A Broken Everything: Out Now

Okay. So this has been a whole thing. In 2017 I put out a book called Korsakoff Blight. I was proud of what I did, but it wasn’t there. It needed more. When I released it, I was in a weird emotional place and I wanted it out. I wanted to be free of it. So I dumped it into the world. Some folks read it. Some liked it. But I wasn’t happy enough. After the smoke cleared on the feelings I was feeling, I reassessed and realized that it could be better. So I pulled it, reworked it, re-titled it, and now, I’m re-releasing it in print. It has the same amazing cover art by Jamaica Dyer, but with a few tweaks. The book is better now. Stronger. More coherent (sorta). It’s closer to what it should have been in the first place. Is it perfect? Fuck no. And I don’t want it that way. It’s raw. It’s messy. It’s odd. But it feels true. It feels like what I hoped it would feel like.

All I strive for with my work is to capture some semblance of truth. Honesty. To drill into the whateverness of it all and explore. Where that exploration leads is never really clear to me, but that’s the point. It’s about feeling lost. It’s about feeling confused. It’s about feeling. Full stop. For me, this book achieves what I wanted and I hope you read it, get something out of it, and share it with someone else.

It’s available at several retailers or you can get a signed copy directly from me. An ebook is coming soon. Also, it’ll be available on Amazon at some point, but I suggest getting it through IndieBound or Bookshop to support indie shops. Click below to get one.

Thanks for sticking with me.

Tyranny of the Muse: The Final Three Chapters

The graphic novel I started writing in 2012 is finally finished. And you can finally read the final chapters. Finally.

After a long break, chapter 19 just went up over at tyrannyofthemuse.com. Chapters 20 and 21 will hit on the next two Tuesdays. And then that’s it. It’s been a long one, folks. And even though it’s all written and has been drawn by the wonderful Dave Chisholm, this ain’t the end. The next goal is to get this big, beautiful mess of weirdness into your mitts as the graphic novel it was always meant to be. I’ll figure out how to make that happen. Stick with me.

But first, read the thing by clicking the thing down there.

If you need to catch up, start here.

A BROKEN EVERYTHING: A Sample

This is a a sample from my latest novel A Broken Everything.

Here’s the deal:

When writer Daniel Groff's estranged, abusive father dies and leaves him his house, Daniel learns that he has to finish writing the man's new age manifesto/detective story. This sets him onto a bizarre creative journey where he encounters a woman who might be his wife, a river in the basement of his new home, an addiction to psychedelic berries, a private eye who can't figure out what to investigate, and a series of violent short stories he wrote when he was a child.

Part surrealistic nightmare, part coming-of-age comedy, A BROKEN EVERYTHING is a fast-paced, complex, dark, and humorous exploration of the cycles of domestic violence told from the fractured perspective of a young man trying to complete a work (and investigate a life) he does not understand.

It’s currently looking for a home. Read the prologue and first chapter here.

###

PROLOGUE

I want to be good now. I want to be right now. I want to be happy now. Happiness can play if you let it out into the yard. Mine’s grounded. Mine said, “fuck” and I washed its mouth out with soap and it’s in its room. I want to let the happiness out but the happiness needs to learn to stop being such a goddamn smart-ass.

There’s peace in me. There’s real in me. There’s life in me. I think of these things and that means these things are there. If they weren’t there, then I wouldn’t think of them. I wouldn’t even know what they are. Misery is worthless and that’s the new way to think. That’s the right way to think. That’s the way I want to live. That’s the way I’m going to live.

Starting now.

Happy.

Peace.

Great.

Okay. That’s done. I’m happy. I’m a different person now. I’m good now. I’m right now.

And it feels great.

