Leaving the Make Believe Believable

I remember reading something a while back, something that had to do with arguing.  It is true that with some people, it doesn’t matter how well researched and put together your points are, because they will ignore your point of view and keep pushing their stuff at you over and over, whether it’s the topic at hand or not.  When reading about this, there was a quote offered that pretty much summed up the futility one might face trying to deal with someone who isn’t listening, but rather keeps on talking.  The quote was something like, “Don’t take my sudden silence as proof you’ve won.  It only means I can no longer take your bullshit.”

I ran into something similar to that yesterday, when a point I was trying to make was met by a lot of hoary old talking point that had little to do with what I was trying to say.  After the second time the same points came back at me I gave up the ghost on the argument–which didn’t address anything I was saying–because at some point you realize that no matter what you say, it’s gonna come back to rehearing something that could have been taken from a paragraph found in one of the fifty page admonishments of John Galt.

Strangely, I was thinking of this when I was working on Chapter Sixteen of Suggestive Amusements last night.  My characters were using talking point on each other as they walked through the Valley of Fire, but the discussion between them was as such:  Elektra, one of my female characters, was telling her erstwhile boyfriend, Keith, my main male characters, that his in-world logic was bullshit.

Early on in the story it’s established that Keith is a long-time resident of Las Vegas, while Elektra comes from “Scorpionville, New Mexico”, and she couldn’t wait to get out of there.  Keith has decided that he’ll leave Las Vegas one day, after he’s made it “big” as a writer.  Along comes Elektra, who has used a bit of her wanderlust to move west, young girl, and she tells Keith that his mindset is holding him back, that he’ll never be a “big time writer” because he’s stuck in Las Vegas, and maybe he needs to get the hell out of Lost Wages and gather a fresh perspective on life if he wants his stories to soar.

I know this feeling, because I’ve been there myself.  I’ve said a number of times in the last five years that I need to get out of my little corner of Indiana.  At one time I said I’d cut and run the moment I hit it big, but that was like twenty years ago, and I’m still here.  I still want to leave one day, but I wonder if it will really happen . . .

Because most of last year I was working in another city for the first time, and I didn’t handle it well.  There could have been a number of reasons for that, but had it not been for my writing, I might not have made it out . . . in one piece is the best way to describe the situation.

Was I writing about the plight of a fictional character?  Or was I putting too much of myself there?

If so the later, what should I do about it?

I do love the desert, after all.

Fantasy in the Eyes of the Past

Dreams these days are rather strange, and last night was no exception.  For some reason I dreamed I was at a party when Yoko Ono showed up and decided to flash everyone with her new breast implants, before showing everyone her newest masterpiece, statues of John and May Pang drowning in a five liter container of Yoko’s urine–which, if you know Yoko, playing with containers of urine is something she used to do all the time.  (One famous story has her giving a gallon container of her urine to a friend who was returning to Japan.  She said she wanted to give her friends back in her home country a present . . .)

There was some other things going on as well, but that’s what I remember the most, and not exactly the best thing in the work to wake up with stuck in your mind.

Part of this was probably due to a little bit of writing last night.  Thursdays are always a bit of a pain, because it’s the one night I watch any television–which I did–and by the time I was able to get to Suggestive Amusements, it was about nine-forty PM.  It didn’t allow for a lot of writing time, because I was heading off to bed about ten-fifteen, so I got into writing–

But I didn’t get into a groove.  It was a bit halting as I tried to find the perfect words to say what I wanted to say.  I think it’s more likely my brain is looking for the correct thing to say rather than being completely out to lunch, because I wasn’t falling asleep at the computer last night as I had been the night before.  At least not at the beginning, but after ten PM my head was going, “Fuzzy, fuzzy,” and I got the hint.  Normally I’m upset if I don’t get in my thousand words–or at least five hundred–but I did three hundred seventy-seven, and since Chuck sez you can do three fifty each day for a year and write a novel, I’m not going to get upset with myself.  I’ll take my almost four hundred and bank it, ’cause they were more words than I’d started with when I opened Scrivener.

But last night–ah, I got into the real kink, the start of the change for Elektra and Keith, and while it felt a little clumsy to write what I was writing, it also felt good.  It felt like I was revisiting something I’d left behind a long time back, and thought, “Yeah, this ain’t that bad.”  Any time you leap into the unusual you’re gonna get some strange feelings, but this whole story is a bit strange, so what’s a little transformative magic to liven things up, hum?  Press on, old but young penmonkey, and get those words out there for people to see.

