Literature In Stereo!

Weekly blogs.

Yes.

I do this now.

The planet is playing tag with an asteroid. Macintosh computers has more liquid assets than the entire united states. Jess Mann can't believe it's august.

These, are our headlines.

Had some really good ideas for a story this week. Also decided I want to make a playlist for the book. I think I want to release the playlist side by side with the upload in mid september.

As a kid, I remember reading books and listening to albums simultaneously until the story and the music formed an almost symbiotic relationship, and even now when I hear a song sometimes I see an argument, or an inspiring speech, enemies slain or lovers won.

This is probably responsible for the way I unconsciously create a visual representation for almost every song to which I listen.

In fact, the stories just show up of their own accord and demand recognition. The entire first draft of the book was written listening to one particular album on repeat because I felt the music not only inspired the idea for the story, but encompassed the atmosphere and general tension of the scene.

Here is my question:

Would you be interested in reading/downloading a story if it came with a musical recommendation or even a simultaneous itunes download or something?

You would obviously have the option to only download one...and I guess in the beginning of this, I'm not going to have the copyrights to just freely give away whomever's music I choose, but would you be inspired to listen to such a thing if it was created to compliment the reading experience?

It still fits!

Ugh.

PMS is such a bummer.

My boobs are enormous right now. E-NORM-OUS.

So is my tummy, which I am finally becoming affectionate with after seven+ years of pure bloody minded hatred. It's a happy little ball. It droops when its hot out, it sits up when I eat something new and exciting. It's like a puppy really. It waggles when I dance, flops when I nap. Sits and behaves itself when company's over, and sometimes, I tuck it away and tell it to be good, and by the end of the night after one too many glasses of wine, I don't care anymore and i just want it to be proud of itself, so I let it out and you know what? Every time, it is so enthusiastic and lovable and received so well, I don't remember why I hid it away to begin with.

But seriously, I would love for my bra to fit right now.

Anyway.

Bidness things this morning. This involves trying to get my student loans put into forbearance (AGAIN WOOT) for a year, although, in examining the digits this morning, I am forced to realize, I have officially paid them off about halfway. Which is sort of amazing.

I am going into Salem to open a bank account to attach to my amazon account, which means very very soon, there will be real Jess Mann stories for sale on the internets.

This is simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating.

August first also kicks off the SUPER EDIT PROJECT. Or SEP as I will be referring to it. Not only for acrnymical purposes, but because On September 12th (B's and my second wedding anniversary awwwww), I plan on having "the book" edited.

It will be a slog. It will be hard. It will mean I will not be available for nearly as much social awesomeness. It does, HOWEVER, mean I will finally have finished what I started two years ago, and then...well...then I will be asking something very important of you indeed.

But all things in their right place, and let's not get ahead of ourselves!

Why don't I blog more? I really like it.

I used to do it all the time...should probably get back into that, what with this steam machine that is SEP rolling ahead. Because it isn't just about the book. It's about me. It's about doing what I've always wanted to do, but this time enabling it to pay for itself.

Who's with me?!

Once upon a time, I got really depressed (wow Jess, tell us something we don't know), and I spent something like four years just drowning in the mire and stagnation and frustration of it all. Which is really really easy.

You know what's hard?

Being happy.

There's a trailer for an aussie movie coming out soon called The Tree (I think) and it's gorgeous and heartbreaking looking and I'm totally going to netflix it some sunday afternoon and sob hysterically into a bottle of shiraz and then call everyone I know and tell them I love them before passing out on the dog, but that's not the point.

The point is that in the trailer, a man dies suddenly, leaving his wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg I KNOW RIGHT?!) and three wee childers to mourn and move on and do all that horrifying grieving. There's this one part where the little daughter is talking to her friend, and her friend asks, "aren't you sad?" and the little girl, with this brilliant smile on her face says, "I figure I have a choice. I can be happy or I can be sad, and I choose to be happy, and I am."

And she says it in that gorgeously glib childlike way that is so ineffable you are forced to believe her.

I do.

I believe that is the choice we all have, and it is not admitting the choice, or deciding which side to go with, it is the final statement: "and I am" that makes it so.

It's something I neglected spiritually for a very long time, but I am returning to my soul parts as well as my body in these last few months. It is time to inhabit one's entire self, all of it, body and soul.

So here I go then...

Yes. I go.