Real life managed to get in the way of the fictional one last night, so very little writing was done. I did begin Chapter Six, which begins with sex, and a little more sex, and just a touch of, “Yeah, there’s the goods, show me what you’re gonna do with them!” bravado that you see in few couples. It was a great start . . .
But there’s something lurking in the back of my brain. No, it has nothing to do with plastic wrap and strawberries; get your mind out of the gutter. It has to do with a story–better yet, the story within my story that I’m writing.
One of the things I’ve considered for my main male character is what novel is he going to write? I mean, that’s the whole point of having a muse show up and start bugging his butt about getting a story together. Okay, sure: so what is that novel going to be about? It’s a pretty important plot point, don’t you think?
The drive home is always a good time to take what I’ve accumulated throughout the day and put it into practical use. So it’s time for thought, time for ideas to get put out there and used and/or discarded. Last night was no different, because I was thinking about this new chapter, and what was going to happen, and how two of my main characters might interact with each other.
In the course of this internal dialog, I decided that Keith, my main male character, would talk about his writing with Elektra, one of my main female characters. Elektra would throw some ideas out there, and Keith would come up with versions already done of said idea. However, a point would be reached where Elektra would say something, and Keith would examine what was said . . .
And go, “Hummmm”.
Thus an idea is born. Not just for him, but for me as well.
The funny thing is, this morning I’m chatting with someone, and they bring up an idea which is pretty much along the lines of the idea I’d come up with last night, and there was this frisson that hits you when you realize that there are other people out there wondering if similar ideas can be done, but they might not have the ability to do them with acquit skill.
Right now it’s just an idea for a story within a story, not a story that will stand alone on its own. But it is an idea that, perhaps, could become a story were I to do my research and flesh it out. Not that don’t already have enough to do, but why not have some ideas ready just in case?
Creativity comes at you when you least expect it. I had this idea last night, and then the same comes at me this morning–what are the odds? Is it because my circuits are good, and karma is with me? Or I just know what is going to work?
Or is my Muse somewhere near, while sex scenes play out on the page before me?
I know she’s road with me before, so I’m never alone . . .
Here we are: sixteen hours and thirty-eight minutes, and we get the NaNo Party started. I went to my kick off party last night, said hello, got my goody bag, spoke with some of the people who are going to try this. Everyone there was new: I was the only hold over, save for our area leader, from last year. Is this good or bad? Yes. Go with it.
The time to write is approaching, as are The Witching Hours. Time to run the kidlettes around for trick-or-treat, then find something to play at 12:01 AM, when NaNo kicks in and makes life crazy for the next thirty days.
This post isn’t so much about NaNoWriMo as it is about the person writing the NaNo Novel for 2012. Or what they’ve learned from their writing. Because we do learn from writing, and from the experiences it brings us.
I’ve got to go back about a year, however–back to the days when I was role playing, back when I was writing about Kerry and his lovely Annie.
Back when I was sick from work–as opposed of being sick of work, but that’s another story–I told people about the issues Kerry had with being himself. Or should that be, herself? ’Cause Kerry exists in one world with two genders, and has the ability to switch from one to the other when he feels like it–
Only, come October, 2015, his better half ends up having to deal with menstruation, and that means having to spend time really being a girl, not just flipping over into girldom when the mood strikes, or he’s getting a full physical. So it’s during this first time of dealing with the Dim Red Tides that Kerry stays his girly self for almost a week, and–at the suggestion of one of the instructors he respects a great deal–she gets renamed Cassidy, which is Gaelic for “Clever Girl”.
The school that Kerry and Annie attend have a Samhain celebration every year, which includes a dance where one can, if they are in the mood, come dressed in costume. It’s always held on the Friday or Saturday closest to Samhain Eve–or Halloween, as most people know it–but this October, in 2015, Halloween falls on a Saturday. This means that the dance–which is just a bit of secular fun for the kids to enjoy–coincides with the true festivals that begin at sundown, on Samhain Eve, and continue through the next day, 1 November, the actual day of Samhain.