It feels really great. I’m smiling and good and people want to love me. People want me to love them. I want to love and be loved and love love. Loving lovebugs are crawling all over my face and climbing into my nose and walking on my eyeball like a starving kid in Africa. I want to feed that kid. I want that kid to be fat and healthy and then I want to eat him. Because I’m starving. I’m starving for good. Doing good would be good and I want to eat the good. I want to eat the right. I want to eat the peace. I want to eat the optimism and puke the pessimism. I want to shit negativity. I want to cleanse. I want to be clean. I want to drink some of that dumb juice and cleanse myself and purge myself and be a wispy, frothy, hollow dream, floating on a cloud of smiles.

Oh, I’m good and it feels good.

I feel right.

I feel peace.

I feel God coursing through veins.

God is in my balls.

God is in my ass.

God is down my throat.

God is hugging me and it’s beautiful and I’m kissing Him with tongue. I’m sucking on His beard. He’s dipped His beard in glory and I’m sucking it from the hair. The hair is stuck in my teeth but I love it. I’m yanking each one out and swallowing it down and loving my belly and loving the love and loving digestion and digesting love.

Oh, God’s love is good.

God’s love is great.

God’s love is love with a capital LOVE.

Hearts beating. Hearts pounding. Hearts shattering and growing into new hearts. And those hearts are shattering and growing into new hearts and shattering and growing and shattering and growing until the strongest most excellent heart has grown and enveloped my face and my face is a giant beating heart squirting juices of love all over everyone I see. They’ll hate it at first but then they’ll love it. They’ll run through the streets puking juice of love into the gutters. And the gutters will run with love and wash into the sea and love waves will crash into the shore and the sand and the earth and the cycle of life will be infected with love. And love will rain upon us. And it will be because of me. And everyone will love me and everyone will thank me and everyone will be my friend. And I will be the change. I will be the angel. I will be the prophet. I will be the justice. I will be the love.

I am the love.

I am the peace.

I am the right.

I am the good.

My name is Daniel Groff and this is not my story.

###

CHAPTER ONE

Sometimes I listen to music and pretend that the person singing is me and I'm allowing someone to hear my new demo tape that I made using a program on my computer. I still call it a demo “tape” despite it being a demo “ones and zeroes” because that makes me seem like an authentic, old school artist who knows something about recording music prior to the twenty-first century with all its digital whateverness. I also tell myself/them that I played all the instruments except the drums. I do this because I'm happy to admit that I don't know how to play the drums and I wouldn’t want to misrepresent myself. Drums seem hard to play. I tell them/me that the drums are electronic beats which I programmed. I don't know how to program electronic drum beats either. I don't know how to play any instruments at all. I don't know how to write songs. I don't want to know how to write songs but I wish I knew how to write songs. And I wish I could record them using a program on my computer and I could let people hear them. I could record videos singing heartfelt renditions of my songs and upload them to the internet and people that I don't know or care about would virtually pat me on the back and I would feel good and feel afraid of releasing the next song because people liked the first song and I’d feel arrogant and cocky and full of shit because ten people told me that I'm a good songwriter and ten people loved me and needed me and wanted me and cared about me. And then I’d put up the new song and no one would respond. And no one would care. And those ten people would no longer like me. And I wouldn’t like me.

I already don't like me.

I can’t make art.

That's why this is not art.

This is me being me as not being me so I can be a better me.

Does that make sense?

Fuck it.

This is bullshit.

This is stupid.

Okay?

Okay.

We’re here now.

And my mother knocks on my door.

“Daniel?” she calls.

“What is it?” I say.

“Can you open this please?”

My dresser is barricading the door. I'm writing and I'm drinking and it's my room and it's my time and I don't want any visitors.

“What do you want?” I ask.

“It’s important, Daniel. I need to tell you something.”

I pause for a several seconds and think. I feel anxious. I feel strange. I feel annoyed.

“Now!” she yells.

A few years ago, I published my first book, The Psycho Killer Down the Street. It's a series of short stories about a kid who fights a psycho killer down his street and eventually goes to Hell and fights Satan. I actually wrote the stories when I was in the third grade. I found them in a box in the attic of the house I live in with my mother. I found them and read them and liked them. They were pretty good (especially for a third grader) and I remember my teacher Mr. Biggsman liked them back in 1989. He said I had promise. He said it I had “it.” He said I was cool.

