Corporate America

And then I thought, well, you have how many synopses on your website for film scripts? Surely there is a good idea in there? Yeah, they are all good ideas, I don’t want to waste my time on the wrong idea. I already did when I wrote the whole film script for Déjà Vu, funny enough the synopsis was great enough to attract six production companies, but once they read the script itself, they all walked away. Is it because the moment was gone, they had found something else to produce in the two months it took me to write it? Was the script so different from the synopsis? I will never know, but I don’t want to waste any time anymore with the wrong story.
And then I thought, why not write short stories, from all the synopses I have? Sounds great, best idea so far, and then again, something was not right with this idea. Short stories? When have you heard of the latest best-sellers being a bunch of short stories? I never. So it is not quite what I need.
And then it hit me, and I thought of it before, but forgotten it as soon as I thought of it. Took me months to thin about it again, and then, this time, I am writing it down before my actual conference makes me forget again.
Many of my synopses are about paranormal phenomena, it struck me that they could all be linked together in a novel, if somehow the main character was always the same person. And then the title struck me as well: The Most Psychic Woman Alive!
She just turned 100 years old a few days ago, and decided it was time she came out of the closet (oh yeah, she’s a lesbian after all). But coming out of the closet is more about finally telling to the world the kind of life she had to keep a secret. That she was so psychic and such weird things happened to her in her lifetime. She was never really happy anyway, and always moved from country to country until she hoped to finally find peace. Reminds you of someone?
I still don’t know if I should write as if she is talking herself, or if I should have a narrator outside of her. It is a big decision, because if she speaks in the first person, nothing can ever happen outside of her, it will always be from her own point of view. I think I prefer that anyway. And the fact that I am a man (or so I think anyway), and she is a woman, it is obviously a novel.
I am all excited again, I wish I could take a year off to write it, that’s not going to happen. I’m not Dan Brown, even with my 25 books already written and my six published, my seventh soon. Makes no difference in French, I’m afraid.
Another big advantage of having so much stock to write a book, that each chapter is filled with a totally new story and characters, is that I won’t be wasting 50 pages, like in Dan Brown’s book, just witnessing a damn murder in a church in Rome. I hate it when an author can spend hours in one place, describing everything, and nothing is happening. I hate descriptions in a book, or big physical, social and psychological portraits of my characters. Only the story and the conversations interest me. Not that Dan Brown’s books are bad, on the contrary, they have been a big inspiration for me. But God, he certainly spent a long time in that Church in Rome where they find the first cardinal murdered. I thought I was going to die with him and remain forever in the demon’s hole. I’m sure Dan Brown went to that church for real, and spent many long hours describing it to us. So in the end, perhaps he would have been better inventing all of it, and spend less time there. He certainly learnt his lesson, the follow up was much shorter, too short in fact. I wish now he could release the 1000 page version he claims he has written originally.
Which reminds me, my first published book had over a thousand pages. It was a nightmare of an editing job to reduce it to 300 pages, I tell you. And thank God I had a friend in Paris to do this editing job for me, I don’t I was objective enough to do it myself. I made all his changes, deleted all he said that should be deleted, I did not question his judgment. Otherwise I would still be editing that book today. I have after all spent 8 months correcting it! Using a crap piece of software which in those days was sooooo slow! Just because it was capable of finding one mistake every 20 pages. But my, it took me days to review and analyze 20 pages with that software. I don’t regret it anyway, the book was published twice after all, at two different publishers. And would be my most popular if my poetry book, which was scandalous, had not surpassed all my other books. Though I’m not sure anymore which book has sold the most. All I know is that I could not survive on that. But in English, it could be different. And I only need one big success out of any of my books, to get all the other ones the attention they deserve. That’s the plan anyway. One can dream!
While reading Dan Brown, in two of his books, for a while there I thought I could have inspired him. There were many disturbing parallel to what I have written before, however how could it be? I’m sure the guy can’t read French, many of his French quotes in his books are just plainly wrong. Perhaps we read the same books, after all I have written a novel about secret societies, and I got most of my inspiration from books about Freemasons. French books however.
I know I have inspired many great people, both in Québec and in France. I won’t say who here, perhaps I already did, I can’t remember. Which means I should not deviate from who I am as a writer, I should remain true to myself. I am not here to just repeat a successful formula, I have to be cryptic, deep, offer many levl of understanding. But never go too far so I just lose everyone, like I did in my earlier books. It is not going to be easy, but I have my own style, and I do not need to suddenly write something completely different than from my fans have been used to. Not that I care if I lose them, I might just reach the masses for once. There would be no pride is writing something that Dan Brown could have written, I need to be unique, different, to speak in multiple meanings and languages. And I am not talking about a few Italian, French or Spanish here and there, like Brown.
