Upon the Winding Path of Imagination and Desire

Yes, I did it:  I finished Chapter 38 of Transporting last night.  It was a triple finish:  the third section of Chapter 38, which was the last chapter of Part 3.  Oh, yeah.  For something I said I was going to do, I did it.

When I figured out the hard numbers, it turned out I’d written just south of 4,000 words in 4 days.  That’s not a bad total, but it’s not my best.  I could do better production-wise.  I’d need to cut out a lot of distractions, and that would allow me to concentrate on getting my mind into the stories, but you know me–

Well, you really don’t.  But I do seem to have a lot of things going on of late.  I’ve been having a few “issues” on my end of late, things that always seem to pop up.  I’ve been networking a lot more, trying to get something going for me, and for my stories.  And after all that has happened, then it’s time to write.

Did I mention eating and relaxing?  No?  Yeah, I do that a little as well.

But now I’m back into my novel, and last night, looking over what’s upcoming in Transporting–yes, I did some plot card in Scrivener; I do that–and, oi, but I got some gut churning emotions coming up.  Yeah, I do this to myself; set myself up for some stuff that’s going to make me remember and think about things that have happened to me, good and bad, and then I’ll have to do those same thing to my characters.

It’s not fair, I tell yeah.

It must be why my main character is a mess.  They don’t sleep well, either, though I’m certain they never had a dream like I had last night, where I had to deal with driving in the dark through 6 inches of snow, only to have my car taken over by Ice-T when I finally got to where I was going.  Yeah, not a good dream.

They never get a full night’s sleep, either, unless they are whacked out of their mind on something.  One of the main characters in Transporting does a lot of drugs, and when they aren’t doing drugs they’re usually drinking.  That’s another example of art imitating life, because there was a time in my life–about 25 years, to be exact–when self-medicating was the order of the day.  A lot of times it was booze, other times it was drugs, sometimes it was gaming.

These days it’s easier to torture my characters.

These days it’s easier to set yourself upon the path that encompasses all your imagination and brilliance and desires for what you want, and put them into someone who exists only in your mind and on a computer screen.  To be honest, my main character in Transporting desires a lot of the same things I desire, because I want them on the same journey I’m upon.  That doesn’t mean I’m Mary Sueing my character, though I believe my daughter might say that were she to read this story.

It just means it’s far easier to place everything you want into a fiction, because you think, in the end, they might get the happiness you truly deserve.

Today is Travel Day; I head away from The Undisclosed Location and head home.  Maybe I’ll get to some writing tonight; I hope so.  I have told myself I’m going to finish this novel:  not just told myself, but many others as well.  And there is nothing to be gained by acting like a lying punk and blowing off huge chunks of story that demand telling.  I might have to deal with snow when I get home: maybe, maybe not.  Does no good to worry about what I can’t control.

So to load up, go to work, then leave for home.  Then relax, write, sleep.

Maybe in tonight’s dreams I’ll find those same desires I so want awake.

Maybe tonight I’ll see my Annie.  I could use that . . .

Alone in a Sea of Eyes

Another of those strange nights.  Work was a bore and I kept the dinner fare simple, because I am putting on weight again.  I need to check out that salad bar across the street from work and stick with more soup when I’m home.  All the junk food is starting to kill this girlish figure.

It took me a bit to get to the writing, but once I was in it I was in it.  It was all about getting the mood right for me.  It seems like when I’m working on the old new novel, I want everything to be just so.  No, I am not getting so anal that every word need be perfect; rather, I want to evoke something correct, and I need the words to be right, so the reader will–I hope–feel what I’ve tried to convey.

When it was all over, another 840 words were down the chute, the second section of Chapter 38 was behind me, and all that remained was one more part to do before not only the chapter was finished, but Part 3 of Transporting was history as well.

There was a moment of panic as, after the writing was over, I started looking over the upcoming part, and I’m looking at these chapter cards.  The thought that came to me was, “What the hell did I mean by this?”  I’ve had that reaction before; it happened when I was working on my NaNo Novel.  After I looked things over for a few minutes, however, it all came back to me.  Oh, yes:  I’m good at that.  Just give me a few minutes to get my thoughts down and I’ll tell you where the story is going.  Or, at least, I’ll do my best to push it in that direction.

Sleep was–how to say it?  Disturbed.  Not because I kept waking up.  No, not like that at all.  No, it was the dreams that kept pounding at the inside of my head that disturbed me.

Every once in a while I get into these patterns where I’ll either have the same dream over and over–my driving in the fields of Wisconsin is one of those–or all the dreams for a night are part of a theme.  And last night’s theme was pretty simple:

You Are Alone.

