Of course, I kid.

The illustration (above) is actually not from the first book (the one on, ahem, fifth avenue), but is from the second in the non-fiction series, Horris' SCARY History of Ancient Egypt, which is done, but without a publisher at the moment. FOr once, Horris says do not fear! This will happen. I have a possible connection on that front; it is a different situation than I mentioned last post. But don't want to say anything here until I have good news for sure. Meanwhile enjoy yourself. Don't let the bedbugs bite. Or if they do, scoop 'em up and chew hard. That'll teach 'em.

"Barnes & Noble College Booksellers also operates the self-proclaimed "world's largest bookstore" located on 5th Avenue and 18th Street in New York City."

—Wikipedia

UPDATE:
Whoops. I'll let this email clear this up:

Thanks for the email and correction, js. :)

So watch this space for news of the release of the much-anticipated next installment of Horrible Horris' adventures. Horris and I both hope that you don't have to wait tooooooo long for the book. But we sure are happy that you are looking forward to it so much!

It's a tricky thing. I really embrace the quote from the Wachowski Brothers' new film, V for Vendetta about the relationship between Truth and Art. "Artists use lies to tell the truth; politicians use them to obscure it." Of course, I may be biased, but I have to agree. As any generalization goes, it promises to be false some of the time, but true most of the time.

Frey had a problem because he was telling a tale of redemption, and selling it as Non-fiction. That is a very specific incident, and I found it galling, to say the least, that a man would do such a thing as dress up, doctor, and invent (or omit) crucial scenes in such a story. Because when a tale is told as "Non-Fiction," and it is a tale of struggle and soil and subsequent redemption? Certain things have to be true, or you destroy the entire spine. Frey claimed artistic license. But there is a difference betweem changing the song that was playing on a radio to changing the fact that you heard it in the mall, and not the Sheriff's office.

Frey did writers and readers and publishers a great disservice by crumbling to the imperative of greed that caused his publishers/handlers to advise repackaging his fiction work as a "Non-Fiction" book. Because none of us really want memoirs held to such a candle as a matter of course. The purpose of a memoir is not a sterile presentation of data; that is for other types of books. A Memoir is to show the writer's viewpoint. And as such, dry and empirical fact are simply inappropriate. Perhaps the distinction I make is not one you can follow. If so, I would simply point toward the framing of the text. For myself, I would rely heavily upon the Caveat, as I did in my memoirish type pages of notes here. That was one of the major Sins O' Frey. That unabashed, unqualified "Non-Fiction" label. Mine reads "I have discovered that I tend to have rich and poetic memories that probably have more to do with my own inner dialogue than with any common plane of Reality. Ultimately, the tale is true, for if I tell it with fear or flourish, you can trust that that is how I experienced it, as well," and a reader is then properly oriented to my frame. Come the day I write edit together my memoir (I have already written over 2,000 pages of memoir type diary writing), I will also preface it with a very similar inscription. But you know what? I still tell the truth to the best of my ability, and certainly in any area that would affect the overreaching message or truth of the entire arc.

There is more to be said about The Da Vinci Code, to my mind. But my thoughts there veer more into talk of religion and social ills/patterns. And here, I keep my topic to writing, books, the written word, literature, cinema and (of course) All Things Horris.

SO, I'll close by saying that I feel a writer of fiction must be allowed to draw upon historical texts, for they are what tell us of the past of our race and kind. Is that not correct? If one is to use the truth of our history to inform a story (and don't all stories do this?), then he or she must not be prosecuted for such.

Copyright doesn't protect ideas and copyright doesn't protect facts. That's why we have genres, fiction and nonfiction, and a number of people can write novels based on the same idea and still have freedom of expression."

The Bryan College Station Eagle, "'Da Vinci Code' author wins court battle," 6:29 AM, Saturday, April 8, 2006

My concern also comes into play specifically because some of what I do in the SCARY series of books is use actual history to build a framework for a fictional narrator and character (Horris). Now, clearly, in book one,SCARY: A Book of Horrible Things for Kids , there are bits of myth and urban legend. It's a snack-pack of scary, creepy, frightening "Things" (as the title notes), and the goal was just to offer a fun and dark book.