Mr. Biggsman was a good person. He’s probably dead now.

So I typed them into a computer program, printed them, stapled them, and sent them away in manilla envelopes to have them professionally published. But when I sent the book to publishers and agents and people in suits with offices, I got nicely typed letters like this:

Dear Mr. Groff,

We would love to publish your book, The Psycho Killer Down the Street, but unfortunately we can't, because simply speaking, it is not very good. We have a strict policy of not publishing poopy books, and your book is a super-poopy, poopy book. Honestly, after reading it, we hate you, Mr. Groff. We hate you with the fury a hundred, million fires and we hope you die. Now go ahead and do that please, Mr. Groff. Okay? Die, Mr. Groff. Die! Die! Die!

Here is a list of other things we hate, besides your book, in case you were wondering (in no particular order, of course):

1. Whales

2. Dancing

3. Christmas

4. Magic

5. Keanu Reeves movies

Now go fucking die.

Best of luck in any and all future endeavors. Dickhead.

Sincerely,

Marcus Newman

Newman Books

I used this website that lets people upload writing and sell books through the internet to losers with dumb taste. It's called self-publishing. Now I'm a published author. According to my internet stats, I sold a book to a stranger. His username was BELUGA_WHALE_69. I've thought about looking him up.

And I've been working on a second book (well, I guess it's technically a first book since I wrote that other one when I was nine, and I didn’t even know it was a book when I was writing it, but whatever). Something keeps holding me back, though. I want my second book to be a detective story and I want it to feature a confident detective and I want him to investigate a murder or a disappearance or something like that. I want the main character to be relaxed and calm and cool and collected and strong and real and clever and quippy. I want this to happen because there's something in me that needs that. But something is stuck in me and it's blocking that thing I need. And I can't get that something unstuck. I think that something that's stuck is something bad. Fucking bad things are stuck in me and they won't get out of me. The bad things are in me and I want them out of me. Fuck fucking bad things. Fuck them gently into the dark. I think this may be writer's block but I don't know what writer's block feels like. Does it feel like constipation in your face? Does it feel like bad things? If it does, I think I've got it. Bad things create things that are the opposite of fictional, fantasy detective men who are relaxed and calm and cool and collected and strong and real and clever and quippy. Bad things are stupid and create stupid, insecure, neurotic assholes with stupid, insecure, neurotic asshole faces.

Faces like mine.

The Psycho Killer Down the Street will be featured in its entirety within the pages of the book you are currently reading. I'll do this for two reasons: the first is to make it easier for you to understand who The Psycho Killer Down the Street is, the second is to pad out this book so it's longer and I feel like I accomplished more. If this book is big and thick then I'll feel successful and legitimate and real. Like an author. Like a real author. I'm lazy and I don't like to think of new things to write so I'm going to repeat myself.

So here I go, repeating myself.

So here I go, repeating myself.

“Daniel Groff, OPEN THIS FUCKING DOOR!" mom yells.

I sigh, screw the cap on my bottle of Lonely Sparrow Whiskey, and jam it in a drawer. I leave my desk, push the dresser to the side, unlock the dead bolt, and open the door.

"WHAT!" I shout.

My mother's eyes are full of tears as she tells me that my father is dead. She wraps her arms around me. My hands remain at my sides.

“Your father hated sitcoms," she says.

I tug at my pants until I can feel the moisture developing on my palms.

“Your father hated pork chops.”

My father was a man who used to live with me and my mother. His name was Daniel Groff too. I’m a junior. He used to be a cop but he retired. Not sure why. Never bothered to ask. But it was before I was born. He popped a lot of pills and spent a lot of time locked in his room working on his “projects.” God knows what those “projects” where. But when we did see him he would yell and scream and throw all the pots and pans and plates and bowls on the floor. He would push hot spaghetti in mom’s face if she asked too many questions during dinner. He would break her nose if she disagreed about a TV show. And he would throw all of her clothes onto the front lawn if she took too long at the grocery store.