I must have had four dreams last night, but in each on I was ostracized, I was kept apart from everyone, I was made to feel like an outsider.

The last one got me, though.  In it, I was walking down a street to some unknown destination.  I was wearing a light t-shirt, a short skirt (yeah, another of those gender switch dreams that I have), and sandals.  It was near-summer, and it felt that way.

I was walking down a city street, and there wasn’t a soul in sight.  It was all empty, all quiet.  But the funny thing was, I knew people were there.  I knew I wasn’t alone, but for some reason people would not come out in my presence.

And then I happened upon an abandoned fire station.  The doors were gone and it was possible to walk inside.  And there, in the gloom of sunlight, I could see the walls.  It was all graffiti, but it was all very lovely, done up in a way that made it the finest kind of street art.

I heard something and looked around and up.  There, in the rafters, was an empty space.  And though I couldn’t see them, I knew there were people above me, watching, not saying a word . . . unless you want to call the constant whisper that filled my senses “a word”.

I ended up walking out of the building, and the dream ended.  And I woke up not long after that, the covers kicked off and my body cold, because it was cold in the room.

Are my dreams telling me that I’m alone in my work?  That’s very true: I go to my job and I’m alone, and I come home and write and I’m alone.  Or is there something else there?

Sometimes this writer things makes you think a little too much, you know?

Shiny Writing Diversions

Last night was a good learning experience.  I went out to the mall to pick up a few things, then decided to stop off and have dinner.  While there I had a couple of drinks, as in I had some really good beer.  I don’t usually drink beer anymore, because the majority of mass-produced American beer is undrinkable.  Or, to quote a waiter with whom I struck up a conversation in Amsterdam in 2006, “It is like the piss, yes?”  You got it, Bunky.

But this was really good beer, and before dinner was over I had two, and came home with a pretty nice glow.  And absolutely no feeling what so ever to get into my story.

I shouldn’t say that.  I was ready to write, and I wasn’t so loaded that I didn’t know what I was doing.  But I got hung up on one thing:  whether or not I wanted to start this particular section in first or third person, and that kept my mind spinning like mad.

See, it’s like this:  part of Transporting is told in first person, in the form of a diary from one of the main characters.  When they are narrating, the story is told in third person.  So for this section of Chapter 38, I got hung up.  Which way to tell it?  Maddening, I tell ya.

It’s easy for writers to get distracted.  There is so much going on in our lives that trying to block it all out can be a major chore.  Sure, Stephen King says lock yourself in a room and do a thousand words before you do anything else, but that’s easier said than done if you have a job and kids and even . . . The Internet.

This last is something that all writers next, and we all dread.  Too many shiny things out there to distract us.  Yes, I need the Internet to do research, but when you got people on Facebook who want to chat, or music on YouTube that demands you come and listen now–or, worst of all, these damn games . . .

Life is bad enough in terms of keeping us distracted, but when you add the Internet into the mix, it’s like having the Goblin King looking over your shoulder clicking his tongue and saying, “No, no.  You don’t want to write that.  You want to come away with me to a beach where there are naked Sebacean women, and we can have pizza and margarita shooters,” and you turn around and remind him that not only is he ripping off Scorpy’s lines, but nobody has margaritas with pizza–ever!

And in case you’re wondering, I had to use the Internet to look up that last line.  Research!

To write, to really write day in and out, you need some incredible will.  I didn’t have that before last year.  I had the rapt attention of a cat in a room full of light beams.  I’m much better these days.  I get up, I get coffee, I write up the blog post (like I’m doing now), then I get ready for work.  When I come home I eat, decompress, chat a little, then write.

In the end I managed to get 747 words in.  I was going to write more, but it was getting one towards 11 PM and I was coming up on something in the story that I didn’t want to write while feeling like I was going to fall asleep, so I left that for today.

Trust me: no beer today.  Maybe a little wine, but that helps me write.

As long as I don’t drink too much . . .

Hangin’ With Friends Under the Night Skies of Sadalbari

Oh, sure, that title means nothing to you, but it means everything to me.

So, finally, after so, so many years, I got back into my very first novel/work in progress/that excuse that you can point to and say, “Look!  I iz writer!”, Transporting, and started a new chapter–said chapter being 38.  Yeah, that’s right.  Lots of works in this baby.

Now, I have said that this was the first new wordage that I added to the novel in a long time, but, just like if you were Sully, I lied.  I’d finished off the last part of Chapter 37 some time back–maybe a few months ago.  It needed it; it’d been hanging there, all alone, and it needed some termination.  So I gave it termination, and it was good.

