You know what's unexpectedly good in coffee? Evaporated milk.
It's not so good in oatmeal. Guess who hasn't gone shopping lately?
We are trying to eat out our pantry, though, so it's not completely because I'm slacking.
So, still no movement on the menstruation front. (Ha! I love writing outrageous things like that on this blog. I just feel as though I'm being so satisfyingly uncouth. It's the tomboy in me.) But it's still not really late, not meaningfully late. Just expected-ly late.
So far all the angst is remaining safely attached to my writing. And I am beginning to yearn for someone to read the whole damn thing, but it isn't finished and I am forcing myself to at least finish the damn thing before I throw what will be well over two hundred pages of writing at my friends.
My characters recently had a conversation about fate vs. free will. Ceallach said resignedly that he prefers free will, but thinks it may be only an illusion. Oh, my dear character- I do fear that for you, it is. Cue the diabolical laughter.
Poor things. They've been massively redirected just two days before they would otherwise have returned home. It caused Phillipa to have a little breakdown, but who can blame her? She's got so much spunk that I hate to break her down, but she's only human.
And oh, the worst part of my life at the moment is that bloody pulled muscle. I am forcing myself not to run but I hate it. I have to stew in my stress, hour by hour, instead of shaking it off and beating it out on the pavement.
However, I have found an entertaining anime on Netflix. Good anime is hard to come by. The pleasure of anime lies in its excess, but if the writer or produce gets the balance wrong, than it becomes unbearably corny or simply unwatchable.
This one is alright. A little corny, but the dialogue is pretty good and the violence is reminiscent of Vampire Hunter D. Actually, the whole thing reminds me so much of Cowboy Beebop that I wonder if they have a director or producer in common. It's called Devil May Cry.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
March 30th
I was a little bit late greeting my soldier at the door yesterday, as I paused to scrabble out one last sentence, half crouched above my chair.
"Woman!" said the man, laughing. "I expect to be met at the door when I come home." He pointed commandingly to the space above his boots. "Now come here and see that next time you don't slack off on your duties."
I've only recently been promoted to Corporal Kitten, so he cut me some slack that time, but I better be more on my toes next time.
Excerpt:
“What do you think of Tir na nOg, Grace?” she asked me, sweetly. “You would like to go on a hunt, wouldn’t you? You could ride before Ceallach.”
“She’s already landed her game,” said Fionghuine, his dark eyes glinting. “I think it’s you that must ride before the hounds, since she’s taken your trophy.”
I sat petrified, expecting Duana’s face to melt in furious anger. She only gave her mellifluous laugh.
“Don’t be silly,” she said, lowering her lashes. “My walls have no need of ornaments. Besides, I’d rather have a man. Trophies don't interest me.”
Ceallach was sitting very still beside me. I dearly wanted to speak, but his warning to me was still too clear in my head.
“It’s a pity you weren’t ever interested in nature, Duana,” said Ceallach gently. “It might have proved useful for you. For instance, the black widow spider tries to devour the male of her species only after she’s won him.”
This got through; I saw Duana recoil, her hands curling back from her plate to rest under the table.
“My dear, women never hunt down their men,” murmured Aisling. “It’s the other way around.”
“Bullcrap,” said Fionghuine, grinning. “I had no intention of getting married when I first saw you. And yet, six seasons later, there I stood before the priest, dazed and confused, to hear your vows. You may as well have hung my sword above your dressing table.”
I laughed. For one dazzling moment, I caught Fionghuine’s intense, glittering eye.
“Grace knows exactly what I’m talking about,” he said, extending his hand to me. “At least the human woman is honest. Tell me,” he said, leaning toward Ceallach, “are they all like that?”
“No,” smiled Ceallach. “It’s a rare thing no matter what the world.”
"Woman!" said the man, laughing. "I expect to be met at the door when I come home." He pointed commandingly to the space above his boots. "Now come here and see that next time you don't slack off on your duties."
I've only recently been promoted to Corporal Kitten, so he cut me some slack that time, but I better be more on my toes next time.
Excerpt:
“What do you think of Tir na nOg, Grace?” she asked me, sweetly. “You would like to go on a hunt, wouldn’t you? You could ride before Ceallach.”
“She’s already landed her game,” said Fionghuine, his dark eyes glinting. “I think it’s you that must ride before the hounds, since she’s taken your trophy.”
I sat petrified, expecting Duana’s face to melt in furious anger. She only gave her mellifluous laugh.
“Don’t be silly,” she said, lowering her lashes. “My walls have no need of ornaments. Besides, I’d rather have a man. Trophies don't interest me.”
Ceallach was sitting very still beside me. I dearly wanted to speak, but his warning to me was still too clear in my head.
“It’s a pity you weren’t ever interested in nature, Duana,” said Ceallach gently. “It might have proved useful for you. For instance, the black widow spider tries to devour the male of her species only after she’s won him.”
This got through; I saw Duana recoil, her hands curling back from her plate to rest under the table.
“My dear, women never hunt down their men,” murmured Aisling. “It’s the other way around.”
“Bullcrap,” said Fionghuine, grinning. “I had no intention of getting married when I first saw you. And yet, six seasons later, there I stood before the priest, dazed and confused, to hear your vows. You may as well have hung my sword above your dressing table.”
I laughed. For one dazzling moment, I caught Fionghuine’s intense, glittering eye.
“Grace knows exactly what I’m talking about,” he said, extending his hand to me. “At least the human woman is honest. Tell me,” he said, leaning toward Ceallach, “are they all like that?”
“No,” smiled Ceallach. “It’s a rare thing no matter what the world.”
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
March 29th
My life in summation:
Still no period.
Seventy one thousand words. At least nine thousand to go.
One hundred ninety four pages.
One hand drawn map.
Two weeks until the move.
Two days until we get paid.
One pulled muscle in my thigh, from trying to increase my pace.
It's cold and gray and I must clean the upstairs. I should be doing that now.
Exerpt:
The horses were busily grazing nearby. Fat, black and yellow bees buzzed by, intent on the tall spikes of flowers that filled the meadow. I watched a bee crawl inside one of the bell shaped blossoms and almost disappear. The air was filled with the smell of grass.
“How far away are we?” I asked, tossing my apple core toward Burroch. He nuzzled it and then crunched it happily between his teeth, oozing bits of juice from the corners of his mouth.
“Three days and two nights, or thereabouts,” Ceallach said.
“Let’s just stay here.”
“If only.”
“Is it dangerous, what you’re going to do?”
“Not so much for me. And as for you, little girl, I will bedeck you with iron as if it were gold.”
“And I thought my family was dysfunctional,” I murmured. It was very hot. The smell of grass and the wine had made me sleepy. “And by the way, I’ll have you know that this year I’m turning all of twenty one. It‘s a very important year for us humans, as you must know.”
Ceallach laughed. “You don’t say? All of twenty one?”
“Don’t be jealous. Just because you’re ancient…” But I couldn’t finish because he had lifted his arm, dropping me back onto the grass.
Still no period.
Seventy one thousand words. At least nine thousand to go.
One hundred ninety four pages.
One hand drawn map.
Two weeks until the move.
Two days until we get paid.
One pulled muscle in my thigh, from trying to increase my pace.
It's cold and gray and I must clean the upstairs. I should be doing that now.
Exerpt:
The horses were busily grazing nearby. Fat, black and yellow bees buzzed by, intent on the tall spikes of flowers that filled the meadow. I watched a bee crawl inside one of the bell shaped blossoms and almost disappear. The air was filled with the smell of grass.
