Laeth's Blog

there are themes that just surface whenever i write something longer. and they really do surface. it’s not conscious since i never know what the story will really be at the start. and this is strange given that all three are in different genres, and i didn’t expect them to have much in common at the outset. then again, i wrote them, so i guess it makes some kind of sense.

one theme that appears even when i don’t want it to is romantic love and marriage. especially in the first book, which i swear...

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedyears have gone by during this last monthi learned a lot when i wasn’t paying attentionserver farmers, backbone of the world economywhen i finish writing a book i enter a sort of mourning period, suffering from withdrawal. hangover.there’s a scene in Wind Rises where Caproni says artists have only ten years of real intense creativity. i had ten years of music and then it disappeared, so i know it’s true...

there was always a tension in my inner life between the artist and the intellectual. not that they are completely unrelated, in myself or other people or in society, but i have always felt them somewhat at odds within myself.

the artist got a head start simply because there were artists in my family and everyone encouraged artistic pursuits. i used to draw and paint and this is what people said i had a talent for (i don’t think i would ever be great). but at twelve i gave it up for the most part ...

the story of a sensitive young man and his muse.

a short novel for the incurably romantic and the persistently wistful.

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It starts with an establishing shot of a boulevard. Trams, buses, traffic, all the way down we see green and church, and river, and the southern bank. The sidewalks are full. Isaac hurries. We know he’s the protagonist because the camera gets close and follows him as he turns the corner. A double decker bus is parked outside a hotel with an...

a month or so ago i was writing a book and had been for a few months. but my heart wasn’t in it. so i had another idea. it was going to be a sequel to my last novel. i took a lot of notes and wrote the skeleton for the first chapter in a couple of days. i even told a few people about it, because i was excited.

but then, the next day i had another idea and i worked at it relentlessly for four days until it was finished. it’s the story of an aimless nineteen year old called Isaac, who runs into a ...

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedKaylie, Kylie, Karlie, Kara and Cayleigh went to the mall, hoping to buy shoes. but then, as another bimbo gang stepped into their territory, in obvious defiance, Kaylie and Cayleigh opened immediate fire, killing four. the others joined later, killing four more.whatever the perfect equilibrium is, it’s always changing fastseek wisdom from wells. they are deep and hold water.i often agree with myself, but wi...

Had it really been a year since he and Ariel split, and was that how it was going to be from now on, years just flying by like nothing, he is nineteen but at this rate he could wake up tomorrow and be thirty five. Would he still remember the anniversary all those years later... Isaac had purposefully avoided making any plans for august the thirteenth, though even that, he reasoned after a while, was some sort of plan. The thought of a beach day did briefly cross his mind, more like a series of f...

it finally happened. there is not a single story on the most popular post list. not even the announcement of a novel or the magazine. nothing even broadly about it. total fiction death. yet it’s basically always been the norm. but why.

first, of course, this blog or whatever it is, used to be dedicated to essays. and the readers that are here since that time can be reasonably supposed to be more naturally inclined towards nonfiction. fine. but the truth is the last two years or so, more than half...

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedthe churches were always kind of like chatgpt or another one of those inhuman things. they can only give prepackaged answers. but at least in the churches there is, no matter how remote, the possibility of renegades, of individuality. not so with the machines. also keeping the priests and pastors alive takes a lot less resources, whereas the machines are making the earth barren. anyway, always better to ask the gods dire...

an orthodox fellow on twix (Nathaniel R. Clark; he is writing a book on the symbolism of bread, which is an interesting topic to me) made a series of posts about the imagination that naturally led me to memories of my time in the orthodox trenches, fighting imaginary devils, and thoughts about oneness and tradition, two of my favorite punching bags (they are favorites not just because of pleasant feelings of purgation, or the fun derived from laughing at absurdity, but also because i actually be...