I intend to produce in the coming months. The first is a futuristic sci-fi comic called Catch or Kill, second, will be my first science fiction novel of a trilogy called Testament, and along the way, I will update my blog with my “B-sides”, or stories that I don't intend to use in any publication, but I still think are interesting enough to read.

In the next six months, I am hoping to have a completed, unedited manuscript for the first Testament novel, in the meantime, when the mega-talented Alfred Fox is done with my site redesign, I will have a brand new comic that I am developing with a true madman and all-around talented bastard, Jason Kimble, whom I am so excited to work with, I can't keep my hands off of my computer just so I can keep writing stuff for him to draw.

What my site is about

Originally, Jackfreelance.com was supposed to essentially be my online resume/portfolio. The biggest problem became immediately apparent when I wasn't making money. Not having written enough to garner sufficient traffic and interest on my own, and having finished my first novel, I decided to send my original concept of the ne’er-do-well, badass cowboy-with-a-pen persona out to pasture. My new direction is more viable, more honest to myself, and most of all, more economically viable.

Gone is the sixgun and spurs. 2011 is the year that Jack Freeman heralds the future. With the new web design, I will be able to update my readers with new information about emergent science, theoretical technology and bleeding edge transhumanist news. After working with Gabriel Walsh on The Earthly Frames, Volume 1, I discovered that I wrote science fiction better than anything else, and so a couple of months later, I began Testament, my newest and currently, favorite project.

I will also keep to a more constant update schedule, so mind the gap, the future's coming.

Namaste, Bitches

This is my first post of the new year, and cliche as it is, it's about New Year's resolutions... kinda.

So I'm walking down the aisle of my neighborhood Safeway, and dropping various foodstuffs and sundries into my cart and I begin to recall all of the myriad cakes and pastries and meats and liquors and spirits that I have treated myself to, and I decided then and there to not make a resolution, as they are for chumps, but to become resolute.

Just yesterday, I went shopping and tried on a pair of jeans that I should have laughed at someone trying to get me to put on and they didn't fit at all. I couldn't place the feeling, as it wasn't quite shame as I had too much fun wrecking my body, and I still cannot, but I can say now that I don't like it, and I want it to stop.

Instead of kicking things and sulking(and stress-eating), I decided to come up with a plan. It's still in its infant stages, but as it stands, it is in three parts:

First, I have got to get my weight under control. I am running short of fat clothes, and I can only use the “sweat pants are comfy” excuse for another week before I crack under the stress of keeping the lie alive. I have to actually attend my gym and work out, because my current pump from the couch technique is tragically flawed. I also, and this pains me to even think, cut out the liquor. I will still drink beer in moderation, because if I don't, you will all see me on the evening news, and there are health benefits to controlled beer consumption. I will also have to adjust my diet, but thankfully, all I would have to do would be skip out on the take out(which I hate anyway), and eat more fish. However, I won't be able to eat the cookies, pies and cakes that I love and would stab a paraplegic nun in the face over.

Second, I need to organize my mess of a life. It';s kind of embarrassing to discuss matters such as these in open forum, but it's necessary, and should keep me honest. I tend to keep a messy room. I just do. I wreck it and leave it for another day. Starting today, I need that to stop. I also need to reduce my television watching by half. I used to hate the idiot box, and now it cuts so deeply into my writing time, that I never get around to it.

Oh, wait. Just the two, then. That makes me feel better.

Shades of Jack B-side: Dreams

Fuck. Night sweats. My mouth's dry, too. Must have been wide open, because it tastes like the last part off the fence. Massive headache, too. Window's open, so the apartment's cold as hell. Early chill. Soaked through the sheets.

I hate when this happens. Just changed 'em, too.

I got up for the morning ritual, consisting of the longest pee in history, and my brain graciously decides to remind me of the nightmare that woke me up in the first place. Nightmare might be a bit excessive, because nothing scary happened, I just remember the faces of some friends that I haven't seen in a while.

"Mmmrrow." A trilling mass of fur headbutts me in the leg. I know the drill, but other calls of nature are taking precedence.

"Lemme pee, Cat," I think is what I said. She got the message, and purred as she skulks away. I'll feed her when I get my morning started. I shoulder the door open and tend to my urological urgency in the typical fashion, then brush my teeth, a nagging thought festering in the back of my mind.

I brush my teeth, slowly rewinding my morning with self-hypnosis assisted by the metronomic saccade of my teeth brushing, a trick that I have had used far too often in the past. Good thing there wasn't much to go through, so it's an easy trick backwards: cat bumping me, gotta pee, wet sheets, then I feel my consciousness soften, I visualize pushing my head through a barrel of water like bobbing for apples.

I see myself walking backwards in my dream, the last thing that I see is Frankie's face. That's weird, I think to myself. I haven't thought of him in a while. Haven't spoken to him in a while, either. I allow myself to roll backwards some more, but after a while, I decide that this is just my bladder shaking me awake.

"That's what I get for drinking two bottles of wine with dinner." I come to, but when I spit, I fill the sink with blood. "And that's what I get for brushing while under." I chance some Listerine, grit my teeth through the burn, then hop in the shower.

"Mmrrow?" I swear to any God you want that was a question.

"Not now, Cat. I smell like ass, and I gotta go to work soon. Get out of the shower, you're creeping me out."

"Mmrroooooooow." Not any less creepy.

"No, Cat! Stay out there, and wait until I am done in here."

"Mrrow."

