Straight On Into the Magic

In a world where people like me are slaves to their imagination, I had some good moments yesterday.  Yes, the day wasn’t the best, and it was cold enough that I came very close to catching a cold, but when the time came to deal with Fantasies, I was back into my normal writing form.

While there have been plenty of distractions for me this week, once I’m writing, I’m back to writing.  I’ve been averaging around eight hundred a night–not a lot, not for me–but it’s been a fast eight hundred.  But last night, I started writing in the early evening, and I found myself knocking off eight hundred and fifty words to end the scene I was in.

Was I finished for the evening?  Well . . .

I said yesterday I was in a bit of a strange mind set, and part of that has been brought on by the contents of the story.  There’s normalcy at the start, then a set up, then comes the magic, then will come the sex–oh, didn’t I mention that before? Yeah, sex.  Lots of sex.  Remember, this whole idea came about as something to take its place next to the unicorn porn that gets self published now and then–though I’m not disappointed to find there is Minotaur breeding now.

I’ve run into this feeling before, where you start to feel as if maybe you’re working on something that’s just a wee bit too silly, and you should be working on something a bit more–serious.  Yeah, if you’re writing, you know this feeling.  It’s different from that other feeling you have, the one that says, “You suck, don’t you know?” but you try not to listen to that one.  This other one–you hear it, because it’s mocking you even more than the other feeling.

I see where the story is going, however, and I’m not concerned.  I like the feel so far, and the fact that there’s going to be some strange things going on is beside the point.  I want to get into the magic now, I want to show what’s going to happen when you get some strange fantasies going, and the become even more real than when we put them on the page for others to see.

Something else pushed me today:  a meme I saw on Facebook.  It’s very simple in what it says–

 

Peter Dinklage:  Gives speech about masturbating.  Wins Emmy!

 

Damn right he did.  Why?  Well, he’s a hell of an actor, for one.  And two:  he had great words written for him.  Someone–more than likely George R. R. Martin–had the character Tyrion go on about the art of self pleasuring, and those word eventually made their way to HBO, along with lots of breasts and deaths.

Why feel silly about what you write when it’s what you want to write?  Yes, I’m probably not going to write about mastu–oops, too late.  Did it in one story already, and I’m probably going to do it again at some point soon.  I’ve passed that point, so why not keep on going?

Bring the magic, girly.  Stop thinking the world is going to chop to you pieces for writing good erotica.

Extended Tea Time

I am suffering from a rather dramatic drug hangover today.  I took some sleep aids to knock me out and give me a good night’s rest, and what time do I wake up?  The normal time, what else?  I swear, I’d give just about anything to sleep to about eight AM, and not crawl out of bed before six.

So the drugs are lingering with me, and it’s not a good feeling.  I sort of feel dizzy all the time, and if you’ve ever had vertigo, it’s not a pleasant feeling.  The mind feels like it should shut down and rest a while, but the body is like, “No, dude; we got things to do.”

And I’m stuck in the middle with these clowns.  This is where I wish I could download my mind into another body and just get on with the day.  Screw flying cars:  give me the Black Widow clone body, stat!

I only managed to get in seven hundred words on Fantasies in Harmonie last night, due in part to discussing matters of an article with someone last night.  By the time they vacated the Internet it was past nine my time, and I was starting to have a sleepy.  Still seven hundred words was pretty good, especially when I spent about fifteen minutes considering how I was going to get my lady writers together for a week in the woods.

The thing that’s coming out from this is that I’m getting wordy again.  I’m already twenty-two hundred words into the first part, and I’ve not even gotten to the magic.  Most of the stories like this have people stripping to their knickers at this point, and I’m rambling on about month-long writing camps and word counts.  This is why I’m not as good at erotica as, say, someone doing werewolf porn:  I gotta do the set up and make my characters look like read people in unreal situations.  The people writing the werewolf porn have psudo-wolves banging away by the fifteen hundredth word.

This is how I want to do it, though–it’s how I have to do it.  I try to do more than write characters who vanish when they turn sideways.  I’m sure I could write porn and, as one of my friends says, have them “bang at a thousand (words),” but if I did that, then one would never feel a connection to the girl who feels herself changing all over . . .

Naw, not gonna tell you.  You just have to wait for the story to show up on Amazon.

This made me think about the dream I wrote about yesterday.  After one friend read the post they said, “Sounds like a story there.”  Oh, does it now?  Actually, I’d sort of thought of the same thing, that maybe there’s a story in them there REM waves.  A sexy story?  Sure.  A kinky story?  You betcha.

The question becomes, do I write it?  And what is it about besides latex clad women with multiple limbs getting their freak on?

Wait–do I really need more than that?

Camping on the Story

I hit my goals yesterday; yes, I did.  I blogged, I wrote an article that took up much of my afternoon, and then, after Doctor Who was over and done, I got down to working on my story, because these stories just sort of languish and do nothing on their own.  It’s like you have to write all the words for them.

