“A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on. ”
― William S. Burroughs

“Nobody owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death.”
― William S. Burroughs

“Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.”
― William S. Burroughs

“I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it.”
― William S. Burroughs

“The first and most important thing an individual can do is to become an individual again, decontrol himself, train himself as to what is going on and win back as much independent ground for himself as possible.”
― William S. Burroughs

“When you stop growing you start dying.”
― William S. Burroughs

“There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.”
― William S. Burroughs

“Never do business with a religious...

I have a million words I have to go through and cut.
On a good day, I can cut 2000 words, and then on another good day, I cut only a paragraph but wrote 1500 words.

This is all the research I did over the past 15 years and putting it all in one cohesive order, which requires a lot of cutting because I find doubles and triples of the same thing and need to cut it.

I work on Scrivner and am working simultaneously between three books, the first one is the big one, the other two are desserts.

When I am working, I listen to a particular type of music, I don’t know who the artists are, or the names of the songs, I just like how it sounds. Apple Tunes made me aware that I guess I like gay disco and afrobeat, ska, with a dash of Arabic dance music. And dank techno that sometimes veers dangerously close to chill hop.

What I like is music that has an interesting beat and bass, but not...

I took a few days off of working on the book to ink posters and today I am back at it.

The main working date for the book starts around the beginning of 1800 and ends around 1910-ish, but there are moments when it does venture into the 1700s.

I thought about putting the 1700s section in chronological order, but it is only a few paragraphs and is only used more as an introduction of the topic before that topic Itself becomes much more prominent in the rest of the book. So about a hundred plus years.

I am currently on the second draft and today I will be heading into 1875. That is how close I am and then the third draft! Third draft is the one I have been waiting for, the cutting, the bludgeoning, the re-arranging again and again and again.

It feels like I am finally able to put all those 15 years of research and writing into one long chronological story. It has been an odd journey...

The Rainy Season has begun.
Weeks of smelling the smoke of burning trees and the ashes of dead animals, I woke up this morning to the smell of rain.

The smell of rain falling on dry streets and soil releases that incredible, intoxicating scent called Petrichor. Every year I count the days until Rainy Season. The weather forecast says there will be rain all week.

It is still hazy and smoky here, and I’ve been obsessively checking the weather and air quality. The PM2.5 is 189 and still unhealthy. But at least I can see the blue blinking light sitting out on the Columbia River again. Hopefully the rain will tamp down the fires and wash away the smoke along with all the other situations that are related to the fires.

Music: The Face in the Woods by Nym

When I got up at 2 a.m. to get to work, I heard the rain on the leaves outside my window. The “Rainy Season” where we live starts around late September and doesn’t let up until April, sometimes May. But first we just have to get through the jagged months of June, July, August and September, which is just ten days away, so. There is a slight chill in the air, I can feel it coming. I get emotional thinking about the smell of Autumn. So close.

Whenever I hit a plateau, I make sure to stop and take a break, to help replenish my writing brain. I took a break and inked three new posters from a new astrology series I am working on. They are already penciled, I just need to ink them.

I keep inking until I start to get anxious about writing, and then I stop inking and head over to my writing area and I feel so much better. Rinse, repeat. They both compete for my time, when I work on one, I...

I never thought that I would live to see the day when I would simultaneously experience the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression, the rise of the Third Reich, 1960s Civil Rights protests all while having Andrew Jackson as President.

I am working through all this and writing like a fiend, now I have three books instead of one. The first book is on its second draft, the second book, same and the third book all the pieces are done, I just have to photograph everything and put it all together. The first book is a historical 19th century American biography, the second is historical nonfiction and the third is a book about all the poison items in my collection. They will be published in that order.

Another reason I started this blog was because I hate social media and especially Facebook, Instagram, Snap-Chat, YouTube, and Twitter, in that order. I have an Instagram account and barely even...