It wasn’t until I needed to look it over so I could figure out where Chapter 38 was going that I said to myself, “Yeah, I did do this a while back,” and started writing.

Unlike a lot of my stories, Transporting has chapters that have separate sections.  Yes, it’s nice, and it works, and if you could see my Scrivener lay out, it’d probably make a lot more sense to you.  To give you an idea of how I have it set up, I have three sections in Chapter 38:  Numbers Examined; Showing Cillia’s Talent; Numbers Confirmed.  And Chapter 38 is the last chapter of Part Three, Sunrise on Sadalbari.  The way my novel is set up, there are two more parts after this one, though Part 5 is really nothing more than a coda, wrapping things up.

So how did it feel to work on this?  Actually, I jumped right in with no hesitation.  As I’ve stated here, in this blog, I’ve already written another very recent story with these same characters, Echoes, so it wasn’t jarring to get back into them.  Also, the Muse was around, doing dishes and laundry, giving me a reason to start typing away.

The funny thing is, once I started writing, the story came.  It was as if it’d always been there, waiting, and all I needed was to see the words appear on the screen.  It flowed easy–maybe a misstep here and there, but for the most part it just came out the way I expected it to appear.

These people, the one’s I’m writing about, they are very old friends.  Hell, I’ve had them around for nearly 25 years; I have a list of stories I want to do with them, which is also known as, “I’ve created a time line because I just have to know what happens to them!”  So getting back into their skin was no big deal.  Getting into what they were going to do is no big deal, either, because I’ve known this story, in and out, for the same amount of time I’ve known the characters, and though there has been a change here and there in the story, it’s the same one I began putting together back in 1988.

So here it is:  I wrote 1011 words last night in about 65 minutes, and the total count is at 253,960 words.  I’m figuring that the final count will be around 275,000 or so words, but I’ve been known to be wrong before.

Finally, in case you’re wondering about the title of this post, Sadalbari is the name of the star which the planet where the characters are currently staying is called.  Here is what we call a little research:

 

Proper name: Sadalbari

RA: 22h 50min 0.201sec DEC: +24° 36′ 5.71” (J2000). Spectral class G8 (Morgan-Keenan G8 III). Star is approximately 8.75 times Sol diameter, 45 times luminosity.
Sadalbari was the Arabic Sa’d al-Bari’, “Lucky star of the excellent one” or “the Good Luck of the Excelling One”; but Kazwini designated it as Sa’d al Nazi’, “the Good Luck of the Camel Striving to Get to Pasture”.

Distance from Terra 106 ly.

Primary Planet:

Orbit: 3.7 AU (GS) 555,000,000 kilometers
1927.8 days (GS)
1642.4 days (Local)
Day: 28 h 6 m (28.17 hours GS)

1642.4 days = 1 Vag
1642.4 / 8 = 205.3 days = 1 Ostavsa
205.3 / 5 = 41.06 days = 1 Javok

Javoks are usually denoted in some short-hand form based upon the Ostavsa they’re in. For example: they third Javok of the fifth Ostavsa would be referred to as “3/5 Jav/Ost.”

Four known planets located by Terran orbital observatories (2017). Second planet confirmed with oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere (2033). Nova Pegasus event observed July 22, 2036. Mu Pegasus expanded to nearly 20 times its former size for a period of three weeks. All local planetary ecosystems destroyed. Approximate date of nova event on Terran time line May 1935.

 

And there you go; more of my madness from so long ago.  I have to run this through some other calculations, however: I may need to change it.

So the trip has started once again.  Tonight we do a little more, and tomorrow more after that.

I keep this up, eventually I’m going to get to the end . . .

Tiptoeing Straight Into Hell

No time like the present to dive right back into my insanity.  For there’s no better time than tonight to start pulling what little hair I have left out–

Tonight I get back into my first novel.

Transporting was a work that I used to say I started about 1990, but after thinking about it over the weekend, I used to dream up stories about the main characters when I was sitting in my office at Playboy, and that was the winter, spring, and summer of 1988.  That means I probably started the novel late 1987, or very early 1988.  So this sucker has been rolling around in my head for going on 25 years, like some crazy force of nature that just won’t leave me alone.

If I had to tell you why I had this idea, I couldn’t tell you now.  Up to that point I’d written something like three stories, all of them maybe six thousand, seven thousand words.  (Yes, there was a time when I could do a short story.)  I’d already had two rejections at that point, and decided, “Hey, you know, if I really want to put myself through some misery, I’ll write a novel!”  At the time that probably was my mindset, because by then my marriage was starting to go to hell, and hell was something I was getting used to living.

