Dipping Away From the Well

Well, then; that was a problem, wasn’t it?

Last night was a moment of dead reckoning that I couldn’t blow away.  When I mean dead, I don’t mean that I was literally pushing up daises, but rather I had nothing.  When I came to the computer, I couldn’t work up enough enthusiasm to do anything.  The ennui I’ve mentioned the main character in my current WiP is suffering from must have jumped out of the computer and grabbed me, because that’s what I had in large numbers.

Or it could have been something else, something that hasn’t actually bothered me for a few months–that something being depression.  I do think I have a touch of that, because I am not taking care of myself, and that’s always a sign that you’re care and concern are at an all time low.

The thing that helped out, however, was that I had the chance to chat with a couple of people last night.  Online, of course, because this is were most of my life exists there days.  My friend Kim reminded me that I’ve been working quite a lot the last few weeks:  I’ve been getting up at five-thirty every morning, coming home at five PM every night, and then finding an hour or two to crank out a thousand words–usually finishing up that last right before I head off to bed.  She told me I needed to find the time to relax, to take care of myself.

Then there was my friend Ruena, who started chatting, and ended up talking girl things for about an hour.  Though I wasn’t able to get into my story, her words did lift me up considerably, and by the time we were through I was in a much better mood–though by that time I was also falling asleep at the keyboard, testament to what Kim said about me likely being exhausted.

Despite all the things I thought out there about getting to it and writing, there are times when the well is completely empty.  You can go to it as much as you like, but eventually that damn thing is going to be completely drained, and you’ll have to wait a spell before water begins trickling in again.  Maybe it’ll take a couple of hours, or maybe a day, but most of the time it’s going to take a good night’s sleep, and some time away from the inanity that is social networking, to get things back on a even keel.

A change in the routine helps as well.  As I write this, I’m sitting somewhere with a coffee by my side, sitting in a chair, instead of camping out on a floor waiting for my daughter’s morning martial arts class to finish.  I’m considering getting out tonight, just for the hell of it, because It would be nice to leave the house behind and venture out into the wilds of the fair community–which is neither wild or all that fair.

It’s not the environment, however:  it’s the doing.  It’s cracking the code that is your life and turning around so that it works for you.

As for my story?  It’s the weekend–

Word counts are made to be adjusted.

Roller Coaster Meditations

The 6th of November will be remembered, not with bonfires and a terrorist’s face becoming a well-known symbol for hackers, but with an enormous wave of people on Facebook declaring the world has gone to hell, the Apocalypse is upon us, and that they are moving to other countries as soon as they find one that doesn’t have any socialist tendencies.

As for me, while I’ll have something to say about last night’s election, I won’t say it today.  I need time for the brain to calm down, and for the head to stop hurting.

Oh, and there’s other writing I need to do as well.

The last couple of days have been difficult.  Stress, stress, stress, and I’ll admit there was a fair share of it coming from the lead up to the election.  It was giving me headaches, sometimes to the point where I found it difficult to think.

But today . . . I think the roller coaster is through with all the twisting and turning.  I think it’s coming into the station, and I can relax.  Oh, sure:  there are still things in my life that are pretty crap right now, but those will diminish in time.  And then I can do what I like.  What I want.

I did write last night, but the distractions–oh, my.  I got the chapters in; on finished, another started.  I got over twenty thousand words last night, but it was a squeaker.  Today, there needs to be more attention paid to the words on the page, and I have to get ready for a big chapter in my NaNo Novel.  Not big in that one will see a gazillion words written, but big in the sense that I have to lay bare a character’s life, and that is going to be painful.  My poor, maimed, little Indri:  you’ll be better for this when it’s over.  Trust me.

I’m checking the word counts on my chapters, and I’m on my track of about sixty thousand words for the story.  A check last night said I was going to end around fifty-three thousand words, but I have a couple of big chapters coming, and that’s going to tip the scales in the end.  There’s even the possibility that–gasp!–I could go more than sixty thousand.

As I always say, the story ends when it ends.  I’m still writing, so when I get closer to the end, I’ll know.

