Draft Page From The Secret Origin Of Guided By Voices

Hello everyone! Had a fairly boring weekend, obviously no kung fu classes which makes my days far less structured for the worse. But the good news is that my leg is continuing to heal, slowly but slowly. A week and two days from the injury, I can now walk fairly normally with only an occasional slight limp. On the advice of a nurse in training (my roommate's girlfriend) I've been massaging my calf to try to loosen up the muscles and fluid that's been causing my leg to bruise. Tiger Balm and Advil have definitely been my friends during the recovery, as well! All in all, looks like I should be back to it in a week or so and I'm glad it's nothing more serious.

The good news is that losing the distraction of kung fu has enabled me to focus on Pop Zeus more than I would have otherwise. Over the past few weeks, I have been chopping the fat off of the Secret Origin Of GBV section (which I have previously written about at length) with the help of my retired English teacher mom. It was really helpful to have a complete GBV novice read over the section to see if it made sense and flowed. Never really worked on a history-type story before, so its reassuring to hear that I am on the right track.

That's the thing about Pop Zeus. Each little chapter is like its own mini-comic, which will be great fun for the reader but lots of work for me!



As you may know, the Secret Origin Of GBV differs from other Guided By Voices' histories in that the story is told only in quotes (like the Beatles Anthology book) and covers the period from Robert Pollard's childhood to 1993 only. And the chosen quotes were the ones that evoked the most interesting visual imagery. I hope this focus will give the section a different feel than what has already been told elsewhere.

So, below is a sample page from the most recent draft of the section for your perusal! This page is called Early Influences, encompassing the period from Bob's early musical experiments to high school. I though it was a pretty interesting section to feature here in the blog. And you will see how much work went into gathering, organizing, distilling, and editing quotes from many interviews to create this section. Let me know what you think and enjoy!

(click picture to make legible)