This also means that Kerry is dealing with another period, and he’s flipped over to Cassidy. This means she’s attending the dance with Annie, and they’ve both decided to show up in costume. Since Cassidy is a bit of a geek, and because she wants to have fun and not give a shit about the fact that a lot of people will be looking at her anyway, decided to show up as an Amy Pond Kiss-o-Gram, and Annie shows up in her River Song finest.
They talk, they dance, they enjoy themselves. Cassidy has a couple of people give her shit, but she blows them off well and good. In the end, they sneak out of the dance for a bit, talk some more, and steal a kiss in the same spot where Annie and Kerry first kissed the same night they came to the school, and where placed in their coven.
Then Annie tells Cassidy they need to walk between the bonfires . . .
Bonfires are a tradition during Samhain. People would toss things in, old clothes, food, the bones of slaughtered animals, and watch them burn. It was all about cleansing, getting rid of the old and greeting the new. Some places have bonfires side by side, with enough space to walk between, so that one is purified and cleansed, leaving behind the ashes of their old life, and ready to face the new.
This is what Annie and Cassidy have at their school. In a large field, there are two bonfires, and students are encouraged to dance about them and walk between, a symbol that they are leaving behind one more year, and facing the new, clean and untarnished.
I hear you going, “Yeah, but where is this leading, oh Scribbler of Words?”
Here you go: characters teach you things, not only about your stories, but sometimes about you. Cassidy was a character that came to me very easy, because she’s a cute, smart, geeky girl who accepts that there’s really nothing different about her, and that those who see her as a “freak” or “strange” are people who just can’t deal with this thing known as reality.
But then a lot of my female characters came to me easily. Audrey Dahl was the first, she of psychic ability and fireball throwing. The same with Jennette Hagart, the Nerd Girl Who Became an Ass-kicking Sorceress. But Cassidy spoke loudly to me, because she touches me like few others.
Because I am Cassidy.
A few people have asked about the name change that came to my blog, which was the same name change that happened on my Facebook Page. Some even noticed that the changes came about on or about 10/11/12, which was Coming Out Day. There is a reason behind this: it was time to come out.
I’m transgendered. I’ve been this way my entire life. But this year, in a year of much change and, in some cases, great hardship and insanity, I needed to get real with myself. I started seeing a therapist, and I began the journey toward becoming the person I actually am.
I’ve begun taking steps towards being Cassidy, the woman I actually am. It’s happening slowly, and it’s going gradually, but it’s happening. In a few years time, the old me will be a memory, and Cassidy Grace Frazee will be a fact of daily life.
Oh, and she writes, too. She’s very good as well–as good as me, I might point out.
What a surprise.
This is my life. A few people close to me have known this for a few months, and they’ve supported me, which is a great thing. I don’t expect things to become easy, but then, I’ve not known a lot of easy stuff for the last fifty years. Why should the remaining ones be any different?
Annie and Cassidy walked between the bonfires that Samhain Eve night. They felt the fire wash over them, felt the heat upon their skin, and when they emerge out the other side, they were clean and new. They were different people, and they’d never look back from that moment. One day I’m going to write this story–
But there is another I have to concentrate upon at the moment.
NaNo is a crazy time. Halloween is a crazy time.
But a certain ginger girl reminds me that life is crazy, and you gotta deal with what comes your way. Follow your instincts and you’ll find your way through the fire. I know, however, I’m never going to get burned. I’m always going to come out the other side shiny and new.
Early morning, and there’s snow all over the place. Was out at 5:30 clearing the drive, and man, I didn’t miss that at all. Now with a 3 Above wind chill out there. The only thing that was good is that it’s all light, lake effect snow, and not the heart attack-inducing wet snow that Chicago usually gets.
Today I was suppose to be on the road . . . not going to happen. Not with snow all over the place, and down to the south of me is where I have to go–or was suppose to. Calls to be made to let people know I’ll be in their town tomorrow morning, because with the weather the way it is now, I’m not going to travel 300 miles for something I’m not very excited about.
The writing was good yesterday. Couples Dance moved onward, hitting 2,350 words yesterday. Ended a sex scene and then proceeded into a discussion of old houses in Massachusetts and eating disorders. Did I mention that even though this is erotica, there’s a story here? See, that’s the one thing a lot of people don’t get: just because it’s got a lot of good sex in it–well, only one scene of good sex so far–that doesn’t make it smut or porn.