So write I did.  Back in those days I’d flip on the computer–which was the huge desktop with the monitor sitting on it, and sporting a whole 256 kilobytes of memory!–bring up WordPerfect, and do 500 words before I’d get ready for work.  Which meant I started writing like 5 AM.  (Not unlike now, when I started writing this post about 5:40 AM.)  Oh, yes:  I had a great work habit of 500 words in the morning, 500 at night, and then writing what I felt like writing on the weekends.  It was during one of those Saturdays that I cranked out 11,000 words, which remains the most I’ve ever done in one day.  (I just so you know, I ended up editing out a lot from that day.  Anyone can write a lot–the trick is to write a lot well.)

All of this was done long before there was a real Internet.  The majority of Transporting takes on a planet in the Hyades Star Cluster–a quaint little burg we know as HD 23805, or CL Melotte 25 136, but better known in my story as the University System.  I needed to go to the library and hunt through catalogs to find a star that was going to stable for life, and HD 23805 is a G5, which means it’s a nice little star to live around.

In fact, let me show you the notes I created for University all the way back in 1988:

 

Forth Planet in system of 7.
Two moons: Aula (302,000 km), Melling (516,000 km)
Sidereal Day: 27 h 58 m
Length of Year: 394 days (Galactic Standard)
337.7 days (Local Standard)
Leap year every 10th year.
Deviation from GS: 1.08
GS Year: 3182 (at beginning of story)
Inclination: 37 degrees

Distance from Terra: 130.8 ly.
Closest Star: 2.77 ly.
Population: 376,152,000
First Landing: August 10, 2403
First Settlement: Penningham
First Campus: New Oxford (2568 LS)

Calculation of dates: All dates are calculated from the Galactic Standard (I. E., old-style Terran) Calendar. To calculate individual ages GS dates are used. Local calendars are normally used for intra-planetary business only. To find current Local Standard days/years the total number of days from First Landing is calculated (usually truncating the first year after landing so that it matches the Galactic Standard value), converted into hours and then adjusted by the GSD (Galactic Standard Deviation) to determine the current GS date.

For example: For University, First Landing is Aug 10, 2403, GS. GS days to end of present year (2403)–21 + 30 + 31 + 30 + 31 = 143 days, or 3432 hours. This works out to 122.57 Local Standard days, putting the last day of the LS year at December 24/25.

Local Calendar is then reset so 1 Jan, GS equals 1 Jan, LS. Dates are thn calculated normally from that point using GS deviations.

January 1, 2404 (LS) to Feb 2, 3182 (LS) is 778 LS years = (262186 + 77 leap year days + 30 days to Feb 2) 262293 LS days. Using the GSD you have (262293 * 1.08) = 283276.44 GS days divided by 365.25 = 775.57 GS years. .57 years is 208 GS days. GS date should be (using these calculations and the tables at the end of the notes) approximately Friday, 27 July, 3179.

 

Prominent Centers of Higher Learning on University:

New Oxford
Cambridge Intergalactic
New Stanford
Princeton Interstellar
Gorbochev Polytechnic
Hong Kong Polytechnic
Miskatonic Galactic
Neo-Kanto
New Glasgow

 

Other Systems:

New London: Altair Celestial coordinates in ly: 7.703, -14.68, 2.586
Scoth: 10 Tauri Celestial coordinates in ly: 26.2, 36.3, 0.31

Scoth to New London: 54.265 ly
University to Scoth: 159.088 ly

 

There you have it: notes from the past, and they still mean something to me.

Now lets see where I go with this tonight.  New writing is scary.  I haven’t written anything new in this story in about 5 years, and jumping back into it is going to be a little intimidating.  But as I told my daughter Saturday at dinner, since last July I’ve written about 250,000 words–

So what’s another quarter of a million words between friends?

Caressing the Madness

Last night was another night out with friends.  Sat and talked, watched “Order of the Phoenix” on TV, which kept me commenting on how much I loathed Dolores Umbridge, but that I can be satisfied that, by the end of the 5^th book/movie, she gets gang raped by centaurs.  We also debated what would happen if one in the HP universe stuck their wand right up to someone’s eye and did Expelliarmus.  Would it drive your eyeball back into your brain and make your head go squish?  Or would it simply knock it out of your skull?  Fun stuff.

We also discussed the fact that the magical folk in HP seem to have this wide gulf of spells with which to “defend” themselves.  You got your Stupify and your Expelliarmus, and you can freeze people . . . and then you got your Killing Curse.  Hey, nothing like going right to the big guns when your little stuff don’t cut it.  Sort of like coming to a gun fight, finding out your 9mm ain’t doin’ the trick, and whipping out a 20mm cannon to take care of business.  Although that does seem to be a standard motus in anime . . .