“How far away are we?” I asked, tossing my apple core toward Burroch. He nuzzled it and then crunched it happily between his teeth, oozing bits of juice from the corners of his mouth.
“Three days and two nights, or thereabouts,” Ceallach said.
“Let’s just stay here.”
“If only.”
“Is it dangerous, what you’re going to do?”
“Not so much for me. And as for you, little girl, I will bedeck you with iron as if it were gold.”
“And I thought my family was dysfunctional,” I murmured. It was very hot. The smell of grass and the wine had made me sleepy. “And by the way, I’ll have you know that this year I’m turning all of twenty one. It‘s a very important year for us humans, as you must know.”
Ceallach laughed. “You don’t say? All of twenty one?”
“Don’t be jealous. Just because you’re ancient…” But I couldn’t finish because he had lifted his arm, dropping me back onto the grass.
Monday, March 28, 2011
March 28th
One song I'll never get tired of: Dire Strait's Romeo and Juliet.
" ...and all I do is kiss you, through the bars of a rhyme. Julie, I'll do the stars with you, anytime."
I figured out my story. (Picture me doing an exaggerated judo chopping motion with both hands right now.) Ha! Haha! Take that, frickin' story! Who's the boss now? Huh? Huh, story? Who's the boss?
It's going to have a prologue, four sections and an epilogue. I am busy writing in the middle, the third section. Now that I've finally gotten back on the right track, the words are coming faster now.
I wish this move was over with. I wish we were settled, unpacked, back in a nice routine.
" ...and all I do is kiss you, through the bars of a rhyme. Julie, I'll do the stars with you, anytime."
I figured out my story. (Picture me doing an exaggerated judo chopping motion with both hands right now.) Ha! Haha! Take that, frickin' story! Who's the boss now? Huh? Huh, story? Who's the boss?
It's going to have a prologue, four sections and an epilogue. I am busy writing in the middle, the third section. Now that I've finally gotten back on the right track, the words are coming faster now.
I wish this move was over with. I wish we were settled, unpacked, back in a nice routine.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
March 27th
The chaos has come and the chaos has gone and now there is snow on the ground and sunlight on my counter tops. This is has been a strange March, weather wise. I was wrong about the word count; I need another twenty thousand before I'm novel length. Twenty thousand. How do authors do that? How do they craft their story so it comes out at the needed word count? Then again, I suppose you might as well ask, what is a story? It's bewildering. Some stories follow the character's entire lives, showing some parts in detail and generalizing over the others. Some stories just show one or a few intense episodes in a characters life. There doesn't seem to be any rules. I have to go to college. In the meantime, I figured out something else to try on my story. We'll see how it goes.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
March 26th
I know, right? Two posts in one day. This is going to be a pointless and boring blog. Feel free to not read it, but damn it, I just have to do some brainstorming and there's something about doing it in blog form that provides extra clarity.
And I don't have much time because Keith's family is all coming down-surprise-for tonight and possibly spending the night, so the next twelve hours will be complete chaos and noise.
Ok, here's the g.d. problem:
I have to keep building the suspense, otherwise the story is pointless. It's just an exercise in writing, then, and not a story.
But, in order to build the suspense, I must continue to have weird or eerie or symbolic things happen in their lives and therein lies the problem:
Ceallach is such that once those things happen, he won't sit around waiting for the denouement, he'll go storming away and head the problem off before I have a chance to bring the damn plot to a head.
I guess this is what they mean when they say, My character ran away with the story. I mean, I made him that way, damn it, so it's my fault. Now, either I have to deconstruct him, which I won't do, or I have to keep him in the dark.
Ok, to keep him in the dark, that means that either Phillipa doesn't tell him or doesn't notice either.
I keep leaning toward Phillipa not telling him. She has motivation. She knows that he will up and go back to Tir na nOg and that this time he absolutely will not take her. She could hide her suspicions as the months pass.
However, this makes her fully responsible for the loss of their child. And that's too much trauma for me to want to write though. I can't deal with that level of guilt.
So that leaves me with the last option I can think of; writing about things that neither character notice, but that the reader picks up on. Needless to say, this is absolutely the most difficult course of all.
For one thing, it's in first person. So how the hell can I describe something through Phillipa without her realizing what she's looking at, but still make it clear to the reader?
Maybe I can do that once, but to do it over and over again is way over my head.
So I'm just stuck. Stuck, stuck, stuck.
I could go back and have her not tell her dream to Ceallach, which would not tip him off, which would leave the possibility open for a few more weird things to go down before he took any action on his part.
Or I could involve them in an aside plot. I keep wondering about this. But those stupid side plots never pan out.
Or I could simply fly right the hell through the nine months of pregnancy, just skim right the hell over and only dive back into the story, in detail, after the baby is born.
That might work. What the reader doesn't know didn't happen won't bother him or her. (Probably her. If I make it at all, my readers will probably be all middle aged housewives with a hankering to be abducted by a wild man with bulging chest muscles. No doubt my name will appear in raised gold gilt, and there were be some soft, out of focus snap shot of roses on the cover. God. Please no.)
Alright, ok. I'm going with the skimming idea. I have to go back and do some major reconstruction and figure out where the hell to cut and run.
Over and out.
And I don't have much time because Keith's family is all coming down-surprise-for tonight and possibly spending the night, so the next twelve hours will be complete chaos and noise.
Ok, here's the g.d. problem:
I have to keep building the suspense, otherwise the story is pointless. It's just an exercise in writing, then, and not a story.
But, in order to build the suspense, I must continue to have weird or eerie or symbolic things happen in their lives and therein lies the problem:
Ceallach is such that once those things happen, he won't sit around waiting for the denouement, he'll go storming away and head the problem off before I have a chance to bring the damn plot to a head.
I guess this is what they mean when they say, My character ran away with the story. I mean, I made him that way, damn it, so it's my fault. Now, either I have to deconstruct him, which I won't do, or I have to keep him in the dark.
Ok, to keep him in the dark, that means that either Phillipa doesn't tell him or doesn't notice either.
I keep leaning toward Phillipa not telling him. She has motivation. She knows that he will up and go back to Tir na nOg and that this time he absolutely will not take her. She could hide her suspicions as the months pass.
However, this makes her fully responsible for the loss of their child. And that's too much trauma for me to want to write though. I can't deal with that level of guilt.
So that leaves me with the last option I can think of; writing about things that neither character notice, but that the reader picks up on. Needless to say, this is absolutely the most difficult course of all.
For one thing, it's in first person. So how the hell can I describe something through Phillipa without her realizing what she's looking at, but still make it clear to the reader?
Maybe I can do that once, but to do it over and over again is way over my head.
So I'm just stuck. Stuck, stuck, stuck.
I could go back and have her not tell her dream to Ceallach, which would not tip him off, which would leave the possibility open for a few more weird things to go down before he took any action on his part.
Or I could involve them in an aside plot. I keep wondering about this. But those stupid side plots never pan out.
Or I could simply fly right the hell through the nine months of pregnancy, just skim right the hell over and only dive back into the story, in detail, after the baby is born.
That might work. What the reader doesn't know didn't happen won't bother him or her. (Probably her. If I make it at all, my readers will probably be all middle aged housewives with a hankering to be abducted by a wild man with bulging chest muscles. No doubt my name will appear in raised gold gilt, and there were be some soft, out of focus snap shot of roses on the cover. God. Please no.)