The thing is, I really had I mind to write the easy novel, like Brown. But I can’t afford it, I certainly cannot. I have to be respected, I have to talked about like one of those great French classics, or better, those German classics like Hermann Brock. Because the only French author I really admire is Antonin Artaud, and I am not sure if he was cryptic enough in his novels. Yes he was, in his journals, he was crazy then, and on some hard drugs. Hermann Brock is perfect, The Death of Virgil, and then I will be certain to be the biggest flop of all time! And yet, I need to be proud of what I am writing, so I will always chose the darkest path. Dear me, I have a lot more thinking to do before I can start this English novel. Maybe I should in French after all, the translation, if translated by my friend Sheila, will sound much better anyway. Her translation of my work is somewhat better than the original, I am ashamed to admit. Of course, she is such an author herself, no wonder she won the Ney York Best Seller Award. I’m just lucky to have met her and that she agreed to translate one of my books. Cost me dearly though, and as soon as I get more money, it will be: Sheila! I have work for you to do! Translate all this for me please! With your great Oxford English, as usual. Make me sound better than I am! How many authors can say that they actually gain in the translation? Not many, that’s for sure. Though I’m sure that the translation of my first books would certainly lose a lot in the translation. Unless I am standing there over her shoulder while she translates, because she can easily not understand anything it is that I am saying, or not really saying. So far she only translated my poems, and there was not much there to interpret or be wrong about. Not my best body of work obviously, and yet, my most popular.
I feel so bad, every day, because my last 5 books are still not online on my websites, after two years at least. I should correct that mistake, I just cannot find the motivation. What if I have many important people waiting after this, wanting new stuff after so many years? What am I doing? Even this damn blog is not on my website, and will not be for a long time.
At least one of my last books could be published and make a lot of noise. It could be a success. What am I waiting for? I should send it to publishers. Ah, I just can’t find the motivation anymore. I’ve reached a point in my life where it is more important to write than actually make sure I was read and published. I should give myself a mission, to put everything online next weekend, instead of wasting it reading Dan Brown. You never know who reads your website, and I certainly proved in the past that important people are reading it. I should do something, stop wasting time, what’s wrong with me? Got to get to it, got to do it! What’s wrong with me! I need a good slap in the face, I need to act, to get it out there… and the worst part of it is, that it would take me less than an hour to do so. I cannot explain why I am hesitating. And to be honest, I don’t really give a fuck.
I cannot be proud of any of my accomplishments. I cannot be proud of anything I have written. I used to drink myself to death many nights in a row, just reading what I wrote, and be in awe, wondering how I actually was able to write this. Wondering if I was the one who actually wrote this. Not anymore. A few negative critics in a sea of positive ones is all I needed to be completely destroyed. And see myself as a complete failure incapable of writing anything worth any attention. Damn it! Damn them all! It is only when I get back to reading what I wrote before that I understand that these few negative critics were wrong. They obviously read only a few pages of one of my books, and passed judgment. Dear me, how easily fooled we all are, even the author. I have written enough to start my own religion and have followers, and it would be a damn good one too! So fuck you! I should not be so easily influenced or discouraged. I know what I am worth, I know what I wrote, I know they don’t know. So why should I care? I should only read the positive critics, take them in, dress myself with them. Get the motivation I need to continue. I will not be stopped! I am building something huge here, I will see it to the end. Does not seem concrete, does not seem like real art, but it is, very much concrete and provocative. It could change the world! It will change the world! Mark my word! I am confident enough tonight, with only a few beer, to know that what I have written will go down in history and will one day change the world. And men of little faith, blinded by whatever, who cannot take the time to read before criticizing, fuck you! One day it will outshine everything so hardly, you will be blinded by the light. And will not be able to comprehend how you could have missed it. There is a body of work here, not just one latest published book from which you will only read a few pages and then pass judgment. Give it some justice, at least! I would not claim this blog is extraordinary, after reading a few pages of it, you should not be allowed to judge everything else I have written. I am worth more than that. I deserve more than that. Bof, enough about that shite. Let’s concentrate on what is coming next, that novel, and how I could be proud of it, the style which should still very much be me, my mark. It is not going to be easy, especially in English. Dear me… how am I going to achieve this? To do what I really want to do without destroying it in the process? A lot of thinking is required before I start, that’s for sure. I’ve got to be proud of it, I need to be able to read it 100 times without ever getting tired of reading, like some of my previous books. Not easy, when the only French novel I wrote, is not exactly the one book I would pick up when I am completely drunk and need to lose myself in what I previously wrote. I am proud of this novel, I did exactly what I wanted to do with it. It has many different meanings, there is a lot of symbols in it, even if nothing is obvious, and yet, it is my least interesting book I have ever written in my entire life, from my own point of view. If I did not need to be completely drunk to write it all completely, then the book is missing something, there is no poetry. No, it is not going to be easy, as I don’t reckon I will need to be drunk at all to write that English novel, and this is worrying me. Perhaps I should forget about it, and write something else instead, something truly out of this world! Like I did so many times before. Of course, it never got me anywhere, it is way too different. Only crap got published. Of course, it does not help that most of what I have written in the last five years, I never put online or sent to publishers. I just don’t care anymore. And now, if you will excuse me, I’m need to write stuff that is out of this world. I’m drunk enough.
