I’ve been there more than a few times: you come home from a not-so-good day, and you sit and you wonder what you’re going to do. You stare at the computer and realize there’s nothing that’s worth a damn, that you’d just like to go veg out somewhere.
The last thing you want to do is anything remotely approaching work.
I’d come back from dinner and I was like that. The reason I’d been out to dinner is because I couldn’t stand the idea of actually trying to cook something. The Job Dementors had been at me, and it was all I could do to keep my head in the game.
But even after returning, I looked at my novel . . . and the last thing I wanted to do was write.
I’ve been in those moods before–just about anyone who writes has. You have this ennui come over you, and damned if you just want to crawl off somewhere and go to sleep for a week. I would have loved to do that, but I don’t have a place where I can crawl off and relax; The Undisclosed Location is pretty bereft of creature comforts.
Eventually, however, I did more than look at Transporting. I started writing. I started getting a few words down upon what passes for paper. I began stringing sentences together.
Suddenly, there was a paragraph . . . and, for a brief moment, I saw my Muse.
And she was smiling.
I don’t often have a situation where my moods change like they did last night. Though it wasn’t so much a change as it was the, “Oh, hell, do I have to write again?” feeling simply evaporated and left me with an urge to get the story down.
Sure, there were a couple of distractions; there always are. But I keep to what I usually do, which is get in at least a thousand words a night on the novel. But in the end I had the start of a scene, and it was another of those scenes I’ve seen for 25 years, and there is was, starting to look the way I’ve wanted it to look.
So here you are, an excerpt from Transporting, Chapter 44, Copyright 2012, by Raymond Frazee. Rock on, people:
Sitting up, Audrey took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I can be a real pain in the ass, can’t I?’
“It’s not as if you asked for everything that’s happened to you.” Cytheria shifted slowly so her body was turned towards Audrey. “You didn’t ask for this condition you had, being connected through a quantum string to another person; you didn’t ask to be bi-polar.” She grunted harshly. “I certainly didn’t give you much of a choice to come to the future. And you didn’t as to be transposed between genders.” She reached over and touched Audrey’s chin, slowly turning her face towards hers. “So, yes: you can be a pain in the ass—but despite everything that’s happened in the last year, you’ve shown you are a remarkable person.
“Look at what you’re doing for these people; look at what you’ve done for me. Hell, love, I could have killed you—and you knew that. And you still took the chance to help me.”
“It was somethin’ I had to do,” she said.
“And I am happy.” She took Audrey’s left hand and held it between hers. “You’ve proven, to me, to everyone, that you’re a strong person. Yes, you have your moments of doubt . . .” Cytheria’s upper hand caressed Audrey’s. “Yes, you’re almost let it devour you. It didn’t, though; tonight showed you can put it aside.”
Audrey knew better, though. “It doesn’t mean I’m not worry, though.”
“No, of course not.”
“I doesn’t mean I’m not one hundred percent sure about what we gotta do here.” She looked around, indicating the world around them. “It doesn’t mean I’m not worried we’re gonna have problems in time—”
“I understand. And I would be lying if I said I was one hundred percent certain both those things you mentioned will be without issues.” Cytheria slid over to Audrey and, like she did on the trip back to Kreson, cuddled her. “You’re starting to control your fear; you’re learning to push it back.”
“I’m doing what I can,” Audrey said, shrugging. “It’s just so . . . damn hard thing to do.”
“I think you’re doing very well. And I’m going to show you I’m right.” Cytheria stood and brushed herself off. She looked down at Audrey, then walked to the brick railing—and floated over it as she’d done two months before.
As Audrey got to her feet, Cytheria floated about 4 meters from the tower, then turned around. She held out her arms in a gesture of openness, inviting her Twin. “Do you trust me?”
Audrey didn’t take her eyes off Cytheria, but she hesitated answering. She knew what lay beyond and below: she didn’t need to recheck. She swallowed once, hard. “Yes,” she said, her voice tight with emotion.
Cytheria moved away a meter, the heme of her dress flapping in the updraft. “Do you trust me?”
This time there was no hesitation, no fear. “Yes.”
“Then come; join me.”
Tonight I’ll end that. Tonight I’ll put Chapter 44 behind me and move onto the penultimate chapter, get the main objective out of the way, and tie up the story. Two more chapters; seven more scenes.
That’s all she writes.
I did some numbers, and since 21 February–when I began finishing this novel–I’ve added 24,000 words. I might just add another three or four thousand before it’s all over.
But it’s very close to being all over. And that’s a good feeling.
Maybe, by this time next week, I’ll finally be able to sit down with my characters and have a glass of wine and reminisce . . .
For the except, The Gender Genie says it was written by a woman, and I Write Like says she writes like J. D. Salinger. But of course!