Then it was the drive home under the near new moon.  For once I was pretty much alone last night: not much on my mind, and the Muse was sleeping the dream-filled sleep of one that maybe had me in their dreams.  It’s been that way of late for me: not a lot going on when I travel; no discussions between characters or thinking out plots.  Which, to be honest, sort of bothers me, because I begin to wonder–am I’m running out of things as far as stories are concerned?

Maybe not entirely.  Maybe I’m looking at things from a different angle.

For a little last night, I was looking into the eyes of madness.

It might have something to do with getting back into my first novel.  One of the main characters in that story is bi-polar, and taking medication would prevent them from, believe it or not, being this tremendously huge badass.  No, really.  It’s a long story that would involve having to explain myself, and at this point I’m not ready for that.

What this means for them is they learn to deal with their ups and downs, with their depression and suicidal feelings, and their happiness when it comes along.  They learn to deal, but at the same time they learn to feel, they learn to understand their emotions . . . and they become tuned into the emotions of others.

It’s a complicated thing to do, because it forces me to dig down into feeling I’ve kept surprised and hidden for a very long time–like most my life.  And that can be a little scary, because who wants to touch that part of their psyche that they’ve denied existed for so long?

The Muse made me do that, and the Muse keeps poking me along there.  Yeah, it’s scary, but it help me understand my characters.  It helps me know them, and feel where they should go in their lives.

Notice I didn’t say “where I’m going in my life,” because my life is still a mess, and probably will be for some time.  It’s starting to make more sense, but it’s a very slow process.  You don’t spend 50-some years the way I have and just change overnight–or even in a couple of years.

But I’ll get there.  The Muse will help, I know, and the writing will help–

Last night I also touched on a little something that had bugged me for a while, but it’s an idea that has begun to make more sense . . .

It means I need to have Kerry hang out a little more at the Astria Portal.  What does that mean to you?  Nothing–

Yet.

Dirk Diggler Doesn’t Write Here Any More

This is going to be one of those posts where I’m going to say some things, and some comments are gonna use “rude language”, so you know what that means:  you wanna read, enjoy yourself.  If not, best to back out now–or, if you like, Amanda LaPergola made some really cool Valentine’s Day cards over at The Mary Sue.  Check them out:  maybe you can use them next year.  I highly recommend the Starfire card.

That said, onward.

Driving home from The Undisclosed Location was pretty nice yesterday.  Good weather, the traffic wasn’t that bad, and I had some tunes to keep me occupied.  I got home, decompressed a bit, then went up to the computer.

One of the things I wanted to check on was something that’s been in the planning for a while: an interview I was going to do this weekend for an internet radio station.  It was planned for Sunday; notice I used the word “planned”.  That’s because once I logged in and started checking things, I found a message.  Rather than give you a short version said message, I’ll just cut and paste the sucker:

Raymond you seem like a nice person but I can’t interview you on your book. Because it is porn and I have a lot of kids listening and emailing me questions. Sorry , take care !

Well now!

Now, I’ll say, I’m a bit confused.  One, I thought we were going to discuss my story Kuntilanak, which you can still buy.  (Yes, it’s a blog whore; I do that, you know.)  Now, that’s a horror story that takes place on the island of Bali, so if that’s what they’re talking about, I’m even more confused.

Here’s something you should know about me: I write in a lot of different genres.  I write horror, as you see above.  I write a bit of fantasy, which was pretty much what my NaNo Novel was.  I write science fiction, which is what my first work in progress novel, Transporting, is.  And, lastly, I write erotica. which is the genre of my soon-to-be published story.

Sometimes I mash things up.  My NaNo Novel, Her Demonic Majesty, is pretty much fantasy/science fiction.  My latest story, Couples Dance, is erotic horror, or horrific erotica, if you are of that mind.  It doesn’t matter: I start putting words into the computer, and a story comes out, and I strive to make it the best I can, even if it’s, by some accounts, pretty strange.

There’s one thing I don’t write, however:

I. Don’t. Write. Porn.

I’ve had this slam thrown my way a couple of times, and I’ve seen it shot in the direction of some other writers I know who are in the erotica business.  It appears that if you write stories about people involved in relationships that involve sex that doesn’t involve procreation, one where those involved appear to enjoy what they’re doing–hell, even having fun while they’re getting their freak out–then it’s wrong, then it’s dirty . . . then it’s porn.

Ah, hem.  Porn?  Sit down for a moment while I school your ass.