But from Horris' SCARY History of Egypt on, I am doing much more involved research, and the books will be (unless noted otherwise) totally rooted in historical fact. This is because I really had no idea, when I made the first one, that a series would be next. That's how publishing goes. But when it was made clear to me that a series was wanted, I had to think over the entire arc of this potential series. I had to consider longevity, and what the books would actually consist of. I couldn't go on and on having Horris show only unrelated "scary things" for a whole series.

The publisher and those involved found the latter chapters, and my take on world history (ahem, Horris' take on history, excuse me) interesting. So I thought I would make history a large chunk of what the books do. And in that light, I knew I had to make them not only fun and spooky, but rather reliable, and well-researched.

Unlike this post, which is entirely make-believe. I'm hungry. Time for breakfast, thanks.

I won't show you 99% of the illustrations here, because I don't want to spoil it for all the lovely dollar-spending people who feed me while I draw. After all, you (and I assume you are one of these magnificent patrons) spend your money on my work, and that is directly responsible for my having time to make it at all. So thank you! And I hope you get a huge kick out of Horris' latest exploits in December of 2006, when I believe it is that Horris' first triple-set will be published, and possibly even as a boxed set. We begin with (of course), the already published and rather celebrated SCARY: A Book of Horrible Things for Kids, and in December of this year, both Horris' SCARY History of Ancient Egypt and Horris' SCARY History of Dinosaurs will be published by Hylas Publishing, just as the first Horris book was. Of course, as publishing goes, it must be understood that sometimes, certain details are not fixed for a time. And so it is that I may update that release date. Watch this blog for any BREAKING HORRIS NEWS.

(Horris insisted I capitalize that, and I am not about to get into an argument on design with him. He is rather determined when he makes up his mind on the look or feel of something. I apologize for the exclamatory nature, the rather blaring nature of his text. It's only that he gets excited about everything.)

Anyway, I thought I'd take a break between a spider, and a pig as big as a pyramid at Giza to tell you what I'm up to. I'm sorry it's been so quiet around here, but that's just sort of how it works. I write in a lot of other places, and aside from that, I am usually drawing or getting my hands into something. I only keep so busy because if I stop, I'll start banging on tables and snapping and drumming with my fingers and people will get really angry and tell me I'm making them nervous and to leave the room.

zoom,

J

So I definitely look forward to the winners, and sure, I hope I'm one. But I was happy with the slew of good reviews the book received. I didn't even think past that. This is just great news.

I have to put the backmatter together (acknowledgments, biblio, etc), and then I'm on to the art! I love to get lost in making the art. I really look forward to letting Horris run free in Egypt. The art and statuary of Ancient Egypt is really amazing. I feel honored to be rendering any work that in any way references it. Word. And I've been immersed in it for a while, since I started researching this book. I've gathered a ton of photos, and it will be fun to play with the look.

Meanwhile, I've been writing a bit in other places, places I won't link to right here. I don't want you to read too much and accidentally be recruited. Carry on with your carefree gardening, Emil! The army is large enough right now, and by dawn we have to pour our magical battalions down the Five Peaks like sunshine become fire. Send letters. They're always appreciated....

Dinnertime. Tomorrow I'll do an edit. Tighten it up. Monday, I'll give it to Gail.

Major flaws have been identified, and I feel I know just what to do in numerous instances to improve each and every one. I look forward to beginning that. But don't get me wrong. I have a lot of art to do for Horris' SCARY History of Egypt first. And then I'd like to not do any book stuff for a day or three. I hope, at that point, I will have my manuscript back from my editor so I can lunge into the second official pass of the novel.

Now, to update another blog or two, and then to get back on the book. It's still pretty early.