As pointed out in a discussion I had yesterday–and this is something I like to bring up a lot–if there’s sex in the course of the story, and it plays a part in the story, it’s erotica. If it’s just sex for the sake of sex, just to watch people get off, then it’s porn. Frankly, porn is boring: I stopped watching it in the 1970′s when I realized I should be out having sex rather than watching a lot of obviously stoned people having it. And I saw a lot of porn, because I grew up in a town where the local drive in showed porn flicks every weekend, and getting in was about as difficult as pumping gas, so I knew what I’m talking about.
The story is interesting, because I’m really not viewing it as erotica, per se. I’m looking at it as a horror story with a lot of sex in it, which is probably why I’m thinking of it as “Paranormal Erotica”. This might make it difficult to market, but I’m hoping that the story is going to carry the day, and people will enjoy the story, not because it’s paranormal, not because it’s got great sex, but because it’s a good story.
I spent part of the day thinking up another story as well. It revolves around the role playing character I created, Kerry, and how, after he begins teaching back at the same school he graduated from, he deals with a student who is transgender. Kerry feels strongly for the boy–mostly because there are many issues in his life that allow him to identify with the student–and he’s also very good when it comes to transfiguration magic. I’d actually looked at his story here before, months ago, and yesterday was pretty much a retelling of it in my mind, my way of getting all the lines finished the way I’d like them.
Like I’ve said before, Kerry is a character I’ve developed and grown with over the last 9 months–yeah, it’s been almost that long. And I know as an adult, he’ll go through some crazy things. But for him, helping this student is an important thing for him, because as time goes on he’ll find himself in a position where he feels the need to want to help. Help those who are upset, who feel as if they have nothing going on in their lives . . . who feel like they are different.
It was another night under the full moon for me. Last night’s full moon is also known as the Wolf Moon, because it was during this time when the hungry wolves could be heard howling in the distance. The wolf was out with me, though it wasn’t howling. Hell, there isn’t even any snow on the ground, but this is the Midwest–give it a week.
So there I was, driving along just after midnight–it was that time exactly when I left my friend’s apartment last night–and thinking and, as always, talking to myself. I do that, but I’m not really talking to myself, I’m usually speaking in the voices of characters that I’ve made. I know, that sounds strange, but it’s one way I work out scenes in stories. I’ll wait until no one is around and I’ll talk in their “voices” and see how a story should sound.
Last night I was with Kerry, my role playing character, and one of his instructors, Erywin. She’s actually one of my favorite characters, which, if you knew about the times I’ve spoken of her, then you’d know how I feel about her. I sort of see her as the friend I would love to have, but don’t.
She’s had a very troubled, tortured past. Erywin is a lesbian, and came out as such at school, as a young girl, in 1979. Not a good time to stand up and say, “I’m gay and proud,” and she ended up getting her ass beat not long after her pronouncement. Of course, said ass beating led to her meeting the Love of her Life, which eventually became a very good thing.
The conversation was a simply one: it was just Kerry and Erywin sitting and talking about Kerry’s and, by this time, his wife Annie’s, graduation from school. He was asking about when Erywin graduated, and it brought back a painful memory of how, in 1985, her girlfriend, the Love of her Life–who is a year younger–stayed around to watch Erywin graduate. When Erywin went to introduce her Love, Helena, to her parents, her father walked away, still refusing to accept that his only daughter loved another woman.
In the course of the conversation it was reveled that Erywin’s father died of a heart attack in 2003. He told her a few year before that he could almost accept that she was a lesbian, but he never apologized for the way he snubbed Helena. It lead Erywin to say:
“Friends say I have unfinished business with my father, and the only way I’ll put this behind me is to forgive him. But how do you forgive a dead man? How do you forgive someone who grew uneasy the moment you entered his presence? How do forgive someone who hated your friend, your lover, the woman I wanted to spend my life with? How do you forgive someone who never apologized for his hateful behavior, and now can’t?
“No, the business with my father is finished, well and good. I won’t forgive, but I don’t ever dwell. I’ve moved on. And so should everyone else.”
It is true: sometimes you have to put the past behind you, accept that things were never good, and keep going. Believe me, I understand where she’s coming from. And one should, at times, forget the past and keep looking to the future.