Now that I have the entry into this kinky hell wide open, I’m expecting to throw on about ninety minutes of music tonight, and jumping right into the fun.  I’m of a mind that I might finish this chapter up with fifteen hundred more words, but that really depends on what I see happening.  I mean, I get my groove on, and that count might go another two thousand–

Maybe even more.

I have been known to do that.

Dreams of Fresh Hell

Today I come to you late, because my time has been someone else’s money, and my brain has been on hold.  It’s been teasing me ever since I got up this morning, whispering, “Oh, really?  You want to do something?  Lets see how you deal with this–” and they my head starts spinning and my body start acting like it belongs to a ninety year old person.

Clever what you’re doing there, brain.  Did I tell you I hate you sometimes?

Last night was like that.  I wanted to write.  I wanted to get a lot done.  But my brain said, “I’m not going to make it easy; you’re gonna have to work for these words,” and I felt like a beginner back in typing class.  Fingers didn’t want to move, and when they did, words like, “humreres” and “furmeqze” came out.  What was I trying to say?  Beats the hell out of me.

The best part of the whole ordeal is my writing, however.  After a night of screwing around doing other things–”other” being “not writing”–I needed to get back into the story.  So I did.  Once I woke up enough to process coherent thought, I began writing in my halting way–probably because my mind wasn’t working all that well, but my imagination was ready to roll.

Elektra and Keith are into something that I haven’t done for a while.  What I mean is, there is some strange, latex-encased, fantasy sexual stuff going on that I haven’t touched on since I wrote Couples Dance last year, and some of my old fetish stories going back about six or seven years now.  Though, with Suggestive Amusements, I’m sort of taking this a little further than I did with Couples–though I wonder by how much?

The last few days that I’ve spent writing this chapter brought back a lot of the same feelings I had while writing Couples Dance.  I wrote about this last February, when I expressed my fears about what I was writing in that story, but ended ended the post after showing a quote from Arthur Miller, who tells writers that no matter what, you should always feel as if you’re gonna end up in front of the class dressed only in your panties at any moment.

I started feeling that same fear again, because I’m getting into a few areas that are so far beyond vanilla the colors haven’t been invented.  (They probably have, but I got no idea what they are.)  It was stupid to start having the same feelings with this story, because I knew a while back I’d head into this territory, and if you’re gonna punk out every time you have your characters getting into something that’s well out into the strangeness, then stick to My Little Pony fanfiction–though come to think of it, there’s probably a bit of weird-ass slashfic between Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash if I started looking around . . .

That’s the point:  I shouldn’t get worried that someone’s going to read what I’m now doing and think, “What a psycho bitch,” and not go there.  Write, dammit, and worry about the cuttlefish later.

I am mistress of my own realm, after all, and I’ll brew this fresh hell to my liking.

 

The Sofa By the Hearth

With everything that’s happened this week, I can at least say that writing continues, and another chapter bit the dust last night.  After four hundred and twenty additional words, Chapter Thirteen of Suggestive Amusements came to an end, and was put to bed with a glass of warm milk and a biscuit to keep its tummy filled.  It was time to stop The Tale of Izzy and Elektra, and time to start on The Continuing Adventures of Keith and Elektra, and see if Keith is going to freak over what comes next.

What am I saying?  Sure, I know what he’ll do.  You just have to wait.

As I was heading off to bed last night, I looked outside to check the weather, because this week has seen the weather get very strange.  It’s been a little warm, then cold, then rainy, then snowy, then . . . well, the drive into Chicago was a bit like ice skating off and on this morning, so go figure.  But the weather made me think of times gone back, of stories from the past . . .

Of Annie and Kerry.

Yesterday I though of their story quite a bit for some reason.  Maybe it was the weather and the cold and snow I’ve seen the last week.  Maybe it’s the idea that they could end up in the same universe as Her Demonic Majesty, and with the rejection of that story, I thought of two of my favorite characters . . .

Maybe I just miss the hell out of them.