Alright, ok. I'm going with the skimming idea. I have to go back and do some major reconstruction and figure out where the hell to cut and run.
Over and out.
March 26th
Well, we did not head down to Georgia this weekend after all; Keith's work was too busy. I'm glad, it's been a busy week for me. Of course, busy for me means two appointments and one grocery shopping trip.
I can tell it's coming on that time of the month; I'm feeling the angst. Fortunately, more about my writing than about procreating, writing being a subject much easier to handle under those emotional conditions.
So I'm gripped by fears of my story completely sucking, and being a huge waste of my time. I keep thinking it has no discipline, no focus, no point, or depth, or sophistication. It's all visceral, off tempo, meandering, self indulgent.
The tempo is strange. It has a nice build through the first half. I know it does. But when they return, it slows and I have to build it up again to the second crisis. It's a little bewildering to a reader to be spun up, have something resolved and then be moving slowly, possibly aimlessly in another direction. I think.
But I think I can solve this by the brilliantly simple statement of "Part 2." Voila. It resets the reader's expectations. They are all, hey, part 2. I wonder what happens in part two? Then they settle down to being wound up again slowly, for the second crisis.
Anyway, I can't deny; it is pure self indulgence. I don't think being visceral is a bad thing. But I do worry that I meander too much. That's a serious concern of mine. But I can't tell, I don't know what I'm going to use in the final story or not. It's like crop spraying, I'm just spreading out words everywhere. Do I need this scene? Maybe. I don't know. I'm beating my way through the jungle without a detailed map.
In the meantime, I have to look up the most annoying, random crap, like hot water heaters, Algebra equations, when did Brad Pitt and Angolina Jolie get married, how long it takes for a bruise to go away and what Georgian architecture really looks like.
It's slow going.
But I have over sixty thousand words, so, as of yesterday, I'm officially working on my first novel length story. It's at one hundred and seventy pages. I've taken to jotting things down in a little notebook, when I think of crap I have to go back and fix, or add, or delete. They come to me at the oddest times; usually when I'm in bed.
Keith is happily amusing himself today, so I'm free to write away.
I can tell it's coming on that time of the month; I'm feeling the angst. Fortunately, more about my writing than about procreating, writing being a subject much easier to handle under those emotional conditions.
So I'm gripped by fears of my story completely sucking, and being a huge waste of my time. I keep thinking it has no discipline, no focus, no point, or depth, or sophistication. It's all visceral, off tempo, meandering, self indulgent.
The tempo is strange. It has a nice build through the first half. I know it does. But when they return, it slows and I have to build it up again to the second crisis. It's a little bewildering to a reader to be spun up, have something resolved and then be moving slowly, possibly aimlessly in another direction. I think.
But I think I can solve this by the brilliantly simple statement of "Part 2." Voila. It resets the reader's expectations. They are all, hey, part 2. I wonder what happens in part two? Then they settle down to being wound up again slowly, for the second crisis.
Anyway, I can't deny; it is pure self indulgence. I don't think being visceral is a bad thing. But I do worry that I meander too much. That's a serious concern of mine. But I can't tell, I don't know what I'm going to use in the final story or not. It's like crop spraying, I'm just spreading out words everywhere. Do I need this scene? Maybe. I don't know. I'm beating my way through the jungle without a detailed map.
In the meantime, I have to look up the most annoying, random crap, like hot water heaters, Algebra equations, when did Brad Pitt and Angolina Jolie get married, how long it takes for a bruise to go away and what Georgian architecture really looks like.
It's slow going.
But I have over sixty thousand words, so, as of yesterday, I'm officially working on my first novel length story. It's at one hundred and seventy pages. I've taken to jotting things down in a little notebook, when I think of crap I have to go back and fix, or add, or delete. They come to me at the oddest times; usually when I'm in bed.
Keith is happily amusing himself today, so I'm free to write away.
Friday, March 25, 2011
March 25rh
Yesterday I head banged just a little too enthusiastically to a particularly awsome song and gave myself a massive headache for the rest of the day. Sometimes I wonder what someone would think of me if they crept in, unnoticed. I have perfected the dancing-while-in-chair phenomenon. Probably I look like I need a straitjacket.
But this morning, I have a stiff neck, so no head banging for me today.
I edited my current story all day yesterday. Hopefully I'll finish that editing today and then be able to start taking my story out into the deeper waters.
A friend of mine professionally edited the Rosemary story. That was, by the way, a breathtaking experience. So when I reach a good stopping point with this other work, I'll go back to Rosemary and add in those changes.
But this morning, I have a stiff neck, so no head banging for me today.
I edited my current story all day yesterday. Hopefully I'll finish that editing today and then be able to start taking my story out into the deeper waters.
A friend of mine professionally edited the Rosemary story. That was, by the way, a breathtaking experience. So when I reach a good stopping point with this other work, I'll go back to Rosemary and add in those changes.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
March 24th
I have ovulated. Yay me.
What a thing to announce via blog, right?
So now, in the words of the PA, we wait for a period or a positive pregnancy test. Thanks for pointing that out, kimosabe.
Excerpt:
I woke in the night with the most profound feeling of displacement I had yet experienced. It was the sheets that threw me, the lingering, chemical smell of fabric softner and cotton, the worm, smooth feel of them. I could smell the old wood smell of the attic, hear the fan that was whirring away in the window, trying to pull the cooler air in from the night outside.
I woke and couldn’t remember which life was real, or what part of it had been a dream. It was like falling backward into the dark, nothing to hold on to. I was ageless, without location, without guidepost. It was as though I belonged in no world at all.
With a gasp, I jerked upright, my hair falling into my face. Ceallach was deeply asleep beside me, a sheen of sweat on his chest, his bandage rising and falling with his breath. His long legs were all tangled up in the sheets. At the sight of him, my heart thumped back into place.
It was hot. I threw the sheet off, went to the bathroom. I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself. My face was older. It had broadened out somehow, firmed up. I looked more confident, more capable. There were faint lines between my eyebrows and across my forehead. I raised my eyebrows, watched the lines deepen.
I thought, in two years I will be thirty years old. It was unbelievable to me. My entire twenties; just gone. Wiped out. I looked at the backs of my hands. They looked the same, but the skin was tanned golden. My whole body was tanned this gorgeous gold color, as if the sun in that world had shown right through my cheap clothing.
I washed my hands. It was marvelous to me, the smooth, bubbling rush of cool water, the lavender scented soap. Turning out the light, I padded over the creaking boards, crawled back onto the mattress.
When I fell back asleep, I dreamed. In my dream, I was standing in my parent’s kitchen, my back to the door. I held a spoon in my hand. It was, I realized with a start, a rubber tipped baby spoon. Looking down, I saw the silverware drawer was open. It was spilling over, a bristling dangerous looking tangle of knives, forks, prongs.
In that moment, I realized I wasn’t alone in the room. I felt a great dread. I didn't want to turn around. When I did, Duana stood on the other side of the kitchen, by the stove. She stood as still as a statue. She held a butcher knife.
I opened my mouth to scream and woke to Ceallach’s hand sliding across my ribs, his breath in my ear. My body was shaking, the sheets were sweat soaked.
“Hush,” he murmured. “Sweetheart. It was a dream.”
What a thing to announce via blog, right?
So now, in the words of the PA, we wait for a period or a positive pregnancy test. Thanks for pointing that out, kimosabe.