But I came up with something even more interesting from her. Something that applies to writers in particular. Because there was a question that Kerry asked a few minutes later. It was an innocent question, and one that he could ask as he is a good friend of Erywin’s. And at the same time, it’s one of those questions that, the moment it leaves your mouth, you wish you could recall the damn thing:
“Do you ever wish you were straight?”
Yes, 17 year old boys know how to bring the awkwardness. But Erywin likes Kerry; she likes him a lot. And her reply–as I remember it–was simple:
“Oh, now that’s a conundrum, isn’t it? Hum . . .
“I’ve never been interested in men. Never. When I was younger it was always the girls, and as I grew older it became women. But men? I can have them as friends–as I am friends with you–but as an object of desire? (shudders) It would be all wrong for me. The sight, the touch, the smell . . . the taste . . . (thinks for a moment) It’s so . . . alien.
“But most importantly, I couldn’t ever know how to love that person, not the way they should be loved. And without love, everything else is so empty. I can certainly love a man as a friend–as I love you, Kerry–but I can’t see how I would ever love beyond that.
“I could never wish to be straight, because how does one wish for something they can’t ever imagine?”
And there is a conundrum as well, because, as writers, you’re always having to imagine those things that, frankly, you may never know. How does one, who isn’t a lesbian, get into a 51 year old lesbian’s head, and imagine them thinking about something that is really kinda foreign to a man? As someone who’s written erotica and fetish fantasy fiction, how do you take something that’s truly alien, something that’s way, way, ’round the bend, and make it “real”?
For some reason I think this conversation will stay with me a while.
This is what I get for being out with the Wolves, howling at the moon when I should be sleeping.
Late night last night–but a good one. It was one of those Saturdays when I get together with friends and sit around BSing about things. Most of what we BSed about were games (always a good subject) and books (another). Most of the gaming discussion revolved around MechWarrior, and the various books written within that universe. (And how the brother of one of the guys who was there last night is a dipshit did something screwy in his Battletech game, but he likes doing things like that because it generally ends up screwing over his players, so nothing new there . . ..)
Generally it was a good time. I like discussing games and books–oh, and I had to mention that I’d sold a story. Yeah, tooting my own horn, but why not? That’s what I have to do, otherwise who’s going to get exciting about you if you don’t spread your own hype? Just don’t believe your own hype–that gets you in trouble. Oh, and don’t guinea pig your own shit: a lesson from Miami Vice and Cyberpunk that is still ignored to this day.
It was a lovely, clear night, with a very bright full moon. I didn’t think much on the drive home: usually I do, but last night I kept my mind on a few things and didn’t work out scenes in my head or come up with other ideas or anything like that. It wasn’t that the ideas wouldn’t spring out of my imagination, but more like I kept them holed up in some dark recess of my brain while I kept one thing in the forefront of my mind.
Besides, I only had to wait until I feel asleep for the weird stuff to happen.
I’m working on the edit for my NaNo Novel (yay!) and set up my own work in progress novel in Scrivener (yay!) and, as I mentioned yesterday, I’m working on a new short story (Yay!!!). Strangely enough, most of the characters in those stories are women, and as I mentioned the other day, when I’m writing I tend to come across as a women (I’m going to say “Yay!!!” because, why the hell not?). So of late I’ve got a lot of females on my mind as well–and one of them is a vampire who can walk around in the daytime and loves bacon, so watch out!
So it’s not out of the question I’m going to have “girl dreams”. Though these probably aren’t the sort of “girl dreams” you might imagine. Yours probably involve you being with a hot actress of your choice, rubbing her back while she’s playing Skyrim wearing nothing but tiger-print underwear and sitting in a tub of lime Jell-O. Mine involve being the hot actress.
Last night mine were very crazy. First, I was late for work, so I parked my car near the loading dock of the restaurant where I was a hostess. I did my job, taking orders, smiling a lot, and generally being really good with people. I was pretty cute, too: I remember having sort of dark, reddish hair, a lot of freckles, and purple nail polish. And glasses, I always seem to have glasses. I zipped around the restaurant in a blue dress and high heels, never once complaining about my feet, and my last order of the night was Bart Simpson (no, really: I told you it was crazy).