"Wait. Did I just have an argument with my pet? Great. Losing my mind." I make it a quick one, opting out of shaving my head or beard. "It'll keep." I say to no one in particular.

Before getting dressed, I sit at my desk, reading the news from online outlets and emptying my email inbox. "Spam, spam, garbage. Ugh." I checked the news for something less annoying. "Oh, Obama did something that makes me regret living here. Nice."

The familiar pinging from my instant messenger chimed in a little too early to not be important, so as opposed to ignoring it until my second cup of coffee, I opened it.

Crazysausage: Yesterday, Franklin J Morris had a stroke last night and passed in his sleep. He will be missed.

Rakeatthegates: Wait, what? Frankie's dead?

Crazysausage: Yeah, just found out about it this morning.

Rakeatthegates: You okay, Andy? You want I should fly down?

Crazysausage: Nah. Everyone's here. I know that you two weren't close.

Rakeatthegates: U Sure?

Crazysausage. Yeah, it's cool. I gotta go. I got a lot of stuff to handle.

Rakeatthegates: You take care, man.

*Crazysausage has signed off*

As soon as he got offline, I could feel the walls closing in. The old familiar feeling was back again. My stomach churned like it was full of bad tacos, and my pulse sounded like hammer strikes.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck no no no no no... not again. I can't do this again." 

I picked up my cellphone and dialed the only number that I could ever be bothered to memorize. After three rings, a tired, albeit familiar voice came on the other end. "Hello? Jack? What's up, man, it's like six in the morning."

"I knew about Frankie."

"How do you mean?"

"How do you think?"

"What- no. No. We fixed it. Impossible."

"Lemme guess... roughly 8 in the PM?"

"But I didn't-"

"I don't think that matters anymore. What matters is that Frankie is dead, and there was nothing that I could do but wait."

"We're in trouble again."

"Yeah, and so is everyone that we know."

Chapter 1

But I Don’t Wanna

I really, really don’t. I don’t want to edit this thing. It’s too much like work. It feels fake to even read it. I just want to write and write and write and write until my hands hurt and my eyes bleed. I only want to stop writing to read. But not read in the conventional sense. I want to gorge on information. To stuff my brain with data until I can feel the vicious tears in the ethereal fabric of my mind as I greedily mash more facts and experiences into my open maw of a brain.

Jeeze, I hate that word, ‘maw’. Okay, I love it: It’s vulgar, it elicits a mental image of a bestial creature, nasty in every imaginable way covered in more kinds of filth that you want to devote too much thought towards, and reeking of seven shades of ****.

With its one remaining eye, milky and filled with filth, it gazes at the sky, rage filling its vision. The foul beast’s skin is scaly and hardly fits its frame, and its more sores than anything else. It ambles upon a rock and angles its horrifying and misshapen head in a manner that shows its neck bend in a way that manages to sicken you further.

As if an attempt to feast on the entirety of the night sky, this hellish monster languidly opens its filth-encrusted maw, teeth ageless, and pointing in multiple directions, and a two tongues to better facilitate this disgusting creature’s lustful appetite.

It roars its anguish as it attempts to eat the night, and ends its own torment by eating a final supper of its pair of prehensile tongues, snapping them off and engorging its belly with its own blood.

Weiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiird.

 

See? I’ll do anything to get out of work. GAH!

Give me one word or phrase to write a 300-word super-short story about.

*EDITED*

A buggy smear on the windshield of life.

Ew. And not indicative of my mood, that was just the first thing to come to mind after reading Palahniuk and Ellis all morning.Someone should by me another copy of Fear and Loathing, My old copy has taken leave of me.

Yay! Ramble time! I have been eating too much pie and cake, but I’m not going to stop. I had my first shot of vodka in months, and it was hard to do.

This is not good. I need more(any) Russian friends.

Okay, so…

I decided that I’m not going to write a sci-fi anthology next. I just started a sci-fi epic, and I am really excited about the project. I don’t want to talk about it too much, but I will have details soon.

As for Shades of Jack… I gotta stop dragging my feet. I’ll have an update in a couple of days. I’ll keep you updated!

I hurt my back last week, but I am trying to make it to the rally.

Watch the gap, bitches.

Eat Ramen, Fuck Bitches.

Well, the novel is finally fucking finished. I will be spending the next few months on edits and re-edits, but

in the meantime, I will also be researching novel #2 and working on a webcomic.

I haven't been around much because I found myself in a pit of depression that I had no means to pull

myself out of. I still don't know what started it, but I am doing eveything that I can to keep it from

happening again.

So. In an IHOP, drinking black coffee and listening to Thriller. Like a fucking BOSS.

I learned a lesson about enthusiasm: it requires a plan to follow. That I have- well, I am working on the

plan. I just need to stick to it. First step is organization.

I posted earlier about the first step of my depression. When I feel myself going to a place that dark, I

can usually harness much of that for fuel and write my ass off. The problem, is that immediately after a

period of unabated creative productivity, I find myself wallowing in a pool of emotional filth. A well of pain

so deep that I would wish that I was numb. Just a non-stop cycle of zero self control followed by self-

pity, then disgust, then shame, then loathing, etcetera, etcetera, ad nausem, forever.

And the drinking. Good gods, the drinking...

I don't know what pulled me out this time, maybe I was finzally sick of a lack of control of my life. I don't

know, and it doesn't matter. I'm back, and I'm strong, and I'm finally going to be what I say.

With a bit more swagger, and a little less booze.