Excerpt:
I woke in the night with the most profound feeling of displacement I had yet experienced. It was the sheets that threw me, the lingering, chemical smell of fabric softner and cotton, the worm, smooth feel of them. I could smell the old wood smell of the attic, hear the fan that was whirring away in the window, trying to pull the cooler air in from the night outside.
I woke and couldn’t remember which life was real, or what part of it had been a dream. It was like falling backward into the dark, nothing to hold on to. I was ageless, without location, without guidepost. It was as though I belonged in no world at all.
With a gasp, I jerked upright, my hair falling into my face. Ceallach was deeply asleep beside me, a sheen of sweat on his chest, his bandage rising and falling with his breath. His long legs were all tangled up in the sheets. At the sight of him, my heart thumped back into place.
It was hot. I threw the sheet off, went to the bathroom. I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself. My face was older. It had broadened out somehow, firmed up. I looked more confident, more capable. There were faint lines between my eyebrows and across my forehead. I raised my eyebrows, watched the lines deepen.
I thought, in two years I will be thirty years old. It was unbelievable to me. My entire twenties; just gone. Wiped out. I looked at the backs of my hands. They looked the same, but the skin was tanned golden. My whole body was tanned this gorgeous gold color, as if the sun in that world had shown right through my cheap clothing.
I washed my hands. It was marvelous to me, the smooth, bubbling rush of cool water, the lavender scented soap. Turning out the light, I padded over the creaking boards, crawled back onto the mattress.
When I fell back asleep, I dreamed. In my dream, I was standing in my parent’s kitchen, my back to the door. I held a spoon in my hand. It was, I realized with a start, a rubber tipped baby spoon. Looking down, I saw the silverware drawer was open. It was spilling over, a bristling dangerous looking tangle of knives, forks, prongs.
In that moment, I realized I wasn’t alone in the room. I felt a great dread. I didn't want to turn around. When I did, Duana stood on the other side of the kitchen, by the stove. She stood as still as a statue. She held a butcher knife.
I opened my mouth to scream and woke to Ceallach’s hand sliding across my ribs, his breath in my ear. My body was shaking, the sheets were sweat soaked.
“Hush,” he murmured. “Sweetheart. It was a dream.”
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
March 23rd
Today I gave my therapist a tiny little ceramic unicorn, one I had kept from childhood. I wanted to give her something, to remember me by and also, because she was my ally in giving me back myself.
I thought the unicorn would be a good symbol, a symbol of my magic, my power and passion, which she helped me to unlock. She called me sweetie and said she would keep it forever and never forget me. My nightmare astounded her, she said it marked a turning point in my life. It means I have taken up authority over my own life now.
My greatest dreams, which would have been stillborn, all those hopes I dashed before they could even be brought forth, I am now hard at work bringing out into the light. I don't care if I risk great failure in doing so. I won't let my fear of failure determine my course of action.
My story has taken a strange plot twist.
All those other plot ideas I thought I had didn't pan out. This left me at just over fifty thousand words and the end in plain sight.
I couldn't artificially pad the story, because then the story becomes crap. I thought, what the hell, I'll just write it out to the bitter end.
So I got to what would have been my end, when I first started the plot. And then I realized how the story was suppose to continue. It's unnerving me.
What has to happen is that Ceallach and Phillipa must have a child. And then a faerie must come and take their child, leaving a changeling behind. They must go return to Tir na nOg to get their child back.
The first time they went, they didn't know who they were, or who they would be together. When they go back this time, they will go back with knowledge and confidence and a driving, defining purpose. They will end up raising both children, but, in which world I haven't decided yet.
This is a diabolical plot twist for me. I don't want to write about pregnancy. What if I can't, never having been pregnant myself? On the other hand, it's oddly fitting. I will cover biological children, adopted children, loss of children. Everything that I have been brooding over for the past year and a half. In that sense, I will have the...emotional capital, I suppose...that its writing will require.
I've already begun and I did feel a sharp pain as I slid into those waters. I'm moving very slowly through this part. I have to go back now, and reread and do some major editing that I've been putting off. But I feel the need to clean house, to straighten the crooked roads as it were, in preparation for this next part of the story.
I thought the unicorn would be a good symbol, a symbol of my magic, my power and passion, which she helped me to unlock. She called me sweetie and said she would keep it forever and never forget me. My nightmare astounded her, she said it marked a turning point in my life. It means I have taken up authority over my own life now.
My greatest dreams, which would have been stillborn, all those hopes I dashed before they could even be brought forth, I am now hard at work bringing out into the light. I don't care if I risk great failure in doing so. I won't let my fear of failure determine my course of action.
My story has taken a strange plot twist.
All those other plot ideas I thought I had didn't pan out. This left me at just over fifty thousand words and the end in plain sight.
I couldn't artificially pad the story, because then the story becomes crap. I thought, what the hell, I'll just write it out to the bitter end.
So I got to what would have been my end, when I first started the plot. And then I realized how the story was suppose to continue. It's unnerving me.
What has to happen is that Ceallach and Phillipa must have a child. And then a faerie must come and take their child, leaving a changeling behind. They must go return to Tir na nOg to get their child back.
The first time they went, they didn't know who they were, or who they would be together. When they go back this time, they will go back with knowledge and confidence and a driving, defining purpose. They will end up raising both children, but, in which world I haven't decided yet.
This is a diabolical plot twist for me. I don't want to write about pregnancy. What if I can't, never having been pregnant myself? On the other hand, it's oddly fitting. I will cover biological children, adopted children, loss of children. Everything that I have been brooding over for the past year and a half. In that sense, I will have the...emotional capital, I suppose...that its writing will require.
I've already begun and I did feel a sharp pain as I slid into those waters. I'm moving very slowly through this part. I have to go back now, and reread and do some major editing that I've been putting off. But I feel the need to clean house, to straighten the crooked roads as it were, in preparation for this next part of the story.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
March 22nd
They did have to draw blood. But they had taped up pictures of exotic locals on the wall, right where a person would turn their head so they didn't have to look at the needle. That came in handy.
This move is rushing up faster and faster. It's closing like a vice around my lovely solitude. I was really hoping I'd be finished with my story before all the chaos, but I'm not sure if I will manage it or not.
This Friday we're driving down to Georgia for just two days, to find a house. We'll sign, drive home. The movers are already booked. I have to book some carpet cleaners and call the utilities.
I will do that today.
Exerpt:
When I turned back to Ceallach, there was no more boat. He stood alone, soaked to the waist, the heavy leather pack humped on his back, the entire Atlantic ocean spreading out behind him into haze.
We waded out, hand in hand, and then people noticed. I saw them turn and stare at the strange sight of two people, fully dressed and soaking wet, on a beautiful summer day at the beach.
The smell of the gasoline made me feel slightly nauseous. The air itself seemed too thick, heavy with vapors and scents. I caught a whiff of fried dough and hot dogs from the venders across the beach road and my stomach turned.
Ceallach was looking a bit pale, himself. We walked heavily through the sand, winding our way through beach towels and picnic blankets, trying not to step on people’s bare, upturned feet, or their discarded paperback books.
When we reached the road, Ceallach swung the pack down and leaned against the railing.
“Are you alright?” I asked him, nervously.
“Adjusting,” he said briefly. His eyes flickered over to mine, he gave a ghost of his usual smile.
“It’s awful! I never knew..."
“It’ll go away. It just takes a few days. In the meantime, we must find a payphone and call a cab.”
“We’re going to ride a taxi home?” I asked, blinking in surprise.
“How else did you think we’d get there?”
“Well, I don’t know. But…well, how are we going to pay?”