So! I was all ready to write like crazy, I even wrote one of the best poems I did so far, called Where the Fuck am I? And that was only the first of a series of great ones, I might even have started writing my novel tonight… but what happened? My ex-boyfriend called from Kingston, Ontario. His boyfriend is with his parents is Sweden, you see. So he felt alone. Nice that when he is alone, he actually thinks of me.
So we spent four hours on the phone, reminiscing about the great time we had together in the five years we were together. When we lived in Paris, when we traveled all around France together, visiting every single Wine Castle, and when we moved together to London for six months, these were great times.
Little we knew at the time we went all around the Wine Castles in France, that he would end up having his own winery in Canada, and would eventually make him rich. It will take him a few years to get there, and I was all worried for him, wondering how he would survive until he can start selling wine, silly me, he made half a million dollar selling his house in Toronto, and probably at least $250,000 from his company that he closed down. Plenty to survive a few years and going crazy about going to France and buying a used tractor for his business. And I thought I was the crazy one!
Hi parents also sold their land in the islands, and made more than a million dollars. As predicted, they bought a piece of land right next to where he lives, so he will still live around the corner from mommy! Which was one of the big argument that prevented him from coming with me to France and England at the time, how could he ever leave mommy!?
Fuck! If I had a million dollars to buy myself a winery, I would buy it in the South of France, never mind my parents dying in North Pole in the North of Canada!
Anyway, that boyfriend of his has got quite an easy ride, living with a millionaire. I could have made a good of a premature retirement with the best ever good looking millionaire there is. Unfortunately it was not to be in my case, I had to suffer like hell, or else, I might have wrote something beautiful and inspired, instead of the misery I am describing t every page. Death.
But, would I want that life? No. He’s still not faithful, even living so isolated. He claimed tonight that where he is in the country side, there were plenty of gays, and he was even in a chat room, telling me a guy from Toronto needed a fuck. Toronto is still only a two hour drive from he is. Oh dear! I went to Toronto for two weeks, and I immediately understood that he was not faithful to his boyfriend. I’m glad I’m no longer with him, rich or not. I prefer my drug addict simple and poor actual boyfriend, who I know is faithful. Never mind that I have not been faithful in L.A., I was for many years in London with him, and I will be again when I return full time with him. I may have to oblige him to have more sex, but at least I’ll be faithful and he will be in return.
I can’t believe he complained for a whole five minutes that he was again the one who had to call me and pay for the international call. It is true that in the last ten years, every time we spoke he is this one who called, but then again, he is the millionaire one, what is he expecting? I won’t be able to finish the month, I don’t even have car, Stephen just lost his job, what is he thinking? God only knows.
For a moment there, he was afraid I was going to ask for money to start my own business. Poor him. I would never, I would die first. He always had five times more money than me, and yet in the five years we were together, I am the one who spent all my money for our survival. I spent more than he ever did. And all the money I borrowed from him, I paid it back, even when I was not working and had no money. I’m pleased I did, I doubt he would still be speaking to me now if I had not.
Still, it is sad that this relationship is over. He was and still his the most beautiful and extraordinary guy I have ever met in my life. I could not believe he was actually gay, even if today he sounds like an old queen, from spending too much time in Toronto I guess. He was so good looking when naked, and we had such great sex, I will never experience that again in my lifetime. I kept telling him that once his boyfriend had enough of cultivating wine in the North, to give me a call and I will join him there. However, it is very unlikely if I am still with Stephen, because he is the one I love now. And I regret that he does, because if he didn’t, I would remain in Los Angeles and be happy here for a long time. Love is going to stop me from accomplishing that dream come true, and I am accepting it. It is a sad story. But London is still better than Kingston Ontario with the greatest looking and cheating millionaire boyfriend there is. A real man, at least I can say I spent five years with him, he populates all my earlier books, so I will never forget him ever.