The thing with role playing character, rather than just write about them, is that you throw your emotions more fully into them that you might a literary character.  You create the mindset that you’re occupying the character, and that some of what is in you goes into them.  That happened with both Kerry and Annie; we fell into those characters to the extent that they became an extension of me and my role playing partner, and the more we played, the more we understood who are characters were, and what they wanted–besides each other, that is.

There was an interesting thought I’d had with them once.  At their school, Salem, they had something called “The Midnight Madness” every Friday and Saturday evenings.  It was a chance for the student to get in their pajamas, head over to the Great Hall at nine-thirty PM, and hang out and chat until midnight and a little beyond.  I saw it as something that an old institution would do to lighten up the rules and make the kids feel as if they are at home, when home may be a thousand or more miles away.

One of the things I imagined for Kerry and Annie is that, for some reason, the sofa they pick to camp out on during the first Midnight Madness sort of becomes “their” sofa.  It’s up towards the front of the hall, close to the majestic hearth, and no matter what time they showed, or how many people were in the hall, their sofa was always there, waiting for them to arrive.

Why did I do that?  I think I was trying to show a connection between them and the school, that their presence there was something important to . . . who knows?  The spirit that watched over the place is the best bet, but I’ll only know for sure if and when I ever write their story.  The idea that they will always have their little home away from home intrigues me, though, and also haunts me–

Oh, you don’t know what I mean?

Just ask Jeannette.  She knows.

Gearing Up For the Strange

I am not one of those people who believe thirteen is a evil, horror-ridden number that will bring nothing but misery and pain whenever it crosses our path.  Friday the Thirteenth does nothing for me, though I’ve had some interesting things happen on this day.  I’ve been on thirteenth floors in China and never had a problem, mostly because over there you’ll never find a fourth floor, and your biggest fear is worrying about a dragon looking over your shoulder.

This is why I’m starting the thirteenth chapter of my novel, and I give not a single shit that things will go wrong.  I don’t expect something bad to come above because I’m hanging with the One and Three.  No, this is going to be like every other Chapter Thirteen I’ve ever written–

Let me back that last line up:  this won’t be like every other Chapter Thirteen.  It’s going to be a little . . . different.

This is the part of the story where Elektra–the girlfriend, and she knows it–is wondering what Keith is going to do next.  She knows he’s writing, but she’s also wondering what he’s going to do as far as paying the bill are concerned.  When she starts going down this path–the Writer and Their Money Route–this is where she wonders just how much input she’s going to have–

Because if there’s one thing she doesn’t want to be, it’s the pain in the ass significant other who sits off to the side clicking their tongue in their mouth, saying, “It’s very nice, dear, but what are you doing to make money?”

I’ve said before, a lot of people who are creative are surrounded by people who aren’t, and those aren’ts can drive a person right up the wall if they’re not careful.  They don’t even have to be careful, because a lot of times the non-creatives are just saying things believing that if they go negative enough on you, you’ll give up those crazy dreams and be happy sweeping the floor of the Emerald Bar.

It’s only to help up, don’t you know?

I’ve hit on that at the start of the chapter, but what will I get into next?  Fantasies.

Yeah, Elektra’s got them; some are even pretty crazy. (Well, maybe for you, ’cause what you call “crazy”, I call “Saturday Night”, but that’s beside the point . . . She gonna start thinking about what Keith is writing, and that’s going to trigger some things in her mind, and before you know it–

Naw, I’m not telling.  I’m funny that way.  I’ve probably said more about this story than I have about any other story, and yet, most of what I’ve mentioned has been in the form of very broad outlines.  The same with this part:  you’re getting a peek at the curtain, and you might think you’re seeing things on the other side, but it’s really all Wizard of Oz stuff:  you gotta pull that curtain back if you wanna know who’s on the other side.

It’s time to Bring the Strange.

And if anyone can do that, it’s me.

 

The Starving Soul

The cold is trying to come back; I can feel it.  I actually felt it last night, sneaking about in the darkness of the bedroom right before I headed off to sleepy-time.  Pain in the ass, it is, but I’m not going to let it get me down . . . even though it’s doing its best to do just that.

But to hell with the cold.  I’ll beat it one way or the other, and tomorrow the Chicago area will find itself somewhere warm, with the temps getting up close to seventy.  Changing climate?  Shirley you jest!  (I know you saw what I did there . . .)