“I brought my wallet with me.”
“You did not.”
“What do you take me for, a rookie?”
“Where?”
He reached back, produced this previously unknown item from the back pocket of his soaking trousers. It was very thin and looked expensive.
“Goodness.” I took it. Inside were two credit cards and five hundred dollar bills, only slightly wet at the upper edges. “Well, aren’t we flush,” I said, handing it back.
He grinned, it made my stomach flip. “Those aren’t ill gotten gains, are they?” I asked, a bit suspicious.
“My dear child. Did you expect me to have lived in this world for two hundred years with nothing to show for it but a house? Or did you think that I went without electricity and cars because I couldn‘t afford them? I earned that, every penny.”
This move is rushing up faster and faster. It's closing like a vice around my lovely solitude. I was really hoping I'd be finished with my story before all the chaos, but I'm not sure if I will manage it or not.
This Friday we're driving down to Georgia for just two days, to find a house. We'll sign, drive home. The movers are already booked. I have to book some carpet cleaners and call the utilities.
I will do that today.
Exerpt:
When I turned back to Ceallach, there was no more boat. He stood alone, soaked to the waist, the heavy leather pack humped on his back, the entire Atlantic ocean spreading out behind him into haze.
We waded out, hand in hand, and then people noticed. I saw them turn and stare at the strange sight of two people, fully dressed and soaking wet, on a beautiful summer day at the beach.
The smell of the gasoline made me feel slightly nauseous. The air itself seemed too thick, heavy with vapors and scents. I caught a whiff of fried dough and hot dogs from the venders across the beach road and my stomach turned.
Ceallach was looking a bit pale, himself. We walked heavily through the sand, winding our way through beach towels and picnic blankets, trying not to step on people’s bare, upturned feet, or their discarded paperback books.
When we reached the road, Ceallach swung the pack down and leaned against the railing.
“Are you alright?” I asked him, nervously.
“Adjusting,” he said briefly. His eyes flickered over to mine, he gave a ghost of his usual smile.
“It’s awful! I never knew..."
“It’ll go away. It just takes a few days. In the meantime, we must find a payphone and call a cab.”
“We’re going to ride a taxi home?” I asked, blinking in surprise.
“How else did you think we’d get there?”
“Well, I don’t know. But…well, how are we going to pay?”
“I brought my wallet with me.”
“You did not.”
“What do you take me for, a rookie?”
“Where?”
He reached back, produced this previously unknown item from the back pocket of his soaking trousers. It was very thin and looked expensive.
“Goodness.” I took it. Inside were two credit cards and five hundred dollar bills, only slightly wet at the upper edges. “Well, aren’t we flush,” I said, handing it back.
He grinned, it made my stomach flip. “Those aren’t ill gotten gains, are they?” I asked, a bit suspicious.
“My dear child. Did you expect me to have lived in this world for two hundred years with nothing to show for it but a house? Or did you think that I went without electricity and cars because I couldn‘t afford them? I earned that, every penny.”
Monday, March 21, 2011
March 21st
I had a nightmare night before yesterday.
In the dream, it was as though I were simultaneously living and staring in a show. Sort of like Truman. My show/life was a horror series, staring a group of female taxi drivers who solve ghost stories, getting the crap scared out of them in the process.
So, it was a new series/night and it was my part. I was standing in this dark trailer park, on thick, dewy grass. There was a picnic table standing between two trailers, with a birthday cake on it. It had a ring of candles, they were lit. They were the only light in the place, a dim cast of light unto the rough boards of the table top.
As I watched, I saw the flames go out, one by one, about the cake. The little bit of light there went out. I turned to my left and saw candles standing in the ground. As I watched, one by the one the small, wavering flames were snuffled out.
I turned to my right and I saw candles lying on the grassy bank. I could see the candles more clearly now, they were those cheap, thin birthday candles with spirals of red and white up them. They spelled a word and the word they spelled was stillborn.
As I watched, the candles of this word began to go out, one by one. Each letter got snuffed into darkness, until there were no word and no light.
I lifted my head and saw a dark figure standing on the other side of the picnic table and all the hair on the back of my neck went up. I thought she's here.
My terror was so great that it did something I have never experienced before in a nightmare. I knew my part in my life/show, was to turn around and run wildly into the dark, back to where my compatriots were waiting, and then we would begin to solve the mystery of the ghost.
But I couldn't. My terror turned to anger. I thought, the hell with this. The hell I'm going to play my part, and run away from this ghost. I'm not giving in to this terror. She's not real.
I started walking straight toward her, taking strong, rapid strides, my back up. I had no weapon, I had no plan. My only plan was to walk straight at her. As I came on, I could see her more clearly, she didn't look frightening at all, though I knew she was dead.
She looked uncomfortable, amazed. She looked behind me, to catch the eye of the directer, with a look like, what the hell is this crazy woman doing? Then she got angry, and I saw she held two wooden handled steak knives crossed across her chest. She looked at me with a sly, evil look. I looked at her like, "Come on, come on you scanky b-tch and try it. Just try it." Then I realized I had a knife too.
I woke up. I still felt the terror all over me, especially when I thought of the word stillborn. But the most lingering impression I got from that dream was one of power.
I can't help but think that I am the most powerful right now that I have ever been. I know that sounds funny or vain, or weird to say. But I don't know how else to describe it, or what other word would work.
Keith ran with me yesterday. It turns out that I have been running three miles. Three miles. That's how far I've been running every other day, for the last two or three weeks. A part of me still doesn't believe that's even humanly possible.
But it's true. My legs are fit for the work, pared down to the task. It's like balm, to know that my body functions as I command it to in this one area. I can't control the biology of conception, but I run, non stop, for half an hour, and during that time, my lungs grow deep and my legs take on the weight. Everything works as it should.
That is a powerful feeling. But more powerful than that, is the one of creative writing. I create an entire world, and it is entirely of myself. I spin reams and reams of words out of nothing. It is as though there were so much resource within me, that I can project out of myself a thing which previously had no form.
Because of this, I get a different perspective on God creating the world, the original Creator, the One who made it possible for me to write, who created me. He made His world real, He gave it true being, self will. I see, in a new way, His breathtaking fearlessness. His power, His courage, the vastness of His resources. They boggle my mind and it causes me to throw my soul down in sheer adoration.
I have to manage my writing better though. It's taking over my whole day and has now crept up into the weekends. The only way I can write during the weekends is if I block Keith out completely and not surprisingly, he's not too fond of this. I'm not too fond of being constantly thrown out of the world I was just sitting in the midst of. Consequently, no one is happy.
My other stories weren't like this. This just crept up on me. I could put the other stories down. This one is constantly calling at me. I feel, all the time, the urge to go over what I just wrote, to pick up the threads and keep weaving it forward. But it doesn't suffer from periods of neglect, though I keep on worrying that it will.
So I have determined that I must stop working on it as soon as Keith comes home, just turn the whole computer off and not write at all on the weekends. And I'm going to have to turn back on the alarms on my phone, to remind me to get up and clean the house for an hour. Sigh.
In the meantime, I'm waiting for Keith to come home from formation and drive me to the doctor's office. I hope they don't have to take any blood.
In the dream, it was as though I were simultaneously living and staring in a show. Sort of like Truman. My show/life was a horror series, staring a group of female taxi drivers who solve ghost stories, getting the crap scared out of them in the process.
So, it was a new series/night and it was my part. I was standing in this dark trailer park, on thick, dewy grass. There was a picnic table standing between two trailers, with a birthday cake on it. It had a ring of candles, they were lit. They were the only light in the place, a dim cast of light unto the rough boards of the table top.