Then I go out and find a parking ticket on my car, which pissed me off. I stop at the mall to do a little shopping, and I have to go to the bathroom–only I’m not allow. Why? My head wasn’t covered. Seriously. So I throw on a head scarf after which I’m allowed to access. I do my business, freshen up (which is where I got the best look at my cute self, yay!!!), then head back out to my car where I find another parking ticket. Bummer.
Then I’m suddenly I’m at home and in front of the computer. No, I wasn’t playing Skyrim in my boy shorts. I was writing–actually, I was editing my Nano Novel. I could tell because I saw the chapter layout on the screen in my dream. With my head still covered up, I began editing–
And then I woke up.
There were a few more things in there as well–for some reason I remember talking to another woman who was riding in my car on the way to the mall, and I was alternating between complaining about the parking ticket and the need to get some leggings, but for the most part it was working, trying to go to the bathroom (which took forever in the dream–”Why can’t I go in?” ”You have to cover.” ”But I need to go!” ”You have to cover, first.” Oi), and writing.
The funny part was the writing seemed very natural and easy. And much like I really am when I’m writing–though I’m never in a blue dress and wearing a head scarf and purple nail polish when I write. Okay, almost never.
I thought the strangest part of the dream was coming home to work on my novel, because I have never dreamed about writing before last night. However, my new work in progress, Echoes, deals with someone reminiscing about writing, so maybe that’s rubbing off on me and working it’s way into my dreams.
Maybe the next time I’ll see how my edits are working out.
After a night of strange dreams, I love waking up to finding first snow on the ground. Yeah, it’s not much–a lot of the ground is poking through–but hearing, “Oh, it’s snowing!” and “There’s snow!” for part of the morning always leaving me remembering to stay the hell of the roads, ’cause I’ve lived through 53 winters–with 54 coming up–and every one of those winters see folks completely losing their shit upon first snow fall, no matter how light, and driving like a bunch of schizophrenics suddenly off their meds.
I should have realized the morning would be whacked since, right before slipping off to dreamland, someone started a “discussion” on the NaNoWriMo Facebook group. Said “discussion” involved the name of Stephenie Meyer, which means 50 comments later it’s turned into a “She’s a hack!/She shouldn’t be allowed to write!/Edward is a stalker!” hate rant. Oh, and I forgot my favorite: ”She didn’t do her research on vampires!” Yeah . . . well, I won’t say much more here other than I’ve done my research on vampires, and if you think Edward is like the most totally stalkerific character evar, you need to do your research.
Of course, I think budding writers should concentrate on other things–like improving their own work, and figuring out how to get published. But that’s just me, and I’m freakin’ strange. Besides, when I want to know about certain vampire flicks, I know where to go.
There was something else I was doing as well: playing with the gender slant of my NaNo Novel, and seeing who else I write like.
When I was writing my story KuntilanakI became curious about the gender identity of the work. I’d read a few things about how men and women “write differently” and, by examining the words used, you can tell the gender of the author.
Whenever I come across stuff like that, I become intrigued. I use a lot of female characters, and I’ve always been curious if I’m actually coming across as a woman, or am I just a guy writing about women. Call me nutty, but I do worry about things like that when it comes to improving my craft, rather than worrying about if vampires can walk around in the daytime. Again, just me.
The site uses the algorithm that is suppose to show the gender of the person writing and applies it to whatever work is pasted into the text area on the main page. Put in words, hit the genre radio button, press Submit . . . and there you go. You’ll find out if you’re really a girl or a boy writer.
I don’t actually look at it that way. I look at it as, “In this section the majority of the characters are women, so when they speak, are they coming across as women?” Oh, sure: I could find myself getting into trouble by trying to tailor my writing to be too “womanly”, or something like that, but I don’t do that. I just write. I get into the heads of my characters and have things come out.
There is a strange thing about my writing, however: most of the time my writing does indicate I’m female.
Last night I put Part One of my NaNa Novel through The Gender Genie and watched the analysis. I wasn’t the least bit surprised by what I saw: six of seven chapters came out saying they were written by a woman, and in only two of those chapters where there any male characters.