Dan Fielding, the Assistant D. A. from Night Court, long ago established the criteria between erotica and porn.  As stated when asked his opinion about an adult movie, “It isn’t any good: it’s got a story.”  Not to elaborate, but porn is about getting off.  It’s about getting two, or more, people together, getting it on, and getting the money shot.  You don’t need to worry about characterization: like in Logjammin’, when the hunky blond repairman with his open shirt is standing at the door, and said door is opened by Asia Carrera, you know Asia isn’t getting her cable fixed in the next ten minutes, Jeffery.

When you’re looking for porn, titles are easy:  Spank Happy Coeds 6; Big Bountiful Bucks 12; Horny Housewives of Moaning County.  Or, just for fun, they’ll play on the classics, just to keep it interesting.  You know, like Saving Ryan’s Privates, or ET: The Extra Testicle, or one of my favorites, On Golden Blond.

The end result is still the same, however: something simple to give you the necessary titillation to make said “story” a worthwhile addition to your spank bank.

If I was really writing porn, I’d be doing my damnest to get it out there on the porn market . . . except I don’t think you really “write” porn, not these days.  I knew a guy who used to edit porn tapes, and he said scripts were never used, just outlines.  I mean, really:  do you need a script direction to tell the director that in this next shot Bunny is going to get a facial in close up?  No, I’m guessing porn scripts are a lot like giving direction to Robin Williams: you just say, “There’s fucking here,” thrown in some names, and go with the flow.

Erotica is way, way different.  It’s an art form, and there are characters, there is a plot, there is a story.  In erotica there are going to be sexual situations–notice I didn’t say “sex”.  Like any genre there are numerous sub-genres, and you could easily be writing a story about someone who is training a submissive, and while what both dom and sub go through is a sexual situation, and can make for a very interesting story, there may not be any “sex” in the whole story–at least not in what some people would consider the traditional sense.

Let’s face it: people are hung up on sex.  A lot of people can’t get over the idea that sex is suppose to be fun.  You can use your imagination and share with others.  You can try things that don’t involve laying in bed and doing the ol’ Missionary Bump and Pump so the “happy” couple can fertilize an ovum.  Erotica can be about exploration, it can be about discovery–it can even be about finding out that you’re not the person you thought you were, you’re really someone else, and your sexual awakening has set you upon another path.

Oh, sure: it can be about getting off.  Not going to lie.  But said getting off is usually done not only in the context of story, but in the context of the characters gaining something from the experience.  With porn, when it’s all over, all the characters have usually gained are sore genitals.  In erotica, you find out that you may love someone, or hate them, or you want to be with them, but only to control or be controlled.  You may find out that after twenty years of marriage to the same person, what you really needed to spice up your relationship was to invite the bisexual neighbor over more often.

It’s all about the story.  And, yes: some stories will be better than others.  Some will titillate more than others, or describe the sexual situations better, or even convey a sense of sensuality in terms that are far more interesting.  Hey, it’s like that in every genre.  On one hand you have Hunter S. Thompson, on the other Glen Beck.  Their books discuss politics and current affairs, but one was a master of storytelling, and the other is a scumbag who wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him on the balls.  Writers be writers, and some times you get the bad with the good.

I know a few writers of erotica.  They are female and male; single and married; straight and gay.  They all love to write, and they love what they do as much as any writer can enjoy sitting down before a story and tearing out their guts with the intention of entertaining other people.

And not one of them writes porn.

They create stories.

I’m not ashamed of what I write.  My name is on my stories, and if one of those stories should start out with a husband walking into the bedroom and finding his wife hard at work masturbating with a dildo, and he decides to join in the fun, then hell yeah, I’m still putting my name on it because I wrote it, and I liked writing it, and I want you to like reading it.  In fact, you’ve just seen the opening scene to Couples Dance.  Hope I didn’t give too much away . . .

Just know: there is more to that story than just getting one’s freak on.  But you have to read it to find out what is happening–and if you think you can’t enjoy it because you can’t get past the idea of what happens in the first scene, pity to you, my friend.  You’re missing out on what I think is a very good story.

Like I said to myself last night, it’s not my problem that I’m not getting interviewed: it’s your problem that you’re not getting the chance to have a charming, witty, intelligent, and a little crazy, writer on your broadcast.

Your loss, my friend.  It’ll never be mine.

 

Dancing into the Dark

And there it is: with a short 900 words run, 36,211 words later, Couples Dance is history.

I finished it last night about 11 PM, rocking through the last chapter after spending a lot of time trying to think about what I was going to say.  But when it came to actually writing down what needed to be said, it came out a lot smoother than I’d imagined.

This was due in part to the fact that chapter was a wrap up.  I wasn’t meant to give you any insight into what has happened, but rather a little window into what may happen.  No hidden words of wisdom or anything like that.  Just wrap the damn thing up and put “The End” at the end.

