delgrosso dot com

It happens fast for some people and slow for some, accidents or gravity, but we all end up mutilated.

Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

It seems my Muse has left the building, with no forwarding number or address.

She even stole my fucking stapler. I mean, WTF? It has left me irritated, frustrated, and generally pissy.

So, it seems I will need to disappear for a little while, as I hold auditions for the next Muse, and try to get some solid preproduction work done on my next novel.

The new project is larger in scope than anything I’ve attempted so far, and before I dive into it, I will need to recharge, recalibrate, and reinvent myself to some extent. Perspective is usually one of the sharpest tools in my kit, but it has been dulled lately and needs honing. Hence the short break from the blog and other forms of social media.

Back soon, kids. Play nice while I’m away.

Last fall, as a side project, I wrote a little serial novel and published it for free on the web. It was never intended to be sold or published elsewhere; it was something I did just for fun. But it got a great response, and I decided to publish it in softcover format through Lulu, while still leaving the original PDF chapters up on the web for free download.

So now I have a very small quantity of signed copies of Mr. Abernathy, and if you’re interested, you can buy one from me directly for $20, which includes shipping via Priority Mail. I might even throw in a personal note or some other fun piece of ephemera.

If you don’t want a signed copy and just want the book straight from the publisher, you can click this and buy it directly for $21.95¹.

If you don’t want one at all, then that’s fine too. But you might as well just come over here and take food directly out of my mouth while you’re at it.

No, I kid. I don’t really care if you buy it or not.

But you don’t want me to resort to this lifestyle again, do you? No, I didn’t think so.

After posting the last chapter of my little serial novel a couple of weeks ago, I took a few days of, ahem, “forced downtime”.

I went completely off the grid for a full five days – no web, no blogs, no Twitter, no Flickr, not even television. It was glorious in its own way, as I was able to return to the media maelstrom with fresh eyes and a somewhat fresh mind. And you know what? The vast majority of content out there is complete crap. Shocking, I know.

This shouldn’t come as a revelation to any of you, seeing as you’re all sophisticated creative types who are talented and experienced in sorting the good stuff from the ick. But try taking a break from it all for even a couple of days, and when you return, you’ll see what I mean.

My point is that I came to realize how much time I spend sorting the good content from the crap, and the relevant good from the good, and the interesting relevant good from the relevant good, and so on. And that’s just within the scope of the stuff put out by my friends, colleagues, connections, etc. It’s staggering.

It all makes me want to work harder to be a better online media consumer, and producer. I’d love to be able to read every post on every one of my friend’s blogs and Tumblrs and whatnot, but I just can’t. And I know you can’t either. So while I’m going to cut down on the amount of content I immerse myself in and comment on, I’ll also pledge to work harder at producing slightly less but much better content of my own. Deal?

Dear Lazyweb:

I need a little help with a few topics for some upcoming projects, and since I don’t have a research assistant, I thought maybe a few of you brilliant people in my audience would be able to point me in the right direction¹.

1) I need detailed information from a working linguist or historian about Latino-Punic script, of the variety found in Carthaginian ruins in modern-day Tunisia (and/or Libya).

2) Also on the language front, I’m looking for someone who knows a considerable amount about Old French, specifically early development of the langue d’oc and any influences on it from North Africa and Moorish Spain².

3) This one is for all of you: I’m looking for people who had grandfathers/fathers who fought in Tunisia or Bastogne during WWII who have photographs from that time, and are willing to let me borrow them to scan and return, and use the scanned material in a creative work.

Please send responses directly to research-at-delgrosso-dot-com. Thanks a heap.