I worked about 12 or 13 hours yesterday, and I got a lot done. Some days I do mostly reading. I'll think I'm set to write another chapter/section, and I'll bump into a fact I want (need) to know more about. So I'll open one or more of the 14 books I have open and spread around me, or I'll start checking my notes. Sometimes that fact-searching will lead to hours of reading and cross-checking books and notes! And with Ancient Egypt you have to be prepared for the constant flow of uncertainty that comes from the fact that the Egyptians weren't particularly concerned with History, or leaving texts anyone could learn from! They were primarily concerned with staving off the dark uncertainty of the Void; of the West side of the Nile, where the Dead lived and watched the sunlit homes of the living every night, from their tombs. The art and text we have from them is, for the most part, inscriptions and scrolls to guard against what might go wrong in the Spirit world, or on the way! So there is so much—even common matters for them—of which they have left no trace. And sometimes I wonder if they would even appear as magical and mythical and mighty as they do without that constant mystery that dogs so much of the records they have left behind.

Mostly I have been taken, as of late, with Akhenaton (néé Amenhotep IV and also spelled Akhenaten, Akhnaton, etc) and his dramatic and deliberate decision to upset everything with his distilled vision of "Ma'at" and what became called the "Amarna period." He is called "the first individual" by some Egyptologists, and is looked upon as a visionary for his aesthetic of Truth that he preached to his disciples, that the sculptors took into their eye and hands as they made some of the most evocative (and "ugly") work seen in all of the Egyptians' collection that survives. He was, perhaps, the first to propose a monotheistic God, and changed names, moved everyone out of Thebes (Amun's city), and abandoned all the old gods of Egypt. Because of all this, he was (is?) also vilified, cursed, and hated by many. He is called heretic, pervert, and worse; his name was scratched out and his cause abandoned. His stepson (you may have heard of him, and probably as "Tutankhamun" instead of the name "Tutankhaton," as he was known for much of his life) moved the city and all his people back to Thebes, and reinstated the old gods.

You can begin to see why Akhenaton is such a controversial figure. The aesthetic of Amarna broke away from the rigid, stylized Egyptian art we know so well, and those pieces are now known, in turns, as ugly, and beautiful. Myself, I find them beautiful, and not only for their fluid arcs and long, distorted, proportion, but for the ideal that drove Akhenaton's philosophies. Truth, candor, real expression.

And I love the duality/ambiguity that surrounds Akhenaton's character (and incidentally, much of Egyptian thought and symbolism). Just as I loved the duality that composes Piers Anthony's Bio of a Space Tyrant when I read it in my teen years, and was riveted by Q. Tarantino's penchant for portraying the anti-hero's point of view in so many of his films. For I feel that this mixture is a certainty and bedrock reality of life and of character, one far more known to the Eastern world. I have never been at peace with the intense polarization of Western Thought, the whole Black vs. White, Good Must Destroy (and "Destory!") all Evil dichotomy that Alan Watts deconstructs and refutes in so much of his writing. And in studying the gods of the Ancient Egyptians (Set, for one, who represented war, confusion, invasion, and disorder; who was a foe of Horus——a revered and wholly "good" god——yet who was prayed to by the armies and troops to help them win battles) shows us that they understood that nothing was so clearly delineated.

I feel a deep admiration for what I know of Akhenaton, who dared so much, who loved his six daughters famously, and yet, never had a male heir to pass down his vision to. Thus, his vision died. Nobody understood it, and in his wake, they condemned Amarna, and Akhenaton, and Tutankhaton became Tutankhamun, and back to Thebes everyone went, cursing Akhenaton at every step. Back to the traditional, back to the rigid, back to the predictable.

Do you not feel the deep sorrow that history can etch into a heart? The words of power and clarity that can be etched away by wind, sand, or man's intent to obfuscate and forget. Horror, I feel, at the loss of truth, but in a way it is all so heartening, should be uplifting to read of these battles of the heart and mind thousands of years ago.

For do such grand energies really ever die? Do the clothes and the symbols of our gods matter? Do the battles we fight today differ so much from those fought in Ancient Egypt?