To be honest I was a little surprised it went that way, but when you are into something, when you know you’re writing true, then your instincts tell you, “Don’t word this up.”  Say what needs to be said and move on.

So, from 10 January to 16 February I’ve toiled at Couples Dance, thought “toil” isn’t the word I’d use.  I’ve loved this writing experience, but there have been a lot of strange things that went down during the writing of this story.  Physical and emotional highs and lows, and this makes two stories in a row that, from that standpoint, have taken a lot out of me.

Who said writing was suppose to be this hard?

I knew this coming into the game.  Writing isn’t easy.  To use the words of a moron who was world stage for way too long, it’s hard.  It’s meant to suck you dry, to take what’s inside you and pull it out and show everyone what you have that’s going to interest and entertain them.  You throw it all out there for everyone to see, and it’s only a matter of time before someone comes along and says, “Wot’s this?  TL:DR, but I can tell it sux!  Lutz!” and you feel like you just spent five weeks running a cheese grater over your cheeks for hours at a time.

The thing I find strange–from my point of view–is how the story changed.  It started out very much erotica.  I still consider it erotica because the scenes in it do not pull punches.  At the same time, however, a slow fog of horror start to creep into view, though it’s never anything overt.  There is a bit of talk, a lot of history . . . and not a few matter that might turn people right the hell off.  Yeah, Chapter 7, I’m looking at you.  Why did you turn out that way?  I thought I raised you to be better than that?

For better and worse the story is finished.  Another 36,000 words down the memory hole and the hope that I can find a market for it, get it published, and see what others think.  See if people truly believe that it’s a winner, or if I maybe spent too much time huffing paint.

Tonight I leave The Undisclosed Location behind and return home.  I will probably start editing in a bit, because I really do want to step away from this story for a bit and let it grow on me.

This weekend, though . . . I’m going  to pull out the first novel and start giving it a good looking over.  It’s time to go back, and forward, in time.  It’s time to visit other worlds.  It’s time to get re-acquainted  with Albert and Audrey and Cytheria and Tommy and Lynette.

It’s time to go Transporting.

Stateless Grace

Twenty-four hours can do some funky numbers on your head.

I wouldn’t say the last day was “interesting”; more like demanding and inhospitable.  Demanding in that I had to force myself to get through it, and inhospitable because, at on point last night, I felt this incredible pressure come down upon me.  It was easy to know what it was, because I’ve felt it before . . .

I said in my previous ruminations that I wouldn’t be defined by my misery.  Apparently Loneliness and Despair didn’t get the damn memo, because they showed up and decided to do a little dance, all for moi.  Nice pair, those two.  They certainly know how to entertain a fella.

The upshot of all this was by 9 PM I was pretty much a mess.  I did the usual: pouted, got on my own case, and had a cry-out.  When that was all over and done with, the Muse showed up and said, “Okay, you’ve spent enough time feeling sorry for yourself, now how getting some words down on paper and make me feel good about you.”

Ah, she is a demanding taskmistress.  But she makes me write.  She makes me do all the things that, even when I feel like it’s all about to come to an end, are designed to pull me out of a tailspin and get me back on track.

So the last chapter of Couples Dance began.  It wasn’t much: 578 words, but that’s something.  As one person on Facebook opined, “It’s 578 more words than you had.”  She was right; it was.

See, the writing game is a bit of a zero-sum game.  It’s all about the end.  Sure, there are beginnings, but no one gives a real rat’s ass about those.  ”Oh, I started a story . . .”  ”Oh, I began the first chapter of my new novel . . .”  No problem, Poindexter.  There are a million started stories and novels and screenplays out there, but no one cares much about that which is begun but never completed.  As I recall one wag saying, “No one cares about the screaming, they just want to see the birth.”

The finish is the payoff.  If you never get to the end, then you failed–or, if nothing else, you were too ambitious and found yourself unable to live up to your own expectations.  That’s the way I was with my first unfinished novel.  I went for a big, brass ring way to soon, and it overwhelmed me.  And now it looks at me as if to say, “You want to give it another go, bucko?  Sure, I’m game.  Lets see if you got what it takes.”

So many things are different for me today.  I know so much more; I feel a lot more than I did even a year ago.  And from twenty years ago–get outta here.  Much different . . . though in many ways, still the same.

I woke up this morning thinking, “What am I going to do next?”  Really.  That’s the sign of a writer: always has the next project on their mind.  I know what it is.  I need to finish that damn first novel.  I’ve got a quarter of a million words there, laughing at me, just daring me to do something, and it’s about time I took it up on the challenge.

