The Frozen Ardour

After a week it feels good to sorta get back on my feet.  Though the issue of getting a new bed lay ahead, and that’s a bit of a bummer, but it’s not something that one can’t surmount.

Finally, though, I’m getting back into the swing.  I can’t say that coming down with a killer cold just as a story of mine was being released for publication was great timing–it wasn’t.  At least I wasn’t doing something like a book tour or even a public signing.  ”Hi, would you like me to sign your ebook?”  Right on.  Not to mention . . . I’ve been working on making my signature look like something less than a dying caterpillar and more like something a real person would make.  It’s slow going, but it’s almost, sorta, kinda coming alone.

I’m editing, and it’s coming along very well–again.  Now that I’ve been in “print” twice, I’m eager to get more.  I’m also eager to get something like, oh, cash coming into the coffers very soon.  It’s nice to see yourself on Amazon, but it’s nicer to see your ranking as something a little higher than #256,665 for the week.  It’ll happen; it just takes time.

Something struck me about the edit I was doing last night, however.  Jeannette, the main character of Demonic Majesty, is something of a geeky loner.  It’s said that while she has friends, there’s something she doesn’t have–love.  There’s really never been anyone in her life.

The same thing with a few of my other characters.  Albert and Cytheria, from Transporting and Echoes, had lives that were a bit devoid of affection and love–though, in Echoes, you discover that Albert’s situation might have been just a little different.  There were a lot of reasons for that, but still:  they both went for a very long time without anyone on their respective lives.

The older I get, the more “right” in the mind I become (and I don’t mean becoming “normal” normal, but more like getting better mental illness-wise), the more I crave a touch, a look . . . something to affirm to oneself that they are adored, that they are wanted, that they are desired.  At the end of Transporting, it looked as if Albert and Cytheria both found what they wanted–which was for them to hear, every day, that they are not just loved, but the love felt for them is beyond comprehension.

As someone once told me, “You deserve to have someone tell you, every day, that you are loved.”  And as I told that person, “You deserve the same.”

There are a lot of stories about being alone, a lot of songs about a singular lack of love in one’s life.  These days, I can’t see the point.  I can’t move in that direction, because it leaves one with nothing but emptiness.  Jeannette discovers something about herself in Demonic Majesty, though it doesn’t get examined that much in the novel.  I do hope to pull it out in later works–oh, yes.  I want later works.  Many later works.

Maybe that means it’s time to work on the story of a One True Pairing–

Because love should be written and enjoyed, not locked up and frozen.

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 . . .