He was a bully, he was a brute, and he destroyed mom in ways that I’ll never know. He wasn’t good. And it’s as simple as that.

Then he left us.

And I hadn't seen him or thought about him for years. Certain things would remind me of him though. Certain smells, certain sounds, certain stories. Those reminded me of the good things. While few and far between, there were some. There was playing in the backyard, hiking in the woods, baseball games on the couch. Things like that. Those things were good. But the good inevitably reminded me of the bad: the insanity, the pills, the violence, the ugly.

He liked the ugly.

Mom tells me to put on my suit. I don't do a good job of tying the tie. I try several times but it keeps ending up too short. I sigh and button my jacket to cover it.

We get in the car and drive to the funeral. There are a lot of people there; mostly family, but a few strangers too. It's an uncomfortable situation because people keep coming up to me and hugging me and shaking my hand and kissing me and telling me how sorry they are.

They're sorry. They're sorry. They're sorry. They're sorry.

For what?

I don't know. But one man in the back of the room keeps staring at me. Like he knows me and has got something to say to me. He looks about fifty-something. He's balding, chubby, has a mustache, and looks like a bum. He's wearing sunglasses and I notice that he has food on his face. It looks like tuna. Whenever anyone eats tuna there’s always a little left over on the face. Tuna’s a food that likes to hang around. It likes to stick to the outside. It doesn’t want to be swallowed-up. If I was a food, I would be tuna.

This man is wearing a suit. But underneath the suit and pale-blue dress shirt, I notice he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Which means he's wearing two button-up shirts on top of each other. That’s a strange thing to do. It also doesn’t sound comfortable. I guess he likes to know that his laidback self is always around, even when it’s covered up by fancy attire. I figure that this man is not in big business. He's not a CEO or stock market person. He probably makes hamburgers. Maybe he paints dollhouses. Maybe he’s a tuna fisherman. Maybe he has no job. Like me.

He keeps staring and I stare back. Perhaps he knew me when I was a kid. Perhaps he's about to approach me and hand me a dollar and tell me he's my uncle who recently got out of jail and remembers me from when I was the size of a peanut and missed me and loves me even though he doesn't know me. Extended family love is weird because extended family love is fake. You love an uncle because you have to, because you feel obligated, not because you do. If you had a bomb shelter with a small amount of space and enough food rations to feed three or four people I guarantee that you would leave your aunts and uncles outside to fend off the atomic fallout, or zombies, or tornadoes, or whatever. Extended family members don't get spots in bomb shelters. It's a fact.

As I wait in line to look at the body I realize that I'm behind the man. He doesn't acknowledge me. I figure this would be a good time for him to talk to me and tell me all about how when I was little he took me hunting and I killed an elephant and how we ate tusk until we puked. Or I thought maybe he’d tell me about the time when I was two and he gave me beer and I got drunk and drove a car into a pool. But no, I'm wrong. There's nothing from Uncle Double-Shirt. No stories. No nothing.

He makes his way to the body, kneels before the casket, bows his head, and mutters a Hail Mary. He slowly raises his head, leans forward, and kisses my father on the mouth. I hear him whisper something but can't make out the words. He makes the sign of the cross, rises by bracing himself on the edge of the box, and stiffly walks away. I approach my dead dad, take a knee, and stare. His hands are laid on top of one another and his suit is clean and perfectly pressed. As I look closer at his waxy face, I notice something in the corner of his mouth: tuna. The man has left a piece of tuna on my father’s face. I quickly look for him and lock my eyes with his shades as he stands calmly in the corner. After a second or two of solid staring he nods. I return the nod and he turns and walks out of the funeral home. I take one more look at my father, get to my feet, and follow the man outside.