The first part is sort of strange, because I was free forming as I went along.  I have a feeling that when I go back over this story, I’m going to end up rewriting a lot of this part.  But it’s a good set up; it gave me the feeling that something is different about this place in the woods, so when things happen, the reader shouldn’t be taken by surprise.

There was one big change that I had to do before heading off to bed, though.  I was looking something up–research, you know–and I just happened to take a closer look at the name of the place where my story takes place.  And that was when I discovered (let me say this in my Hermione voice), it’s not Harmony, it’s Harmonie.  Oops.

Hey, even the best research can be wonky when you’re looking at Google Maps at ten at night after being up for seventeen hours.

A was a bit bummed out, but not so much that I went into a mental tailspin from which I couldn’t recover.  No, I was level headed about the matter, since all I had to do was change the name of the story and rename the project.  Ergo, the story is now known as Fantasies in Harmonie, which gives it an even nicer ring than what had gone before, don’t you think?

there wasn’t a whole lot of writing last night; when I was finished with the scene I’d only written around five hundred words. I wasn’t looking to do a lot of writing last night because I was doing a set up and I knew it was going to take a little finagling to get the words right.

Also, I’m a bit more careful when I write these days.  I found myself writing then stopping so I could look over what I’d written.  If it looked good, I went on.  If I didn’t, I read the lines until I knew what I wanted to write, and then wrote that.  It’s sort of editing on the way, which slows you up, but ultimately helps me keep the text as clean as possible.

I checked my timelines, because if there’s one thing I am, it’s attentive to the time it takes to do anything.  From the time I finished Suggestive Amusements to the time I published Her Demonic Majesty, about seven weeks went by.  That time was spent in edits, getting covers made, and setting up my accounts on Smashwords and Amazon.  As I told a friend the other day, writing is work, and publishing things correctly takes even more work.

So the more I get right up front, the less I have to react to in order to finish my work correctly.

Slowing down now so I don’t have to rush latter is a great idea.  Just like finding a good cabin in the woods, you gotta take your time.

 

Early to the Cinema Show

I was tired last night and thought with nothing going on today I could sleep in.  I was wrong:  up at five forty-five with nary a bird in sight to wake up as the sky brightened.  There are times when I do wish I could sleep until nine in the morning and crawl out of bed refreshed and ready for the world.

Screw that:  I’m up.  The world will have to deal.

This week has been a combination of getting Her Demonic Majesty published and uploaded to various platforms.  With the exception of some tweaking here and there, it’s a done deal.  With that out of the way I’m onto the next big thing–or whatever passed for that.

As I told someone last night, my day looks like this:  I blog (doing that now), then I start work on an article.  I know what I’m going to write, it’s just a matter of writing, editing, and submitting to the website.  And doing a bit of research while it’s going on.  I figure that’ll take most of my morning.

Then it’s time to make the story.  Going back through the milestones on my Author’s Page, I see I finished Suggestive Amusements on 24 March.  It’s now 18 May, which means I’ve spent two months getting my novel ready and published, and I haven’t been working on anything new.  As may be said in Glengarry Glen Ross, “A, B, W.  Always.  Be.  Writing.”  Of course, I’ll won’t be told to stay away from the coffee, and I already know Blake’s name . . .

Sometime this afternoon I’ll start in on Fantasies in Harmony, and get the words going on that.  The pieces are all together, the project is set up, and the map of my mind–if there is such a thing–is inside the document ready to show me the way.  All that remains are to take whatever words come into my head and get them into the computer

While all this is ongoing I’ll have the music playing.  Since getting up this morning I’ve have a live version of The Cinema Show playing, a recording from 1978 of one of the last times Genesis played the song in its entirety before moving the instrumental bridge into a “Greatest Hits” melody they started with In The Cage during their 1980 Duke tour, and played throughout the Mama Tour in 1983.  Yeah, doing this keeps me awake, it keeps my mind running at something close to nominal speed–and it’s enjoyable.  Plus, I hate silence.  I work in it enough that I like to have sound around me when I’m home.

Lurking in the back of my mind is the notion of what I should publish next.  I said I was going to do four things this year, and I’m going to try just that.  One down, and seven months to get three more out.  If I keep things nice and short I should be able to do that–after all, I only need editing and covers and proofreading and a few other things–

I’ve got the accounts, so the hard work is out of the way.

Departing on Your Own Fantasies

Chapter Twelve of Suggestive Amusements came to an end sometime last night, at the end of what I can only call a long day.  Writing at the end of the day, as I was, usually leads to a mild case of creative burnout, but I never felt that way.  If anything, by eleven-thirty PM, I was still awake, though I could feel the exhaustion starting to close in on me.

Even then, it seemed to take me forever to fall asleep.