No, they do not. Evil rises again, greed hides the machinations of the few, Power intoxicates man, and he falls to his belly like a snake in a sandpit. Fear dances with the sunset to this day, and Truth still weaves among men, ever her insubordinates, who whirl blind, sniffing at the unguent and incense of her hem.

Given how often they find these, plus the simple fact that we really have no idea what we'll find in these tombs, I still find it very exciting. And somewhat of a relief. I think I'll be a bit sad once we find the very last of those tombs. Because as long as we haven't found them all, there is a hope, a wonder, a mystery.

Time to type into a different page.

halls of the king filled with men working in the deep
in the shadows of limestone, where the years retreat
in the great empty tunnels where the robbers later crept
haunted echoes all that's left of the promises never kept

priest and the pharaoh's gold
cat with the ring of gold
world with the soul untold
lion with the head of man
magic runes carved in the stone-hard sand
age of strong, enduring vision
of the magic in the heavens
and the power of the land

And then, of course, a lot will be required in the illustrationing of the whole thing (be warned, I tend to invent words when I am so inspired or the passage requires), but that tends to draw me in so close that I end up blurring a few weeks by and hardly sleeping as I fall into drawing. So it's hard to think of it as a time period. Drawing the amount of illos that go into a 96 page book is more like falling into a tunnel for me. Everything smears by—food, sleep, day—and I just draw. Morning to night, hardly a rest. It's something I can get lost in for a very intense period of time. Drawing, painting, things like that.

Textual things—writing, editing, reading—require breaks from me. I can only go so long with words before I begin to get anxious. I love them, don't get me wrong. But they simply require a different kind of concentration.

I did not used to have the discipline for the first part of the equation mentioned above—the "preproduction" part. And in my snobby artistical mind I thought the tedium was not something an artist should weather. I thought the pure, primal, gut-spillage of inspired passion was "art," and all the rest was too thoughty for me. But I learned, in time, O, the folly of my ways. Do not skimp on the planning phase! Or you will learn the hard way. However that is usually exactly the way this writer prefers to learn. What are ya gonna do? (Pay attention.) And I did learn. In fact, that beginning part is SO important that until you discipline yourself to manage the less-exciting but crucial "secondary process" part of your art, you will be undisciplined (hmm duh that's redundant) and immature as an artist, which basically means that you will never be a Master. One day, I would love to approach that level. But if I do, it will not be by fooling myself. And so I have learned to prepare, to discipline myself in my work, to take the time to prepare the ground, so that when it is time, I may just hack away with my hoe in wild abandon. Or something less absurd sounding, in the way of metaphor. Guilt-free roto-tilling? Hmm. Neurotic Gardener.

It is fascinating, Ancient Egypt. And you know what else is? Life. Because one of the things I used to say repeatedly was that I longed to study more history. My college curricula didn't include a lot of History (a lot more of Psychology, Science, Photo/Cinematography, Art), and I've always been fascinated by it. I planned (and still might?) on taking courses in college again. Not for a degree, just to learn more History. This was something I had been planning to do for a year or two. It was in the back of my mind, wasn't ready to do it yet. But knew I would (will?).

But then this series of books came along, the opportunity to write/illustrate this series of books, and I am required to do a lot of reading (a lot) on the subjects I will write about (seems fair).

So bit by bit, I can fill in areas of my knowledge base that are lacking, and in areas I specifically wanted to do as much. Isn't that amazing? Just what I wanted. Life as Santa. Cosmic Jolly Karmic Reactor. Listen to that whistle blow.

So first, it's Egypt, ancient Egypt. Next, it will be dinosaurs. Then, perhaps outer space...or right to some other countries (China, France, etc), or maybe vice versa. But either way, it will be fun, and we can learn together! Just what Horris needs, though! to know even more about the world than he does. He's such a know-it-all, man. If his head swells up any more, I don't think he'll even fit through the door.

Lately I am walking the sands surrounding Thebes, staying close to the riverbanks. Or moving my outstretched hands over the course, but moist surface of a limestone block—reading it like Braille.