As soon as I finish my current work in progress, the dangling thread that’s been there since the late 1980′s is gonna get tied up.  It’s gonna involve a lot of emotion, because that’s all the last half of the novel is about: desire, love, and the ability to feel and express those emotions.

I hope the Muse is ready to stand by me–

I got a feeling it’s gonna get messy.

Say Yes!

It’s no secret I’ve been sick for the better part of a week, because, like everything else in my life, I’ve told you about it.  The weekend was horrible, and it prevented me from driving back to The Undisclosed Location because the last thing you want to do is get behind the wheel of your car and drive 150 miles when you eyes hurt.

So, finally, yesterday, I was able to muster up enough strength to drive for any distance.  I waited until about 4:30 or so to leave, but leave I did.

It was On The Road Again Time, and away I went.

Now, normally, I’ll think about stuff all the way down.  Sometimes I’ll think about stories, sometimes about games, sometimes about things that affect me personally.

Last night, I did none of those things.  I put on some music and just listened.  No getting into my thoughts or ideas, just listen.  And take in the darkness.

It’s no secret I’m bummed about my current lot in life.  I’m staying away from home, doing a job that, to me, is very transitory.  I’m looking for work closer to home as we speak.  But I’m also writing, working towards my dream of becoming a professional writer.  It’s a pain in the butt, and the last month has been a strain.  I think it’s affected the way I write–or at least it has until about a week ago.

The combination of being sick and doing something I don’t much care for twisted me pretty hard.  Throw in a few other things, and I was ripe for slipping away and falling into the abyss again.  But that hasn’t happened.  For some reason I’ve been clinging onto reality and hope, because the last thing I’ve wanted to do is crash and burn.

One of the things I’ve latched onto has been a song:  Telegraph Road, by Dire Straits.  It’s a composition that, in my opinion, makes it one of the greatest songs ever written.  If you’ve got fourteen minutes, click on the link and give it a listen.  It’s about a real place in American, the area along Telegraph Road in Michigan, and it’s a song of creation, hope, desolation, and despair.  Just the sort of thing writers love to dig into.

I’ve listened to this maybe three dozen times in the last four days, and I keep listening.  I don’t know why; maybe I’m just struck by the majesty of the song, maybe the act of creativity that came about to make this song leaves me in awe.  Whatever it is, I haven’t been able to get enough of the song.

But I didn’t have that last night.  I had something else.  I had the second song disk from Bubblegum Crises, and for the hell of it I threw it in.

Bubblegum Crises was an anime released in the late 1980′s and early 1990′s, and it what you would call seminal.  It was one of the first direct to video animes to have a huge aftermarket in terms of music, and thought most of their CDs are out of print these days, the music is still much sought after.  It’s a combination of hard-driving J-Pop and soft, melodic ballads.  It’s really good–you have to trust me on this.

I listened along until the track, Say, Yes! came on.  I love this song; really do.  Its starts off slow, and just keeps building.  When it reaches its crescendo, then it lets you down very easy on the way to fade out.  I listened, then when it was over, I listened again.  And then again.

Something clicked.  I put the song on repeat, keep the car going about 70, and tried a different route back to the shack.

Driving through the night, I just kept going, not feeling bad, but for the first time feeling very good and sure of myself.  I felt–dare I say it?–happy.  For the first time since making this move I didn’t feel like I wanted to find a steak knife and run it up and down my right arm until the pain went away.

I felt so good that as I passed the downtown of the city where I work, I flipped it off and laughed.  Screw you.  You ain’t getting me down.

Then I set up my computer and got to work writing.  800 or so words later, I finished Chapter 9 of Couples Dance.  Nothing fancy, just getting the words down and doing what I’m suppose to do–which is write.

Telegraph Road is also about the possibility of redemption, and you find it here, in this stanza:

 

Well just believe in me baby and I’ll take you away
From out of this darkness and into the day
From these rivers of headlights these rivers of rain
From the anger that lives on the streets with these names
‘cos I’ve run every red light on memory lane
I’ve seen desperation explode into flames
And I don’t want to see it again …

 

I have my dreams, I have my ideas, and I have the ability to do it all.  I just gotta do it.  And this damn job ain’t gonna make my life hell.

I am not defined by the misery around me.

Cause when you see the English translation of Say, Yes!, you know why it was speaking to me:

 

Say yes!
I just live more passionately than yesterday…
Say yes!
…because I’ve known a loneliness that can’t be healed.
Say yes!
If you can hear me,
answer me, saying:
I CAN BE
I CAN DO
I CAN SING
I CAN LIVE

 

Damn right, man.  It’s time to start singing.