As I watched, I saw the flames go out, one by one, about the cake. The little bit of light there went out. I turned to my left and saw candles standing in the ground. As I watched, one by the one the small, wavering flames were snuffled out.
I turned to my right and I saw candles lying on the grassy bank. I could see the candles more clearly now, they were those cheap, thin birthday candles with spirals of red and white up them. They spelled a word and the word they spelled was stillborn.
As I watched, the candles of this word began to go out, one by one. Each letter got snuffed into darkness, until there were no word and no light.
I lifted my head and saw a dark figure standing on the other side of the picnic table and all the hair on the back of my neck went up. I thought she's here.
My terror was so great that it did something I have never experienced before in a nightmare. I knew my part in my life/show, was to turn around and run wildly into the dark, back to where my compatriots were waiting, and then we would begin to solve the mystery of the ghost.
But I couldn't. My terror turned to anger. I thought, the hell with this. The hell I'm going to play my part, and run away from this ghost. I'm not giving in to this terror. She's not real.
I started walking straight toward her, taking strong, rapid strides, my back up. I had no weapon, I had no plan. My only plan was to walk straight at her. As I came on, I could see her more clearly, she didn't look frightening at all, though I knew she was dead.
She looked uncomfortable, amazed. She looked behind me, to catch the eye of the directer, with a look like, what the hell is this crazy woman doing? Then she got angry, and I saw she held two wooden handled steak knives crossed across her chest. She looked at me with a sly, evil look. I looked at her like, "Come on, come on you scanky b-tch and try it. Just try it." Then I realized I had a knife too.
I woke up. I still felt the terror all over me, especially when I thought of the word stillborn. But the most lingering impression I got from that dream was one of power.
I can't help but think that I am the most powerful right now that I have ever been. I know that sounds funny or vain, or weird to say. But I don't know how else to describe it, or what other word would work.
Keith ran with me yesterday. It turns out that I have been running three miles. Three miles. That's how far I've been running every other day, for the last two or three weeks. A part of me still doesn't believe that's even humanly possible.
But it's true. My legs are fit for the work, pared down to the task. It's like balm, to know that my body functions as I command it to in this one area. I can't control the biology of conception, but I run, non stop, for half an hour, and during that time, my lungs grow deep and my legs take on the weight. Everything works as it should.
That is a powerful feeling. But more powerful than that, is the one of creative writing. I create an entire world, and it is entirely of myself. I spin reams and reams of words out of nothing. It is as though there were so much resource within me, that I can project out of myself a thing which previously had no form.
Because of this, I get a different perspective on God creating the world, the original Creator, the One who made it possible for me to write, who created me. He made His world real, He gave it true being, self will. I see, in a new way, His breathtaking fearlessness. His power, His courage, the vastness of His resources. They boggle my mind and it causes me to throw my soul down in sheer adoration.
I have to manage my writing better though. It's taking over my whole day and has now crept up into the weekends. The only way I can write during the weekends is if I block Keith out completely and not surprisingly, he's not too fond of this. I'm not too fond of being constantly thrown out of the world I was just sitting in the midst of. Consequently, no one is happy.
My other stories weren't like this. This just crept up on me. I could put the other stories down. This one is constantly calling at me. I feel, all the time, the urge to go over what I just wrote, to pick up the threads and keep weaving it forward. But it doesn't suffer from periods of neglect, though I keep on worrying that it will.
So I have determined that I must stop working on it as soon as Keith comes home, just turn the whole computer off and not write at all on the weekends. And I'm going to have to turn back on the alarms on my phone, to remind me to get up and clean the house for an hour. Sigh.
In the meantime, I'm waiting for Keith to come home from formation and drive me to the doctor's office. I hope they don't have to take any blood.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
March 20th
Tomorrow I go in to get the lab work done, to find out if I ovulated this month or not. I hardly felt the clomid at all, unless this time around it contributed to my general feeling of euphoria, but I pretty much blame that on jogging while listening to Pink Floyd's "Learning to Fly."
Speaking of music, last night I was driving home from dropping Keith off at a poker game. I was exhausted, my eyes were gritty, the road was dark, indistinct. All the music on the radio was crap. I started switching through the channels.
Suddenly, boom, I heard the liquid notes of a jazz guitar came dropping right out of the sky, like fat, warm drops of rain before the storm. They ran right into my skin, all the synapses in my brain flowered open. My spine sank into the seat. Oh, it was delicious.
I wasn't exhausted anymore, I was supple and loose- I was cool, cool blue and flowing up through the night. I was reminded that somewhere out there, in the dark, there existed the cities, and people lived there and were intelligent and sophisticated and went to dim coffee joints and listened to live jazz until late into the morning before dragging themselves into the office the next morning. They're the sort of people who still smoke and can make engaging conversation about Russian literature and the early blues movement.
I'm not one of them, not even close. I'll never be and that's ok by me. But boy, was I glad to be reminded of them, I hope they live forever.
Last night I decided, around four thirty, to read through my entire story. I normally don't, it takes too much time, I usually work on it within a radius of five pages or so. But I was curious.
Three and a half hours later I was twenty pages from the current, unraveled end where I have left the story hanging, loose, raw. During that time, I'd been collected string after string of thoughts and themes and ideas from earlier in the story and was drawing them up with me, up through the story, so it was like I held in my head a whole warp of thoughts that ran off into the dark.
That was the moment when Keith said, "Honey, so and so's having a poker party."
My sweet lord. That was not a good moment. All my thoughts broke, like a spider web that's been broken and the loose, gossamer threads just wave aimlessly, fall, light through the air, disconnected.
Because I love my husband immensely and it's just a story after all and he hadn't gone to a poker game in a long while, I put it all away and drove him there.
And now I don't remember anymore where the frick I was going with all those thoughts. But I did get a lot of editing done, in the process of reading the whole thing, so it wasn't a complete loss.
Speaking of music, last night I was driving home from dropping Keith off at a poker game. I was exhausted, my eyes were gritty, the road was dark, indistinct. All the music on the radio was crap. I started switching through the channels.
Suddenly, boom, I heard the liquid notes of a jazz guitar came dropping right out of the sky, like fat, warm drops of rain before the storm. They ran right into my skin, all the synapses in my brain flowered open. My spine sank into the seat. Oh, it was delicious.
I wasn't exhausted anymore, I was supple and loose- I was cool, cool blue and flowing up through the night. I was reminded that somewhere out there, in the dark, there existed the cities, and people lived there and were intelligent and sophisticated and went to dim coffee joints and listened to live jazz until late into the morning before dragging themselves into the office the next morning. They're the sort of people who still smoke and can make engaging conversation about Russian literature and the early blues movement.
I'm not one of them, not even close. I'll never be and that's ok by me. But boy, was I glad to be reminded of them, I hope they live forever.
Last night I decided, around four thirty, to read through my entire story. I normally don't, it takes too much time, I usually work on it within a radius of five pages or so. But I was curious.
Three and a half hours later I was twenty pages from the current, unraveled end where I have left the story hanging, loose, raw. During that time, I'd been collected string after string of thoughts and themes and ideas from earlier in the story and was drawing them up with me, up through the story, so it was like I held in my head a whole warp of thoughts that ran off into the dark.
That was the moment when Keith said, "Honey, so and so's having a poker party."
