Geez, where to even start....

I had the first idea for A Kind of Drug so long ago, I can't even remember it. Well over a decade. Long before I ever had any desire to be a writer. The idea was simple: What if a language existed that you could understand without learning it and what if it could spread like a disease? I then just sat and toyed around with this idea in my head for years upon years.

Eventually, around 2004, I decided I wanted to see if I could write. And so I wrote a short story called "DjerRUckqS" about a man living in a post-apocalyptic world that had been destroyed by Words. About four pages into it I said, "Shit" out loud. I realized that there was too much material in the short story and that it needed to be a novel. And so, a year later, I came up with the idea of creating a chapter centered around each different Word. I thought about calling the novel "A Kind of Drug" and thus the core of the novel was birthed. Again, this was 7 years ago now. (Oh, and I plan on releasing that original short story once A Kind of Drug is finished. I can't release it yet cause the endings are still very similar. Don't want to ruin the climax for all of you.)

But anyway. Due to college and life and work and existence, the idea sat on the shelf for another 2 years before I decided to try another hand at it. But my original idea was to not "start at the beginning" with Rapture and Beth Vacey. I wanted to start 2/3 of the way through the story with a crazy, dense, dramatic chapter and then, with chapter 2, rewind back to the beginning.

However, after talking to numerous professors and fellow students, they told me I was a fucking idiot and that I should just start at the beginning like a goddamn adult. Which I obviously did.

But by the time I decided to listen to them, it was too late. Chapter 1 - Wrath - was already written. I had penned the story of two guys, practically alone in the world, and scared to death of people Addicted to Wrath. But the world of that old chapter and the world of A Kind of Drug as you know it today are radically different. And in a thousand ways, I'm glad for it. I'm much happier with the direction I chose to take with the novel. Starting from the beginning turned out to be some good advice.

Either way, I figure a lot of you might get a kick out of what A Kind of Drug looks like in a sort of "alternate universe". This was how I originally envisioned the world after Despair, way back around 2007/2008. If you've ever read it, it's sort of reminiscent of Richard Matheson's novella, "I Am Legend" (which is way different from the Will Smith Zombie flick). 

Anyway, keep an eye out for the pieces of story I obviously decided to keep and the ones I obviously decided to trash. But overall, I hope you just enjoy the read and you're much happier with what I chose to do with AKOD instead.

Thank you. And good drunk.

Ohhhh, you can't eat soup with a fork, with a fork. No, you can't eat soup with a fork.

Sorry. That was a song my older sister once sang to me as I actually tried to eat a non-chunky soup with a fork. It's been stuck in my head all morning for whatever reason.

Oh, and no, I was not 4 or 5-years old when she sang that to me. That was about a year ago. I was 30.

Yes, there's something wrong with me.

Anyway, yes, Wrath V is now alive and well. And yes, it is repetitive. "In what way?" you might be asking yourself. "Why is J.E. so dashingly handsome?" is also a common question. The answer to the latter question is simply that I'm better than you. Nothing big. But the answer to the former question is because I'm once again not even bothering to introduce the title Word until the very end of the chapter. How many times have I done this now? Like 6 out of 9 chapters? Geesh. I should write a whole book called "Clowns" and not have a single fucking clown in the book until the last page. Make him the killer or something.

So, if you read my facebook/twitter comment yesterday, then you already know that half of Wrath IV was rewritten last night. Which sucks shit. And really makes me question the quality of the piece that got posted. But that will happen sometimes. No matter how many times you read something, you won't realize how awful it is until the last minute.

The point of Wrath IV was simple: it was to demonstrate the very serious reality that there might not be a cure for Words outside of permanent Addiction. That this might be it. The buck stops here.

(Yes, believe it or not, every single one of these "conversation" sections that are nothing but dialogue, actually are all building to something. I'm just taking my sweet ass time getting there.)

Anyway, while I'm confident the five or six pages get that point across, I'm still not completely sure if everything was said in the right way and in the right order. In a normal world, this is what an editor would be for. To smack me around and say, "Hey, that sucked, dickwad. Fix it before I have you writing for fucking Archie Digests."

But que cera. That's just how the dough rises sometimes. And what happens when you read a serialized novel by an amateur.

Please forgive me. And send bourbon.