There is something else that I feel, and it’s that I might not end this story before 30 November rolls into town.  Getting my fifty thousand?  Sure.  Getting to the end of the story?  Maybe, maybe not.  We’ll see.  After all, just because the calendar flips and becomes 1 December doesn’t mean you go, “Oh, shit, NaNoWriMo is over!  What time does My Little Pony come on?”  It doesn’t work that way.

You have to keep writing.

I will.  I have this idea that I’m a writer.  I’ve had other people tell me the same.  And, hey, this is crazy, but I keep writing, and someone will buy me maybe.

2012 is all about change.  It’s here; we saw it last night.  Go with it, or get run over at your own peril.

I know what I’m doing . . .

The Witching Month

I love October.  I love the fall.  September never truly feels like fall to me, but once we get into October, then everything starts changing.  The weather changes, the trees change . . .

People change.

Things are in the pipeline.  I need to edit four more chapters for Her Demonic Majesty, and that’s it, she’s ready for the submission to Harper Voyager.  I think there’s about twelve thousand words remaining, and without pushing it, I’ll finish the polish by Thursday.  Then I have Friday and Saturday to get my submission package together, and send it off, I believe, on Saturday.

Then starts the waiting game.

I need to contact the publisher who have Couples Dance.  It’s been more than ninety days since they received the full manuscript, and I believe I’m in the position to submit an inquiry as to their intentions.  Not that I’m worried, but I would like to know what’s happening there.  That’s another of my babies, and I like to keep my babies close to me.

Also, my new Halloween story has started.  The first chapters will post in about fifteen minutes (it’s 7:45 AM as I write), and it will get pimped out all over the place–which means maybe a dozen people will see it.  Until I post a link here, and maybe it’ll get a little more coverage.

Boo!

While driving to The Undisclosed Location, I imagined the aftermath of one of my characters death.  It wasn’t a happy moment, but given the context of the scene in which it happened, it was required.  I will admit:  I have problems killing off some characters.  Some I can’t see letting them die.  Or, if they do die, they go out like heroes.

But death is needed.  Maybe I’m not going to all George R. R. Martin and create a series called, “Yeah, That One Dies As Well,” there is always the possibility that things aren’t always gonna be nice and neat.  Struggle is good, and death could always be lurking around the corner.

Let me get some stories sold, first, before I start whacking out characters in a orgy of snuff writing.  I mean, why do I want to kill people off right away, when they haven’t even stepped onto the stage.  Or I could pull a James Elroy, introduce a character as a main character in one novel, and then kill him in the first five pages of the next novel.  Kinda sets the mood for the current novel, know what I mean?

So, witching time is here . . . change is in the air.  It’s a good time to change up routines and set new goals for ourselves.  For come the end of the month, and the celebration of Samhain, we need to be ready.  The time to dance between the two bonfires will be upon us, and we could all use a little purification, so we can prepare our spirits for the coming year.

Time to come out of the dark and into the light.  Time to make things different.

Fall is in the air.

And so are so many changes.

Saturday’s All Right For Writing

Here it is, the weekend.  Ohhhhhhh, yeah, as they used to say on certain Chicago radio stations back in the last 1970′s.  It’s a time to sit down and relax, and collect your thoughts–

Oh, but that only works if you’re not writing.

It was a crazy drive home yesterday, for I made it in one piece–though I took a slight detour close to home after two people almost jacked themselves into accident because of a little rain.  It seems like Fridays are a good time for every idiot to get out on the highways, then drive like they’ve never been in traffic before that very moment.

At least I don’t need to return to The Undisclosed Location until Monday evening.  Doctor’s appointment Monday, so I’ll be working from The Real Home.  Gives me another night to catch up on my sleep, and maybe the late Monday run down the interstate will be with less traffic.

In the mean time:  writing.