Keith’s days with his company came to an end, and he spent the time telling his manager and the company’s HR flack what he was going to do, and what they needed to do to prevent the loosing of a viral meme that would eventually declare them, “Gigantic Assholes of Sin City”.  The company backs down, Keith removes his things from his Cubical of Hell, he leave down the elevator, and the HR flack is left hearing something coming from said elevator that tells him, in no uncertain terms, that they lost their asses in the latest conflict between company and employee.

I will admit that, at the very end of the story, this was something I wish I’d done when I was leaving my last former position.  I’ve stated that when I was told my position was being eliminated, I felt a wave of relief that I’d no long visit that dump.  At the same time, there was the urge to leave a little of me behind as I was walking out the door–something that someone would probably bring up a few weeks down the line, by mentioning my name and saying, “Can you believe they said that?”

That didn’t happen, probably because deep down, I’m not the sort of person who can do what Keith did.  Which is a shame, because each of us has an inner Lester Burnham who they’d like to turn loose as they’re being let go from a place of employment, so they can dish out something tasty before they’re sent on their way.

The closest I’ve actually come to that point was when I caught up in a massive layoff at a company where I’d worked for over thirteen years.  I was brought into a room filled with seven or eight people, told what was happening, and was then told I’d sign a paper that would prevent me from coming after the company for anything if I wanted to receive $19,000 in severance and a year’s worth of medical insurance; don’t sign, and I’d leave the company with two weeks pay and nothing else.

I signed and was then told goodbye.  I got up, and as I reached the door, I stopped and turned around, then told the assembled, “You guys are lucky I’m on meds,” which I was taking at the time for depression.  It was at that point that someone in the room followed me to my cubical, watched me closely as I cleaned out my possessions, then walked me to my car.  They didn’t leave my sight until I pulled out of my parking spot . . .

Not that I actually would have done anything, but sometimes it’s good to keep the suckers guessing.

With this part of the story out of the way, now comes the strangeness, and I do mean that.  Well, maybe:  your strange is just another day in my imagination.  I mean, I find werewolf gangbangs to be pretty strange, and not at all erotic, but I’m certain there are a few people out there who find those pretty normal–

I think we can all agree on furies, though . . .

Saturday’s All Right For My Fantasies

Yeah, you heard me.  It’s Fantasy Time, and I’m ready for it.

No, really:  I could use a good fantasy.  I would love to sink into something right about now and let it engulf me, pick me up and take me away to another place.  Maybe I’ll help fund this Kickstarter.  She looks like a nice woman, and I could use someone to worship.

If you hadn’t noticed, I’m in a better mood today.  Maybe it’s the sleep and the thunderstorms that helped me get there.  Maybe it’s the coffee–damn good coffee.  Maybe it’s the sun shining.

I haven’t the faintest.  All I know is I want to get into my story today.  I might not finish it, but I know where I want to take it.  Into the sexy . . . yeah, that’s the ticket.

Of course, it helped that Albert turned down the lighting inside his ship, and that there’s nothing but the blackness of space beyond the window, with stars not twinkling beyond.  It’s a good setup, and Meredith’s going to take advantage of the situation . . . naughty girl.

Yes, it’s writing time.  It’s time to make the fantasies comes alive.

Would I want to be in a spaceship with someone nice, all alone, no one around for at least three hundred thousand kilometers?  Depends on the person.  If it’s any of the numerous gaming trolls I’ve known off and on for years, I’d probably space them just to watch the expression on the face change.  If it was something a little nicer and softer–hummm, that’s a hard one to decipher . . .

This is the part I enjoy.  The research is fun–I have to get cracking on it for my next NaNoWriMo novel, because it’s going to be a follow-up to something I’ve already written–the waiting, as I mentioned yesterday, is the suck.  You need to do both, however, and in-between these suckers there is the laying down of words and the creating of stories.

Why the change from “Oh, I’m Mr. Depression, This Writing Stuff Blows!”?  Can’t say.  Maybe it was the interview I was writing up last night.  I was too tired to do anything creative, but I had this interview I needed to finish, so I got into it.  And there were questions, and some things I had to think about . . . and dammit, when I began thinking about the very small amount I’ve published (two things, count ‘em!), and I thought about what I do have out there, waiting for the thumbs up, I realized, “Yeah, that’s some good stuff, why you gettin’ down on yourself?”

‘Cause it’s in my nature to be a pain in my own ass from time to time.  It’s how I stay honest.  It’s good for the ego to realize, you aren’t the bloody queen all the time, mate.  You’re like everyone else in this game:  you wait, you get up . . . you get down.

You then dust yourself off and keep on going.

There is a simple fact:  I ain’t givin’ this shit up.  I’m going to keep going.  There may be times when I don’t feel like going on, but I’m going to do it.  Because, what’s the alternative?  Do something I really hate, and leave behind the legacy of people saying, “Oh, yeah, Ray had promise: too bad he was such a quitting, freakin’ loser.”

Time to move on.  Time to make those fantasies real.