The Works of Robert Madsen

Creative people have creative habits, by which I mean that creative people have bad habits–not so much in the application and prosecution of their craft inasmuch as their own personal habits.  You could argue that creative people don’t reserve much of their consideration for themselves after they’ve spent it all in their work.  This is to avoid altogether the discussion of what constitutes a creative person, which I would tend to mean as anyone who creates, specifically as a sort of sole proprietor in a personal obsession with a certain craft. It’s apparently a sort of personality trait.  There are some kind gentle souls who put others and the world before themselves.  And then there are other people who can’t be bothered to take care of themselves because they’re too busy writing or painting or whathaveyou.  In truth, I wouldn’t ascribe to it anything glorious or romantic; I see it rather differently.  There have been many bright minds and shining stars struck down amidst the height of their profession because they didn’t care for the consequences.  All different names of scientists, writers, some painters, and certain even very professional performers.  This condition seems to strike men far more than it Read More …

This is something I started writing some months ago, but I never finished it.  I’m just going to leave this here as is. I had a dream where I was trying desperately and unsuccessfully to get Milo Yiannopoulos to keep his clothes on. You know, I’ve never really had what I’d called a “Writer’s Block” problem before.  Sometimes I was at a loss for ideas, but I was always able to get things on a page.  But recently, just looking at my own writing evokes a preternatural terror I can neither relate nor understand.  To be honest, I don’t think this is something that others haven’t experienced before, and I don’t think it’s a phenomenon specific to writing; anything you do as your primary vocation might be able to elicit this reaction.  The really interesting question is “Why?” I am so fucking far ahead of my work schedule, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.  I’m pushing two year’s of content completed that is completely unreleased.  There can be no anxiety about the deadline; I’m not even willing to consider that possibility. I have been knocked down a few pegs.  A good part of my job is marketing my Read More …

I’ll keep it short and sweet.  Looks like additional content for the upcoming 2 books will be finished on time.  As regards how long the editing, I cannot here comment faithfully, but things are looking nice. I’ve been thinking about what are the essential themes of the various things I’ve written.  Goliath Thunder is about many things, but among them are the conception of family and the distinction between self and universe.  Something else I’ve written but haven’t published is fundamentally about sexual politics and competition.

Something I’ve heard from the mouths of people that typically espouse Green Party beliefs, people that typically indulge in the abusive use of recreational drugs in spite of the harm it’s done to nations like Mexico and Colombia, is that we are all connected, we are all part of a gigantic whole, not merely us and the rest of mankind, but with us and all things that live, all part of an interconnected web where anything we do and suffer is shared in some form universally. Truth is, you can make a good argument that much of what’s being said is self-evident–pure cause and effect; the question is more specifically a matter of extent, what’s termed in the legal world as “proximate cause.” Now, I don’t think most people that espouse this viewpoint do so out of malice; most of them are just helpless stoners, but I do think that they haven’t taken this attitude to its natural end.  Specifically, if we are not atomized and are rather a natural collective, I’m just as responsible for you as I am for me, and we both have a vested interest in each other.  This means I have some right to control Read More …

Is Charlie Sheen the Diogenes of the Hollywood elite? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes He even rejected normal ideas about human decency. Diogenes is said to have eaten in the marketplace, urinated on some people who insulted him, defecated in the theatre, and masturbated in public.

Been a few weeks since I’ve shared anything of any import with virtually anyone.  I’m still here.  Still alive.  Just had to sort a lot of problems at once and I lost track of things.  Anyways, expect things to return to normal next week.

Looks like some of my published work is going to be rearranged, modified, and revised into what will probably be a trio of new works with a great deal of new and additional content.  All very exciting.  Bank on a lot of science fiction.  What I have to wonder and worry about, in all honesty, is my other work.  I’ve completed some material variously in the fantasy genre that has nothing to do with the work I’ve already published.  They say the safe road, that one that comes without living in doorways, lies in specializing in a certain genre, specifically in a certain series, and just running with it until your audience turns up tired. But that’s not really me. I don’t even think it’s good form.  How can you possibly do good writing if you’re dead inside for having to write for paycheck merely–long after you’ve stopped caring about the work? I don’t know. Truth is, I’ve yet to materialize an actual novel out of my Goliath Thunder work.  Short stories, a novella or two, and a few miniseries.  Haven’t yet felt the pull to bury myself in this sort of epic. Is what it is. Anyways, there’s not Read More …

A burgeoning heart suffers and cannot truly numb the pain, evident even through the jackhammer of alcohol throbbing through his veins, woeful with the continual and continuous deadlines and unpaid overtime–the miscarriage of his wife and their developing divorce.  “Life is suffering,” claims correctly several religions, and they know that man was born this way, but they do not know that he was necessarily made this way, crafted in the hands of a greening mother preparing her children confidently to survive–not to thrive.

You know, when I was a kid, Saturday morning television was the high point of my week.  That sounds terrible now that I’ve said it, but it’s actually the truth.  Saturday morning television has always hosted the strange visions of creators and entertainers whose ideas never really made it to mainstream appeal; that’s where science fiction used to go to die, out of sight and out of mind of the regular populace.  Who would have known the appeal that both science fiction and high fantasy would accrue in our present day?  Makes me almost sick to think about.  You people are always miles behind, but because you’re the only runners you can see, you presume that you, as a collective, are first.  Anyways, there was a lot of Babylon V, a good deal of Space: Above and Beyond, and cartoons beyond numbering, but what I liked most about them, and it was a facet of most entertainment at the time that thrilled me, is that they were all violent despite varying levels of embracing that violence.  Good luck finding any more of that in entertainment fit for children nowadays, what with hovering parents having become the norm among those wealthy Read More …

Does this require any more explaining?