Diners at the Memory’s End is almost over.  The end is really here.  I tried writing last night, but I was completely brain dead.  I managed a couple of paragraphs, and nothing was making sense.  When that happens, do as William Gibson says:  step away and find something else to do.  My something else was to go to bed, because I was very tired.  So, today, back into Part Seventeen, likely finish it up, then either tonight, or early tomorrow, start on Part Eighteen.  The last chapter of the story.  The fin.  The End.

I think I’ve developed a love/hate relationship with this story.  It’s one I’ve wanted to retell, and one that holds a lot of memories for me.  At the same time, the rewrite came at a time when I’ve been thrown into a lot of personal upheaval, and that’s going to be a new set of memories whenever I go back and look at this story.  Is it a much better story now?  Yes.  Do I feel like I’ve torn out chunks of my soul during the rewrite, and thrown them into the tale?  More than likely.

Needless to say, this is a tale I’m going to remember for a very long time.  Not only the tale, but the telling of the tale, which to us writing types is just as important as the story we’re creating.  I can say with a great deal of certainty, the development of this story has been a long, strange trip, and I am relieved it’s coming to an end.

So, blogging, getting a guest post out, getting a guest post up, and working on my other story . . . oh, yeah.  I’ve got another story I’m writing for another blog, something of an experiment when I only write a chapter when it’s time to post, so Sunday afternoon I log onto that blog, do my current chapter, and post it Monday morning.  I’m telling a tale in eight parts, over eight weeks, and I’ll see if I can really write something that can be considered a short story.  Or, at best, something shorter than I’m usually writing.

You know, I should post the links for this story–

After all, people may actually want to read it.

Where Has the Fun Gone?

It would seem the last couple of weeks have been among the most trying I’ve had in a very long time.  Let me explain:

The whole month of June–and the last week of May, I’ll admit–have been hard for me.  I’ve found a lot of repetition coming into play–get up, blog, go to work, be bored, come home, eat, chat, write, sleep–and very little else going on, save a movie or two when I’m back at The Real Home.  I did get my ears pierced–yes, I did!  And the last week I’ve been fighting an infection in the left one, which is really starting to drive me crazy, because I want it to stop!

I’ve still got his crazy thing in my chest as well.  I got sick at the start of May, and something has been lingering in my upper respiratory system since the middle of May, making it almost impossible to speak from time to time, and generally being a real pain in my ass, because I never know when I’m going to start coughing so hard that I’m going to feel like I’m blacking out.

Last night was the trifecta of screwed up.  I was stressed out from work, I was dealing with my draining ear, and my eyes were watering so badly there were times I couldn’t see the screen.  Even wiping them off seemed to do no good; they’ll just film right back up.

I should get into a doctor for all these things, but I’m working 150 miles from my doctors, and trying to find someone here . . . it’s making me a little batty, if you know what I mean.

There’s also this stress in my life.  Job is starting to get to me, ’cause I’m spending a lot of time trying to make a program work, and while I know how to do it, there’s just a lot of doubts about whether it will.  Don’t need that.  the personal life is nuts at the moment; there’s never anything going on here at The Undisclosed Location, and back at The Real Home, there doesn’t seem to be much beyond the routine I had before I started working.

Something else I realized, however, is starting to wear at me as well.  It’s The Waiting Game.

The Waiting Game is where you send out a manuscript to be picked over by a publishing house, all in the hope they will like it and decide to publish it in exchange for giving you cash–think of it as being like Aflac, only without a duck.  I’m playing The Waiting Game; I’m playing a double header, in fact, because I have two novels out.  One went out on the 25^th of May, the other on the 10^th of June.

Like it or not, the wait is stressing me out.

The one that went out a couple of weeks ago–sure, there’s at least a 90 day waiting period before they maybe even get around to look at your novel.  But the one that flew out the door in May, that one is starting to wear on my nerves.  I set it out, they wanted to see the whole manuscript, I sent it out a week later, and . . . nothing.  Yes, it’s only been 30 days since they got the whole shebang in their hands, but still–I’m waiting.