14 March 2006
I am now on my second full day of strike against talking in the office. I ignore anyone talking to me unless it is a bit direct, and then I answer with one word or one sentence. I had a lot of phone calls to do today, sales, so I did speak more than I wanted to. They have noticed that I’m not talking, unless it is business. I also look very preoccupied, and occupied. Tomorrow the Spanish guy comes back from his conference, and then I will have to be even more extreme.
I have become the perfect employee, I have become a machine. Today was not easy. Get up, get to work, not speak a word to anyone, just do my job all day long. Get out, then read, then bed. The next day, same thing. I’m not used at working so hard, when you don’t stop even for a few minutes to talk to anyone, the day is suddenly much longer, and it comes a time in the afternoon or near the end, that you just collapse, you don’t want to do anything anymore. Almost despair.
It is a bit childish, this strike. It is mind games. And yet, every time I think of getting out of that phase, I turn around, and I wonder. Who stitched me up? Who complained against me? Who almost got me sacked? And then, I understand that I cannot speak to any of them, every thing I say is written down and used against me with the bosses.
I had a little argument today with the Senior Manager, just a little one, and yet, it was running through my mind that he will report me to the bosses. It is getting insane, I am working with a bunch of backstabbers reporting everything the second it happens, and of course, only the negative stuff. Even in terms of business, I can no longer speak to anyone, I get burnt every time just for speaking my mind or expressing an opinion, when I should really just shut up and do what I am told without discussion.
So I intend to remain completely silent for the rest of the week, three more long days. And then, next week, I will relax a bit and will restart to speak, but never to fool around or joking. Just talk simply, nothing of consequence, remain to myself in any case. And certainly, I will not allow anyone to make fun of me anymore, no stupid comment about the fact I am gay, because this is how it started, me talking about my sexuality, which seems to have traumatized those poor American, prudish, and religious souls who have obviously never heard or seen anything in their lives. You would have never thought that Hollywood was at the end of our road on one side, and on the other, on our own road and even in our building, most of the porn studios in the world are located. Funny how they are capable of closing their eyes and forget it. We’re sitting in the porn capital of the world. That would do a good title for a book, not one I will write however.
Knowing the Valley Girl, and I can feel it, she feels guilt out of my strike of silence. Was it not what she wanted? Have I not heard her states not once, but twice, that some of my comments like the one when I said: “we’re all gay” as a joke could be construed as sexual harassment? I can hear her saying in the office, the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. What a bitch.
I’m sure she’s sweating right now, the new guy, with just a little bit more work than her, has been capable in a few weeks to do what she normally does in a few months, with assistants on top of it. I think my bosses are soon to discover how incompetent she is.
I think he is sweating even more, because she has to write a few paragraphs explaining what her event is about. Lucky her, she does not even have to write a whole conference program, her events are quite simplistic in nature, a few paragraphs is all she will need to write. But she never did before, and now she has to, probably because I stated it clearly in at least two of my reports, that we should be writing our own stuff. In the end she had to ask the Chinese Girl to write it for her, and she was not happy with the results. Hey, hey, another proof of how incompetent she really is.
I’m afraid, there is only one way to confirm speakers, sponsors and attendees, you need to call all day. The only three persons calling all day in the office are the new guy, the gay guy and I. We are also the only ones capable of finishing anything in record time. I’m sorry I can’t even trust the gay guy, even though everyone knows he is gay, because it is so obvious, he does not want anyone to know and he certainly does not want to hear about the subject. As far as I know, he could have complained against me, I saw him when the subject of being gay was out, he just disappears. So even him is not my ally.
And now that the new guy is proving just how the Valley Girl is wasting her time, talking all day instead of doing her job, she has a great reason to hate him and to want to get rid of him. Unfortunately, the guy so far has been only but perfect, she has nothing against him. And yet, somehow, she will invent something, something huge, just like she did with me, when I was not even a real threat to her. But now I am.
Ironically, my next conference is about nukes, nuclear energy, nuclear power plants. I find that fascinating, that I, could be the instigator of more of those things, such a bad, dangerous and pollutant technology. They claim it is greener than the other power source, but how could it? When it produces nuclear waste? Well, at the very least, it will satisfy my thirst for seeing this world and these people annihil