And the one chapter that came back and told me, “The author is male” consists of a long of passages where the main female character is involved in a long argument with her male second-in-command, and her dialog–which I collected to cut and paste into the GG–is what’s coming back to me as predominately male. Makes me wonder if what I’m doing is writing her character as adopting a male facade in order to put her male subordinate in his place . . . it ‘s an interesting point-of-view when it comes to building characterization.
And now that I know my gender, I wanna see what my voice is like–or, better yet, what existing voice I’m like.
That’s where I Write Like comes into play. It’s really simple: you paste your passages, hit the “Analyze” button, and you’ll get the “I Write Like . . .” comment. How realistic is this? I have no idea, but it’s fun to see what literary giants (or not) you’re unconsciously channeling or flat-out ripping off.
Once again, I did all of Part One of my NaNa Novel, and the results are pretty constant. Five of my chapters come back with the same author attached; the other two . . . Chapter 4 says I write like William Gibson, and Chapter 6–my only “male” chapter–says I write like Dan Brown, which therefore means I need to rewrite that sucker extensively.
As far as the other chapters are concerned? I write like J. D. Salinger. In fact a lot of my work comes across as being Salinger-like, which makes me feel sorta good. Then again, does this mean at some point in the future some nutty kid is gonna get fixated on one of my characters, think they are that character, and go off to shoot a famous musician? If so, it’s not my fault! I’m not responsible for the insanity of people who aren’t yet born!
Just for the hell of it I took all the text above this line and ran it through the Gender Genie and I Write Like just to see what I’d get.
The Gender Genie says “The author of this passage is Male!” Okay, no surprise there.
I Write Like says, “I write like Stephenie Meyer”.
Wait a minute–this post started out with Stephenie Meyer.
This is what comes of being busy for a few days: you wake up, you stare at a blank screen–and nothing comes out. There were all these thoughts rolling about in my head this morning when I awoke, but they suddenly decided to scurry to the shadows the moment the lights come on and the computer comes up, like some kind of mental cockroaches spooked by an electronic dweller.
I suppose there nothing to talk about–
Oh, there’s always sex.
Actually it goes beyond sex. It has everything to do with my characters.
It has been pointed out to me, on more than a few occasions, that my female characters are generally pretty nicely done. I take a lot of pride in that, mostly because I feel that creating wonderful female characters is, for some writers, a difficult chore. You read some stories, and the female characters adhere to Melvin Udall adage that when they create female characters they first create a male then take away reason and accountability. Ha, ha, I get it: men are the only ones who totally have their shit together, which is why the world is in such great freakin’ shape.
Part of the reason I love a great female character (who, I should point out, isn’t a guy with breasts, as some characters tend to come off) it the time I grew up in, and the sort of things I read. I geeked out early on science fiction, and most of the stuff I started with was from the “Golden Age” of sci fi. And if you know anything about the Golden Age, it’s that it was sorta light on believable female characters, or any at all. There was a lot of what I like to call “Golden Brage” for the Sci Fi Ladies, where most illustrations fell heavily into Fanservice, and the women themselves were usually little more than Ms. Fanservice incarnate.
That started to change in the 1970′s, in particular with the movie Alien and the introduction of Ellen Ripley. It’s hilarious to know now that originally Alien (oh, I’m sorry, I mean, Starbeast) was going to be something of a homoerotic sausage fest before someone got their shit together and turned into the classic movie we all now know and love. I fell in love with Ripley, and that really drove me to begin looking at women in a far different light as characters. Not to say I hadn’t before then, but yeah–the movie did something to me. And I wanted to do that in my own work. When I got around to doing it, that is.
I much prefer working with women, trying to understand them, try to get into their heads to learn their secrets and motivations and desires. Not only in my writing, but in real life as well. I’ve never been much for “guy stuff”; it’s always bored me. Doesn’t make me bad, just makes me a touch different.
When I look at my next novel, the novel after that I wanted to re-edit, and another novel after that which is in need of writing, I realize the majority of characters are dealing with are female–and that the guys who are in those stories are either very smart and competent, or physiological messes, or both.