These writing classes I see advertised all the time, they talk about how to format your documents, and how to determine voice and tense, and all that stuff.  What they don’t tell you is how to deal with the feeling that your baby it out there on the streets, late at night, waiting for someone to pick it up, and you’re at home wondering when they hell you’re going to hear something.  And how to keep it from affecting everything you’re trying to do in the meantime.  Like write another story.

How do you keep it from driving you crazy?

I need some fun in my life, and in a big way.  Right now my characters are enjoying themselves more than me, and I’m going to make them miserable.

Who wants to have fun?

Disappearing Realm of Real

This is a brutal morning.  I’ve been up and down all night, and right now my head feels like its filled with bees.  Nic Cage bees.  The kind that are asking you if you’ve seen their lucky crack pipe.

I’m expected to get things done in this state, and thinking is very much restricted.  Oi.  I deserve better than this, because when I get home I’m going to feel like falling asleep in a heap, and I can’t, because I have work to do.

This is a George Jetson treadmill if there ever was one.

I know what The Muse would say:  write.  Don’t spend your time chatting and wasting time with games and the such.  Write.  Write more after that.

At home that’s been easy–the Real Home, that is.  It’s been easy to fall back into the old habits when I’m there.  The moment I’m back at The Undisclosed Location, it feels like a struggle.  It feels like I’m cut off from everything.  It feels like things here aren’t real, that I’m trudging along in some approximation of what should be life, but isn’t.

I can’t complain, though:  I’ve had an amazing output here.  I’ve accomplished so much, finished things that needed finishing, started things that I know are going to be great, and the end result of those labors are out there, sitting in someone’s computer, waiting for a decision, a thumbs-up or down, and I’m sitting on pins and needles over the decision.

That’s part of what’s happening.  The waiting is hard.  Yeah, I know:  it’s only been one week in the case of my second submission, and I need to let that go.  With writers, the editors and the publishers want stuff now, but they make you wait to see if your tomes are good enough to see the light of day.  It’s part of the game, you know, and we play it willingly.  If we didn’t, then we’d just vanity publish all our stuff, then walk around with a bag full of books going, “Oh, look:  I iz uh writer!” as we handed out shit to passerbys.

Part of the stress I’m feeling is due to work; part of it is due to the writing; part of it is due to other factors that are just starting to make themselves known, and start beginning to grow large.  What does that last mean?  Change, baby.  It’s everywhere.  I got a little bit of change yesterday, and you’d have to see it to know it.

It’s a strange dance I’m doing right now.  Sure, “Stay Calm and Write Freakin’ Stories.”  That’s easy to say, not so easy to do.  I’m tasting the “What Can Be” right now, and I want more.  I’m working hard to get that, and I want it now. I want to put everything old behind me, and move on to what is possible.

I want the now real behind me; open up that chrysalis, baby, I’m heading into the new real.

Really.  Let it come.  I’ve been ready my whole life . . .

Twisting Perceptions

The last couple of days seem to have hit me in a particularly strange way.  Actually, this whole week has.  It has become one long, drawn out, seeming like a never ending ride on the Wonka Boat, with that maniac bastard spouting spoken word rhyme the entire way.

If you can’t tell, I want this week over in a very bad way.  Like . . . yesterday.

Part of it is this story.  Diners is hitting me a lot like Echoes did; it is resisting me in a lot of ways.  I don’t want to say, “Oh, I’ve got writer’s block!”, but it’s starting to feel like something along those lines–

Which isn’t actually true.  I’m rolling though this post pretty well, though it seems like, these days, I’m not able to go more than one or two words before I misspell something, and I have to stop, return, and fix it.  That is getting to be one annoying son of a bitch, and it’s one of the reasons I was never able to write until word processors came out.  Word processors with auto-correct that doesn’t replace “pattern” with “penis”.

All the nice things in life.

But for all the excitement I had for restarting Diners at the Memory’s End, it’s as if the moment I’m in it–bam!  It wants me to be somewhere else.  Now, Echoes I got:  there was a lot of emotion behind what I was writing, and it was tearing me up.  This?

Well, I think I know.