###

Recycle sadness, make something new

Welcome to Stream of Somethingness. Every two weeks I frantically write a bunch of words into a blog post and share them. Sometimes they make sense. Sometimes they don’t. Why am I doing this? Because it’s better than doing nothing. It’s all part of my new policy of not overthinking everything. Enjoy.

#

Old ideas can be recycled into new ideas. Hold them in your mind. Pick them apart. Dig into the crevices and seek out what’s there. You’ll find new sadness. New happiness. New confusion. New reasons to be lonely. New reasons to be joyful. It’s where the new lives. Where the change lives. Where life lives. Go find the meaning in your mind and in your thoughts. It’s there. The meaningless means something. Even if it’s simply that it means nothing. Meaning nothing is meaning something because meaning is meaning. Believe that you can find something that matters in your mind. There’s a lot there, look for it. Look through it. If there is nothing there, you’re not looking hard enough. Create the thing you’re looking for by thinking about something unrelated. Go find the meaning. Go find the inspiration. Don’t fear freedom. There’s only freedom when you’re dealing with your own mind. Sometimes freedom looks like weirdness. Don’t let that scare you. What scares you is often something new. If you find sadness, keep digging. Recycle sadness, make something new. Find the art. Find new ways to express yourself. It’s all there for you. Find it, break it, and build something else with the bits of an old idea.

I wrote some podcast ads

I wrote these podcast ads for for the artist marketplace Redbubble. This is a thing I hadn’t done before, so it was nice to jump into a new type of project.

The first two are for for the 2020 Holiday Campaign. We explored the strangeness of 2020 through the theme of “The Holidays are Weird this Year. Shop Weirdly Meaningful Gifts.”

This one is for Redbubble’s home decor campaign from a few months back. We focused on how unique home decor by artists on Redbubble can help make quarantine more livable by “Making Space for You.”

And this one is a general “What the heck is Redbubble?” intro for folks who had never heard of the company.

Pretty happy with how they came out. Hope to do more of this.

Tyranny of the Muse is back. Again.

Hey. Everything okay? Good. Same here.

Tyranny of the Muse, the comic book project I kicked off in 2011 is officially being relaunched as a partially re-drawn, re-written, re-edited, and expanded graphic novel with artist Dave Chisholm.

I’ll be posting a chapter as a webcomic every Tuesday HERE. Let’s call it Tyranny Tuesday. The first three are available now.

For those who don’t know, here’s the deal with Tyranny of the Muse:

Frank Fisher is addicted to inspiration. Literally. He's a creativity junkie. Bonnie is the muse who deals him his drug by injecting it directly into his brain through a festering wound. Together they work through the chaos of the creative process while navigating the existential land mines of their lives.

TYRANNY OF THE MUSE by creator/writer Eddie Wright (A Broken Everything, Regular Show) and illustrator Dave Chisholm (Canopus, Instrumental) is a darkly funny, offbeat, weirdly romantic mystery about art, hope, and the power of the past.

It’s been a long road:

• Tyranny of the Muse is based on Broken Bulbs, a novella I published in 2009.

• The comic book adaptation was launched via a successful Kickstarter in 2011.

• Five issues of an earlier version were published digitally by Study Group Comics (2013 - 2017) and Alternative Comics (2014). Issues one and two were drawn by Jesse Balmer. A small limited run was also printed for convention appearances (out of print).

• The 2020 edition is partially re-drawn by the amazing artist Dave Chisholm, re-edited, and expanded with all-new original material.

For those who’ve been with me for a bit, you know that this is a project I’ve come back to again and again. I’ve realized that this is the one for me. This is the one that I’ll never quit. I’ll probably be writing Frank and Bonnie forever. And I’m super happy about that. I have even more plans for them.

Please visit TYRANNYOFTHEMUSE.COM to start reading. The first three chapters are up now. A new one goes up every Tyranny Tuesday. #TyrannyTuesday? Can we make that a thing?