It’s suppose to be the end of the world today, but I have this feeling that things are going to keep on keeping just like they do every day. But, see, when you have people follow these idiot religious geeks who go on about how one religious text or another sez today is the day some of us are gonna get out asses Raptured, then you have to pay attention because the news is making fun of said geek. Which I don’t have a problem with because making fun of religious geeks is good sport for me–it’s right up there with pointing out how Pat Buchanan still loves him some awesome white supremacy and is only one GOP debate away from going full-on Mistah Kurtz and founding his own Sulaco.
Strangely, if memory serves me right (Thank you, Chairman Kaga), the world was suppose to end 4 days ago with the passing of Comet Elenin. Said comet was, back in the spring, being hailed as everything from the rouge planet Nibiru to aliens coming for our water and wimmin. (Note to aliens: if you really want our water, you missed it a light year back in the Oort Cloud.) Of course if one had bothered to do any reading, they’d have known by now that (1) it was a rather unassuming comet that, believe it or not, broke up as it rounded the Sun, and (2) every other idea put forward by waterheads was pure bullshit.
Yeah, it’s one of those days. The crazy is out there for all to grab.
Since I’m doing NaNoWriMo in a few days (let me check the countdown . . . 10 days, 16 hours, 56 minutes as of right now), the few friends I have who are also doing it are starting to . . . well, some are beginning to fall into panic mode. You know, when you think about it, doing a 50,000 words novel in 30 days is a daunting task; it takes a certain mind-set to sit down and crank out 1800 to 2000 words a day, and I can fully understand the panic. You start thinking, “Can I really do this?”, or “Do I have a good idea?”, or lastly, “Is real life gonna get in the way?”, because this last is usually the thing that burns all aspiring writers. It would be great if all of us who love to write could get that 2 years of government aid that would allow us the time to spend developing a story about some geeky kid in glasses who hooks up with a bunch of gingers at magical wizarding school and finds himself the object of hatred by Mr. Magical Nazi, but, hey: I live in the U.S., and I’m told that if I ain’t working three jobs I just ain’t American.
And not only am I dealing with the crazy and the end of the world (which, frankly, I think is gonna be late–again) but I got me some strange dreams to get through from last night. Sure, any more I don’t think they’re that strange: I’ve been getting into a lot of things with my writing over the last few weeks, and since my brain was already twisted from jump, having strange dreams is not big deal any more.
Yeah, it’s one of those days. I’ll do some writing, I’ll do some editing (just as soon as Trusty Editortm shows up), and I’ll probably find the time to talk about my dreams–
Oh, and I’ll miss the end of the world. Again.
Damn it, when are these religious geeks gonna get it right?
Write erotica . . . do you guide it, or does it guide you? Do you have these thoughts in your head, or does it make things happen in your subconscious that aren’t normally there?
Am I driving the fantasy, or is it creeping into my reality?
It’s all very strange for me. When I used to do fetish fiction I never became excited by it. Oh, I mean, there was some interest in the back of my head, but the story was really my focus. I used to get told all the time, “You must get turned on a lot when you’re writing this,” and my answer was always, “No. Never while I’m writing”. Which was the truth: I never became excited when I wrote erotic fetish fiction.
And why is that?
Very simple: do you have any idea how hard it is to write?
Let me rephrase that: do you have any idea how hard it is to write anything that has a plot and characters that are good and some semblance of a story? Yes, after years of reading other fiction in the fetish realm it’s easy to see that if it’s a person’s intention to write wank material, then hell, yes, anyone can do it. There’s tones of it out there.
With my current story, I think the reason I don’t find it “exciting” as I write it is because I’m spending so much time getting everything write that I don’t have time to get horned up. Yes, I realize I sound like Sgt. Harris going about making his porn movie for a NYPD sting, where he’s more concerned with the sets and cinematography than he is about the actual sex, but that’s me. If I’m getting the mood and feel and characters right, then it’s gonna be muy atractivo.
But does that mean I’m getting sucked into my erotica at other levels? I’m thinking . . . maybe.
I’m heading into TMI Territory now, so if you want to bail you can . . . oh, yeah, like if you’re reading this you’re not interested in this part of the story–ha!!
Let’s move on, then–
I finished up some writing last night–probably 500 words getting into the foreplay of my characters in my erotic short–and it was off to bed. I feel asleep quickly, although sometimes I get into these fugue states where I can’t actually tell if I’m asleep and dreaming or awake and fantasizing, so for all I know I might have been lying in bed thinking about this.
