Psychedelic Blow Job

Have been busy all week with comps but all that's over tomorrow and I'm pumped about plunging hard into my writing. I was able to free write a little the other day. I found myself writing with an extremely close interiority, basically an endless rambling interior monologue with small interjections to describe physical action. For instance, here is the first paragraph I vomited out:

"There’s no sugar or milk in the house so I have to drink my tea straight. The tannic taste makes me grimace but the warmth and the kick of caffeine make me melt with gratitude. What would I sooner give up? Tea or beer? I look around the kitchen: a battlefield of corpses from three different armies—Heineken, Sierra Nevada, Busch Light in the can. Who the fuck was drinking Busch in the can? Ah yes, Cabe. A quality cunt, but lousy taste in beer. I rolled with the Heinekens last night. I can almost taste it. My stomach churns. Feels like death down there. A beer would probably kill me. Still, they say, don’t they, that the best cure for a hangover is a beer itself. Lift the grime right out. Ah, fuck that, I couldn’t even. Still, beer gets the nod over tea in the end. Couldn’t live without it. And there’s always coffee for the caffeine kick. I’ll have to teach Cabe how to drink like a connoisseur. There’s no excuse for Busch Light. And in the can! At least get the bottle man! Pour it in a fucking glass if not that! Ah, this tea is just the thing, just the thing. But we’ll have to spring for some sugar and milk to make it the true thing. Some half and half at the least. Don’t know if we could drink up the milk anyway before it expires. I won’t have it with anything except my tea. And Dylan? Don’t know that I’ve ever even seen a drop of milk touch his lips. But what was I thinking? Ah—Cabe. A good cunt. Would be better if he drank like he knew what fucking time it was. Perhaps I could spring for an education. Three beers. If he doesn’t like any of them, fuck the cunt, he can go back to Busch."

There is some inconsistency in style. I begin "There's no sugar or milk in the house so I have to drink my tea straight..." That's using a pretty traditional narrative style in the present tense, describing what is actually happening as if addressing the reader. But starting with "What would I sooner give up..." and continuing until the end of the paragraph, the reader is directly inside the character's head following his fragmented, associational thought process. I think I'm okay with this inconsistency. I want to be inside the character's head at all times, but I don't want the style to be overly disorienting, so I think it is necessary for certain exposition to be simply stated. "There's no sugar or milk..." is not being said inside the character's head as "What would I sooner give up..." is, but it is a condensing of his thoughts and it serves to orient the reader. I don't want the reader to be lost in an indecipherable stream of consciousness; I want to tell a story while exploring an individual's consciousness. I'm not too worried about authenticity; authenticity is impossible anyway. I just want to be sure the writing doesn't sound too wacky combining elements of traditional narrative with elements of stream of consciousness. So that's something I'm paying attention to as I write.

I'm also trying to find the voice of my character's interior monologue. I think we tend to think in a similar voice as the one with which we speak, but obviously one that is less self-conscious. Or actually, just as self-conscious if not more, but conscious of self-judgment rather than external judgment. Anyway, I'm trying to find a comfortable voice that feels believable. Then it will be fun to have both the interior voice and the exterior voice running as the character has contact with other people. The contrast will set up opportunities for plenty of irony.

As far as story goes I'm just trying to let it unfold organically without forcing myself to adhere to any preconceived outline. I still have no idea how much time will pass in the story, or where it will end up. I just have a few significant events in my mind. Right now I'm winding toward the first significant action--a possible sexual encounter with a young lady. I'm actually considering a blow job scene (I am always drawn to the blow job scene.) In fact, a psylocibin-fueled blow job that goes horribly wrong. Haha. Something that I'm going for strongly in this novel (and in all my work) is in the inevitable collision of the banal and the absurd. The character's day begins with the banal--drinking tea and thinking about a friend's poor taste in beer-- and will end with the absurd-- a psychedelic hummer. But of course the banal will inevitably have elements of the absurd and the absurd will inevitably have elements of the banal. That excites me.