As I once said on the pages of the blog, most of my stories are about relationships.  Even the science fictiony ones are like that.  There’s a guy, there’s a girl–or there are two girls, or even three girls.  But anyway you look at it, there’s some kind of relationship there.

Diners is a bit about taking one of those relationships, and twisting it apart.  Just a little, but it’s there.  And it’s going to hurt one of the people in the story, and hurt them in a very bad way.

One of the curses of being a writer is that you have to show this to your readers.  So you have to think about it, and you have to figure out the words that are needed to convey those feelings into images.  In order to do that, I’ve got to spend a lot of time inside the heads of my characters, and after a while, even though they are pretty nice people, you get into some mind spaces you’d rather not go–

Like your own.

I think that’s why I’m finding myself distracted a lot these days.  My own head is a mass of spider webs any more, and while I’m driving my characters crazy with personal stuff, I’m doing the same thing to myself.  Not that I’m fooling around, or anything, but damn–there is a ton of shit that appears to be ready to reshape my life these days, and a couple of days ago I had a bit of a mini-meltdown because I was starting to feel “overwhelmed” by everything.  Maybe it’s time to go The Elvis Route, and fly out to Vegas to pick up a few thousand Quaaludes because I need to decompress, or perhaps some recreational Dilaudid is in order; just a quick skin pop and kick back with a few hours of Farscape to occupy the time.

Only a few days ago I said change was coming, and you can’t believe just how true that statement has become.  It only takes time to get there.

I wish the hell it would get here and stop driving me nuts.

The Coming Change

Doing some serious digging here . . . hold on . . .  Yeah, it’s what I thought.  Just did a check on the word count for Diners at the Memory’s End, and it’s just a couple of hundred words shy of ten thousand.

So lets do some math.  I’m on Part Five.  There are sixteen total.  Say I add another fifteen hundred word to this part–which isn’t all that crazy–that would take this part to about 11,300 words.  That would put me at 2,260 words per part on average.  So, multiply that by sixteen, and . . . about thirty six thousand and change for the total word count.

I’ve almost got another short novel on my hands.

And the thing is, I know there are a couple of chapters that are probably going to run longer than twenty-two hundred words.  I know Part Eight will likely run a little long.  I know Part Twelve is going to run long, because there’ll be a long stretch there explaining Meredith’s motivations.  Fourteen will also run a little long, me thinks, because it’s a long, detailed section which tells Meredith just what it is that Albert does.  And the last part, Sixteen, will be a good wrap up.

So with that . . . I might have a short novel on my hands, maybe around fifty thousand words.

Not another one of those!

Despite that fact that I’ve written shorter stories–if by “short”, you mean, “Stories the length of which most writers tend to do in two or three, or four, stories”–I believe I’ve always known I’m a novelist.  I know some people will say it’s because I can’t get to the point, but most of the time I feel like “telling the story”, and when I do that, I get–as my ex-wife used to say–wordy.  I don’t consider that to be a bad thing, as I used to tell her all the time.  Some people–like her–think this is a bad thing, but I could think of worse things to happen to a writer–

Like not get read.

Diners got off to a bit of a slow start, but I’ve had a ton of other things going on while I’ve begun writing it in earnest.  The thing is, right now, with two novels out on the Submission Trail–where I hope they don’t die of dysentery, as they would if this was the game Oregon Trail–I need to keep the pipeline going.  I gotta produce zee tomes if I want to get zee readers, and zee readers, they make the penmonkey dance, no?

As I told someone last night, I want to finish Diners at the Memory’s End, then I want to do a little hop back into erotica with one of two stories, one of which I might be able to turn into a series.  Then, after that, I need to do a massive edit on Book One of Transporting, and see if I can not only find a buyer for that sucker, but see if they’re interested in the other two books in that series.

Getting Transporting sold is important, because that’s a lead-in to both Echoes and Diners.  Sell the first, and the rest will follow.

I said almost six months back that 2012 was going to be a year of change for me, that a huge number of things were going to happen to me.

Trust me–

It’s coming so fast, I don’t know if I can keep myself in check.