Anywho . . . I was dreaming/fantasizing/imagining being with someone I know, a very lovely person, and she was doing . . . things to me. Very nice things. The sort of things I’m kind of writing about in my short story. The sort of things that culminated in what is known as “Woman on top position” followed by lots of craziness and finishing with her collaping onto and hugging me contently–
Well, now . . . that’s the sort of dreams I could stand to have more.
Now, I’d be happy if that were just that . . . but my mind was apparently working in over-drive last night, ’cause the fantasy fest wasn’t over, not by a long shot.
My friend came back to me–at night as before, in bed as before, and in a state of undressitude. And she was back doing nice things to me . . . only the words were a little different this time, the tone a little softer, and the phrase, “You’re my pretty girl,” was repeated over and over.
Maybe that’s because, in my dream, I was her pretty girl. And what we were doing–it all felt really good.
Oi . . . where does my mind go? I know there are a ton of fantasies up there, and it seems like, of late, they’re all starting to dance around where I can see them. How will this affect my writing? In good ways, I hope.
Last night was one of those long drives home late at night, alone past midnight with only my thoughts. My mind was sort of all over the place last night; I was riding a wave of emotions. Part of the time I was thinking back to the company I’d just shared; other times I was thinking about a character I’ve worked on for a while; then over to the (almost finished) edit of my last story; and then on to dark things best left unsaid.
About the character . . . I friend–my Trusty Editortm–got after me one night to revisit a novel that I’ve let languish for years–decades, actually. It’s a big book, something science fictiony, and it was my first great foray into writing. It was also something that got away from me in a big way, because the freakin’ story is huge. I started laying this sucker out in Scrivener a couple of weeks ago and just in terms of characters, I have 3 major, 3 minor, and 2 who play a part in the story but are really incidental.
It’s a lot of work, and it’s 2/3rds finished. And I will finish it–I know that much. I just have to do it, lay it upon my WiP stack and get on it with the other story I want to do.
But this isn’t about my novel. Well, sort of . . . but not. This is about a dream, the one I had last night.
Now, of late I haven’t had good dreams, at least few that I can remember. The ones I do remember are rubbishy crap where I’m spending all my time driving around a landscape of tall grass and trees, looking for something that’s not there, never really getting anyone. I had that one the other night, and what made it really depressing was it was done at night. Fun times I ain’t.
When I have good dreams . . . do I? Very few times these days. If I do I don’t remember them well. And that’s a bummer, ’cause I could use a good dream to hang my hat on once in a while.
But there was this dream last night, something that came to me within the last 6 hours, as it’s 7:33 AM as I write this, and I didn’t get to sleep until 1:30 AM this morning–
Let get to the playback.
First off, it was a 1st Person PoV, so I was looking out from my eyes. I was sitting up, my back against a sofa arm, my legs out in front of me. I’m pretty sure I was in a pull over, probably a tee shirt, and shorts. My right arm was held out slightly to my right, and was being held by someone–a woman–I know. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, and she held my hand . . . and she was painting my nails. There was this usual sensation as she did it, something I felt on them, and I knew it had to be her applying the polish.
She looked up, smiled, and said, “This color will look great on you.”
Then I sort of took in the whole scene, and needless to say the “me” in the dream was me . . . but not in the same “me” body that I know in real life.
And that was about it. Yes, you can cue the Twilight Zone music now.
The mind goes to different places when you sleep, I know that. And for this I’m not all that freaked out. I’ve had that sort of “body switching” dream before, but not in at least the last 10 years. It was strange that I’d said to someone 12 hours earlier that I hoped to have a good dream . . . well, that I did, because I gathered from my dream the both of us in the dream were having a good time.
I know it felt good to me.
And this does sort of fall into line with a character from my novel, because part of it does deal with gender identity. It’s something I’ve given some thought to over the years, and the more I get into this novel, the more it’s going to come up again. It’s an interesting subject, and the more I read the more I’m going to better define this character.
And as I dig deeper into the subject, I imagine I’ll have a dream like the one last night again.
Maybe next time I’ll find out what the color was that my friend was applying, ’cause . . . does it really look that good?