Chapter Seven was begun last night, and I was on a good run last night.  Had Yessongs playing on the computer, and I must have been in a great mood, because I was typing away with few distractions.  I’m at the point in the story where my character Keith finds he’s come home after an evening of sybaritic pleasure with the lovely Elektra, and discovers he’s written something—a lot of something.  Then Erin appears, they have a little back and forth about where she was sleeping, and then . . .

This is where I left off the chapter, almost thirteen hundred words from the beginning.  It was a fast thirteen hundred, too:  I did it in about fifty-five minutes, making this the quickest writing I’ve done in a long time.

The whole gist of the chapter involves what we do for work.  A couple of times Erin, the muse, tells Keith he has two jobs:  one that pays the bills, but doesn’t “feed his soul”, and another that allows him to engage in all the things he wants and loves.  This is nothing new for anyone who isn’t a professional writer; if you’re like me, and you write, you do so with the hope that one day this is all you’ll ever do, and you aren’t thinking about being crazy-ass Twilight rich, you’d be happy if you could knock down high five figures every year . . . though I will take the crazy-ass Twilight rich, because who doesn’t want to laugh at haters who come online just to tell you that the first five minutes of Up tells a better love story than your crap, because after your laugh you’re going to dive into a room full of money, Scrooge McDuck-style.  Haters gonna hate, right?

We all wait for that message that says someone has read your manuscript, and they found it worthy of publication.  It’s after this that you work your butt off to produce another work that will be published, and if and when that’s bought, then you write another, and so forth, and so on . . . and before you know it, people are on Facebook posting, “You’re book suzks!  You should stop righting, because your story is told better by The Host!”  At which point you either flip the computer off (not turn it off, but flip it off, if you know what I mean) and get back to your current work in progress, or you laugh and look for your bathing suit.

At some point you have to ask yourself:  would I miss a day of “work” to work on my story?  I have asked myself that question—

I know the answer.

Of Late I Dream of White Sands

After a night of inactivity, I was back in the writing groove.  There were six hundred or so words written the night before, but I wasn’t feeling it–well, I should say, I wasn’t feeling it enough to be able to do the sex scenes I wanted to do.  I found myself part way into the hot and heavy, and then . . . Ugh.  It was time to rest my head.

Last night was a bit different.  I needed a few to get into the swing, with a few distractions along the way to make it even more exciting.  Sort of like, there’s sex–oh, look!  More sex–oh, look here!  Finishing up the sex . . . yeah, time to put on different music.

But what happened next?  Well, the blurb on my chapter card says, “Keith and Elektra Get to Know Each Other.”  Since I started out with sex, this means they get to know each other after the do the deed, and that means talking so someone doesn’t fall off to sleep.  So they started talking, and the question came up about Keith’s writing.  Elektra makes a comment, and Keith makes one, a little back and forth, and then comes up the question of why Elektra was at the same company, and how she arrived in Las Vegas because it wasn’t Las Cruces–

This is where it gets strange.

I didn’t give my thought to where Elektra was from.  I knew she wasn’t native to Lost Wages, but I didn’t know where she was from.  So, when I got to the point of her saying, “Because this isn’t . . .”, I knew I needed a place.  So I opened Google Maps and began to zoom out.  Where is she from?  What did she do?  What does she want?  Well, that last I have some idea about, but the other two–nada.

Then it hit me:  she’s from the desert.  From an environment like Las Vegas, but not.  Something hot and dry and . . . in the middle of nowhere.

New Mexico.  Hey, it was good enough for atom bombs and gigantic ants, so it’s good enough for my character.  I even had her starting in Alamogordo, because–giant ants.  From there she went to college at UNW in Albuquerque, then went to work in Las Cruces and, for a short time, Socorro.  After that it was time to move to the bright lights and big city, and she packed up her stuff and lit out for Vegas.

Which brings her to where she is in my story.My

This is how my mind works:  things just come to me.  The character didn’t speak to me; I wasn’t getting hints from Elektra directing me to have her start out in California, or Arizona.  No, that only happens to a few crazy people I’ve met on Facebook, who seem to think that their character control the story, not them–which is probably why these people are not always good about their writing.  I mean, if some part of your mind is actually controlling your story, where’s your incentive to be creative?

Tonight I get into the ideas in the dark.  Going to be interesting to see where that goes–

Not that I don’t already know.