Hello Dear Readers,

As it’s been about three months now, I figure it’s time for a new rendition of the Ransomology Weekly Newsletter.

As previously discussed, in order to avoid starving to death, living on the street, living on the street while starving to death, or pimping my ass; I had to get a job. Thus very little writing has been going down recently. Well…the writing of spreadsheets, strategic plans and emails has been going down in spades; but bills of quantity, annual reports, and utility consumption data, do not exactly coax out the muse, if you know what I’m saying.

Whilst I ponder what might have been, writing wise, I also must ponder the question of why depressing books inspire me so much. Maybe they’re not outright depressing, but I would not exactly call Leaving Las Vegas an uplifting story. It is in fact, quite bleak. A gambling addicted hooker teams up with a very, very sad man… who rejects her… so he can focus on his true desire – drinking himself to death. Filling one’s head with such a story does not quiiiite fit with the concept of surrounding one’s self with that which you wish to bring into your own life. But then, maybe that’s why I read bleakness, so I don’t go out there and explore bleakness myself. Doing it myself would be problematic. It would, I can say with little doubt, fail to end well.

Of the books I have recently read, I’ve put together a list of my six favourite: The End of the Affair, Graham Green; Lolita, Nabokov; Anna Karenina, Tolstoy; Infinite Jest, Foster-Wallace; A Confederacy of Dunces, John Toole; Leaving Las Vegas, John O’Brien. Anyone care to play a game of ‘What do These Authors Have in Common?’… Alright then, I’ll tell you. 50% of them killed themselves (no, this is not a cry for help). Now that I look at these books together I also notice that four of them are in no small part about jilted lovers, and three of them have main characters that die (no, this is not a cry for help). What they all have in common, is that they are just brilliantly written. Were it that I could write something even vaguely close to that calibre, I would quit my job immediately and do nothing else (yes, this is a cry for help).

In other news… Let me see… other news… I have a job. Did I mention that? Oh, yeah, I did…