My sweet lord. That was not a good moment. All my thoughts broke, like a spider web that's been broken and the loose, gossamer threads just wave aimlessly, fall, light through the air, disconnected.
Because I love my husband immensely and it's just a story after all and he hadn't gone to a poker game in a long while, I put it all away and drove him there.
And now I don't remember anymore where the frick I was going with all those thoughts. But I did get a lot of editing done, in the process of reading the whole thing, so it wasn't a complete loss.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
March 19th
Because I just can't help myself:
“The doctor said you weren’t suppose to move,” I said, uncertain.
“Drinking water doesn’t qualify as moving,” he said. “Come here.”
I snuggled up against him, then lifted my head, unbuttoned the shirt.
“What you have in mind would qualify,” he said.
“Oh hush up. I want to see the bandage.”
It was still white. The bleeding must have stopped.
“Better?” he asked, watching my face.
“Yes. But I’m not letting you move, not one inch.”
“Nazi.”
“I’d forgotten all about those,” I said, wonderingly. “I wonder if I’m going to have culture shock when we get back home.”
“Ceallach?” asked Aoth, from outside the tent.
“Come."
“I found some soup,” said the boy, when he was inside. He said it to me.
I took it from him, smiled. He blushed and ducked back out through the canvas flap.
“I see you’ve charmed the page,” said Ceallach, dryly.
“Is my big, bad faerie warrior jealous of his page?”
“Paltry human. Don‘t make me stand up.”
I laughed. “Oh, the ultimate insult; calling me out on my humanity.”
I pulled the luggage out from under his feet, brought it up to his head.
“You know what you are,” he said, quietly, as I propped his head up.
“Ceallach, I love you,” I replied, kissing his mouth. “I love you, I love you, I love you. Now eat some soup.”
“Well, since you put it like that…”
He slept on and off all day. I sat beside him, dutifully going through my biology textbook. It was more than a little surreal, but it beat being bored.
****
Oh, my bloggy friends, what will I do when I finish this story? I do not know, I just do not know.
“The doctor said you weren’t suppose to move,” I said, uncertain.
“Drinking water doesn’t qualify as moving,” he said. “Come here.”
I snuggled up against him, then lifted my head, unbuttoned the shirt.
“What you have in mind would qualify,” he said.
“Oh hush up. I want to see the bandage.”
It was still white. The bleeding must have stopped.
“Better?” he asked, watching my face.
“Yes. But I’m not letting you move, not one inch.”
“Nazi.”
“I’d forgotten all about those,” I said, wonderingly. “I wonder if I’m going to have culture shock when we get back home.”
“Ceallach?” asked Aoth, from outside the tent.
“Come."
“I found some soup,” said the boy, when he was inside. He said it to me.
I took it from him, smiled. He blushed and ducked back out through the canvas flap.
“I see you’ve charmed the page,” said Ceallach, dryly.
“Is my big, bad faerie warrior jealous of his page?”
“Paltry human. Don‘t make me stand up.”
I laughed. “Oh, the ultimate insult; calling me out on my humanity.”
I pulled the luggage out from under his feet, brought it up to his head.
“You know what you are,” he said, quietly, as I propped his head up.
“Ceallach, I love you,” I replied, kissing his mouth. “I love you, I love you, I love you. Now eat some soup.”
“Well, since you put it like that…”
He slept on and off all day. I sat beside him, dutifully going through my biology textbook. It was more than a little surreal, but it beat being bored.
****
Oh, my bloggy friends, what will I do when I finish this story? I do not know, I just do not know.
Friday, March 18, 2011
March 18th
The things that have been happening in Japan are so horrific that I can't wrap my mind around it. I just keep wondering, is Takahisa alive? What happened to his family? I'll never know. It's a very strange feeling. And that's all I'm going to blog about that.
I'm running out of plot. I'm only at thirty eight thousand words and I see the end of the story ahead of me. This is not good.
I keep trying to come up with variations on my plot, things that will spin it out, and I have glimmers, but the closer I get to where they would curl off and do their thing, the less I like them.
Besides that, I am clearly writing a Harlequin Romance.
Exhibit A:
As he came swiftly back to the car, he eyed it balefully. He opened the creaking door, awkwardly folded himself in beside me. Suddenly he seemed much, much taller. There was hardly any room for his legs, his head was a bare inch from the ceiling.
“There’s a lever down there,” I said faintly, not liking the look on his face. “It’ll slide the seat back.”
He groped about between his jutting knees, found it, and was slung backwards. God help me, I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing. He glared at me, I tried to sober up, but I just couldn’t. Then the dark look on his face broke up and he grinned.
“Oh, go on, laugh then,” he said. “You’ll get yours. Wait and see.”
“Fair enough,” I said, turning the car around. “I suppose I looked rather foolish that first night already.”
“Come to think of it, you did. On your backside, kicking my door.”
“Your memory must be such a comfort to you.”
Exhibit B:
“I hadn’t planned on a Gala dinner in the Faerie Realm when I was packing,” I said, rueful.
“Dress up if you wish. I won‘t be.” He lay flat on the bed, his hands behind his head, still barefoot.
“It’s not the same for you. You’re a guy.”
“Thank you for noticing.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll wear that dress I wore this morning.”
“You will not.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Look mister. You may be all big and bad in your shiny red armor, but you are not the boss of me.”
“Is that so?” he asked, grinning.
“It is so. Ceallach, if I don’t wear that dress, I’ll have to wear jeans.”
“Well, and who cares?”
“I do. Look. Lesson number two about the female of the species… and don’t you roll your eyes at me. Looking good is very important.”
“If that was all that was necessary, you may as well not bother with any clothes at all.”
“Ceallach.”
“Well, if it means that much to you.”
“It does.”
“I guess you’re a girl after all.”
“Thank you for noticing.”
****
I don't need any more proof, right? That last is pretty conclusive. But, oh, I just can't help myself. This is the drivel that I write, when I write fiction. What can I say? I love it. I love how my characters banter. They do it all through the story and I love them for it.
I'm running out of plot. I'm only at thirty eight thousand words and I see the end of the story ahead of me. This is not good.
I keep trying to come up with variations on my plot, things that will spin it out, and I have glimmers, but the closer I get to where they would curl off and do their thing, the less I like them.
Besides that, I am clearly writing a Harlequin Romance.
Exhibit A:
As he came swiftly back to the car, he eyed it balefully. He opened the creaking door, awkwardly folded himself in beside me. Suddenly he seemed much, much taller. There was hardly any room for his legs, his head was a bare inch from the ceiling.
“There’s a lever down there,” I said faintly, not liking the look on his face. “It’ll slide the seat back.”
He groped about between his jutting knees, found it, and was slung backwards. God help me, I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing. He glared at me, I tried to sober up, but I just couldn’t. Then the dark look on his face broke up and he grinned.
“Oh, go on, laugh then,” he said. “You’ll get yours. Wait and see.”
“Fair enough,” I said, turning the car around. “I suppose I looked rather foolish that first night already.”
“Come to think of it, you did. On your backside, kicking my door.”
“Your memory must be such a comfort to you.”
Exhibit B:
“I hadn’t planned on a Gala dinner in the Faerie Realm when I was packing,” I said, rueful.
“Dress up if you wish. I won‘t be.” He lay flat on the bed, his hands behind his head, still barefoot.
“It’s not the same for you. You’re a guy.”
“Thank you for noticing.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll wear that dress I wore this morning.”
“You will not.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Look mister. You may be all big and bad in your shiny red armor, but you are not the boss of me.”