Today I am jogging up the long, splintered and well-worn surface of a ramp riding along the side of the pharaoh's tomb. Today, helping to lower the pointed cap onto the last 10 square feet of space atop the pyramid.

Sun sparkles. A bird wheels and cries in the sky. I never told you. You can get to Ancient Egypt through my living room!

Lately, I'm reading a lot. Taking notes. Setting up the structure of the book, the Egypt book. Getting ideas, adjusting ideas. Horris is sifting topics and angles he wants to use in the book. There's truly no lack of content. I will probably start the actual writing very soon. I can feel it approaching like the fingers of Spring. Or some other inexorable thing. (I love rhyming. It's like words dancing!)

The Egyptians were amazing. It's a world that comes alive in my mind, even when reading the driest book about any of the related topics, or details, therein. Well, that's not completely true. The other day I fell asleep while reading over these schematics that show you the layout of the pyramids, and such, in blueprint form. All the layers, the way they laid the blocks to distribute the force away from the tunnels, the vastness and ambition of the layout. I think what is really impressing me is the will, and artistic ambition of these people. They invested so much energy into crafting these pyramids that they guaranteed the structures would resonate with an energy that would hush and awe anyone who approached.

Horris is running wild.

More later.

There are many horrific, lonely, moments in this road, and they can stretch out like a chasm that swallows up every bit of light in the sky. These chasms rip across lives and souls; they swallow hope, years, love, and belief, and claim many, many casualties, even entire families and generations—gutting the very essence of a person, haunting them and stealing away their center. This is an old story, and an enemy that never grows stronger when confronted with truth. This beast that the book A Million Little Pieces is supposed to be about, only grows stronger in the dark; in the lack; in a lie. But I thought you'd know that, Mister Frey.

Money made that choice. Not Truth. That's right, surprise, surprise. The "Million Little Pieces" are currency.

For most people, the insecurity and fear that lead to these type of exaggerations needs to fade away before they can really start trying to figure out how to go about fixing what went wrong with their lives."

Seth Mnookin, "How James Frey flunked rehab, and why his fakery matters"

Oprah Winfrey, on her own (admirably motivated) crusade to tell every self-actualized person's story on her show before we all finally go up in a petroleum mushroom cloud, rolled up right behind Mr. Frey, because he fit into the mise-en-scene of her Parade. It would be like Lou Dobbs finding a xenophobic Customs Offical who was fired for being overzealous. I think Lou would smile so wide, his head would fall off, and before you know it, CNN would be rolling out stickers with this border guard's face on it. Even if half the world were sending Mr. Dobbs email opining that the guard was out of line when he physically attacked a puerto rican kid waving a Puerto Rican flag in Texas, Lou probably wouldn't budge. Just like Oprah. Is she standing behind a liar and a fraud because she cannot see beyond her own all-consuming mission, and needs any symbol available to help bolster her crusade? Or is that she needs to stand behind her original decision, even if it was wrong, because she's afraid she would look stupid, now?

Or is it just money that keeps her preachifying the praises of her false prophet?

Whatever the reason, I cannot once again salute the creeping death called "Ends Justify the Means" that is sprouting lately in this land. It does matter if the tale is true. That way, when someone is suffering, empty, and in need of one grain of hope that they can grab on to, they can find a story of somebody else who has traveled the same path. They can rest every bit of their precious dwindling faith in the assurance that if someone else made it, so can I. They can tell themselves I can have the courage to admit the truth to myself...because this person did.

Oprah says she stands behind the book anyway, because it helps so many people. Again, the Ends Justify the Means, she pleads with us.

But James Frey is not helping suffering addicts with his tall tales. He is hurting them. If he wants a piece of the glory that he has stolen and wrapped around his quaking shoulders, let him try some honesty. Let him stare into himself and tell of what he really sees.

Don't get me wrong. The research is not a whole lot of fun, but the book will be. I'm looking forward to writing it, once I've compiled all the facts I want to use, and sources to reference.

It doesn't leave too much to talk about. So you may not read me here for a few days or so. But I'll see you when I get back.