“Is that so?” he asked, grinning.
“It is so. Ceallach, if I don’t wear that dress, I’ll have to wear jeans.”
“Well, and who cares?”
“I do. Look. Lesson number two about the female of the species… and don’t you roll your eyes at me. Looking good is very important.”
“If that was all that was necessary, you may as well not bother with any clothes at all.”
“Ceallach.”
“Well, if it means that much to you.”
“It does.”
“I guess you’re a girl after all.”
“Thank you for noticing.”
****
I don't need any more proof, right? That last is pretty conclusive. But, oh, I just can't help myself. This is the drivel that I write, when I write fiction. What can I say? I love it. I love how my characters banter. They do it all through the story and I love them for it.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
March 15th
I hate this time change. I feel exhausted. When I woke up at my usual time and the clock said eight thirty, I wanted to throw my lamp at it. The hell it is eight thirty.
Excerpt:
I opened the windows in the library. They were heavy and jammed, but I slammed them up with the heel of my hand, wedged it with a book. There were no screens. At once the cold morning air poured in, with the sound of birds and faint in the distance, the sound of steady hammering.
In the desk, I found a pad of lined paper and regular fountain pens. In the shallow top drawer there were stamps, envelopes, even a book of checks with his name on it. I saw him sitting there, writing out his monthly mortgage check, licking the envelope closed, fixing the stamp, almost as though he were a normal person.
Grimly, determined, I put the pad on the desk and uncapped the pen.
“Dear Mom and Dad,” I wrote and then was stuck. Completely stuck.
"Surprise! Stephan isn't human after all, he’s a crazed faerie warrior and blacksmith,” I tried out in my head. “He is taking me to the Faerie Realm to do battle for his bloodthirsty brother who has ambitions for the throne. But don't worry, it's totally not a big deal; he's still that charming person you met at dinner.”
I tried again.
“Stephan and I are madly in love. We have run off to get married and will live in Paris. Don’t expect to hear from us, despite the obvious fact of telephones. It's just, we're going to be too wrapped up in one another to bother. For several years. We have taken a ship, I have left the car at the coast. Please come and pick it up when you can.”
I almost went with that one. But I knew they wouldn’t believe me.
“Dear Mom and Dad,” I began again. “You won’t believe a word I’m writing and that’s ok. Just when everything starts falling apart, I want you to remember this letter and get it out and reread it. I think then you might find the truth more comforting than anything else.
Excerpt:
I opened the windows in the library. They were heavy and jammed, but I slammed them up with the heel of my hand, wedged it with a book. There were no screens. At once the cold morning air poured in, with the sound of birds and faint in the distance, the sound of steady hammering.
In the desk, I found a pad of lined paper and regular fountain pens. In the shallow top drawer there were stamps, envelopes, even a book of checks with his name on it. I saw him sitting there, writing out his monthly mortgage check, licking the envelope closed, fixing the stamp, almost as though he were a normal person.
Grimly, determined, I put the pad on the desk and uncapped the pen.
“Dear Mom and Dad,” I wrote and then was stuck. Completely stuck.
"Surprise! Stephan isn't human after all, he’s a crazed faerie warrior and blacksmith,” I tried out in my head. “He is taking me to the Faerie Realm to do battle for his bloodthirsty brother who has ambitions for the throne. But don't worry, it's totally not a big deal; he's still that charming person you met at dinner.”
I tried again.
“Stephan and I are madly in love. We have run off to get married and will live in Paris. Don’t expect to hear from us, despite the obvious fact of telephones. It's just, we're going to be too wrapped up in one another to bother. For several years. We have taken a ship, I have left the car at the coast. Please come and pick it up when you can.”
I almost went with that one. But I knew they wouldn’t believe me.
“Dear Mom and Dad,” I began again. “You won’t believe a word I’m writing and that’s ok. Just when everything starts falling apart, I want you to remember this letter and get it out and reread it. I think then you might find the truth more comforting than anything else.
Monday, March 14, 2011
March 14th
I was just sitting there, trying not to watch the Forty Year Old Virgin that was mindlessly playing on the TV, when my two year old niece, a bright, very busy little girl, came up to the couch and smiled at me. I smiled at her.
She climbed up, sat down beside me and put her head on my shoulder. Two minutes later she was asleep. Just like that. If a unicorn had come out of the wild woods to sleep in my lap, I couldn't have been more enchanted.
"Awwww! Look at that," exclaimed various brothers and sisters in law.
"Awwww," said my husband, looking up. "I'm not surprised, she's very comfortable. I like to sleep there myself."
We were all gathered to celebrate Keith's Mom's birthday yesterday. It was fun. I can't get over how different a person I am now. I laugh all the time. I talk easily. I'm frequently funny.
It's not so much that I'm bizarrely different. It's the opposite; it's like I'm more truly myself than I've ever been before.
At dinner, my ten year old niece had cut all the fat out of her steak and my mother in law was telling her how all the flavor was in it. She made a face of disgust. I looked at my niece, an awkward and frequently sullen child with pale, limp hair and a face just beginning to lose the milky innocent quality of childhood. Then I met her eyes and held her gaze, though the sheer power of the grace inside me.
"When I was your age," I told her, smiling, "I hated the fat too. I spent hours cutting off every tiny piece of it. Now, however, I eat it." I leaned forward, my eyes sparkling. "It's delicious," I told her, as it were it a great and marvelous secret.
I wasn't talking about the steak, of course. I was talking about life. I hope she heard me. I think so, because a great light came up over her face and then she looked down, smiling a secret smile.
Hold on, I wanted to tell her, hold on and don't be afraid. You'll grow up beautifully in the end. There's so much hidden joy and so very little to be afraid of.
I was right about my plot. It revealed itself as I went forward. I haven't been able to write for the last two days and so my story is all backed up in my head, restless and heavy in there. This is going to be a much better story than the previous one, and much, much more challenging. But I love it, I love it even more than the last. It's intoxicating.
Writing is like standing on a shore of words, a great chaos of words. I cast my line in and I pull out something that's alive, that wriggles on the hook. I do this hour after hour after hour, sitting at the computer with the sun on my face and Pandora pouring out seamless music.
I take the private vision, I take the thing I desire the most, my own private world, and I draw it out. I draw it out like a magician pulling an endless handkerchief from his sleeve, line by line. I cloth the naked vision in language, I secure it with words. The vision lives outside of me then, bright and glittering with the sharp edges of its new definition.
I want to be an author so badly. I can't deny it. I want to be professional, I want to be published, I want to be prolific. I don't care if I'm not famous, I don't care if I never see the Time's Best Seller list, so long as I have a little group of people who love me for letting them into my world.
That's what I want. I want my words to speak to someone else, to teach them something I could never have guessed when I wrote the words down. I want my words to live outside of myself. And I'm going to work at this and work at this until I make it happen.
If I have to go to college to make this happen, then damn it, I'll even go to college.
She climbed up, sat down beside me and put her head on my shoulder. Two minutes later she was asleep. Just like that. If a unicorn had come out of the wild woods to sleep in my lap, I couldn't have been more enchanted.
"Awwww! Look at that," exclaimed various brothers and sisters in law.
"Awwww," said my husband, looking up. "I'm not surprised, she's very comfortable. I like to sleep there myself."
We were all gathered to celebrate Keith's Mom's birthday yesterday. It was fun. I can't get over how different a person I am now. I laugh all the time. I talk easily. I'm frequently funny.
It's not so much that I'm bizarrely different. It's the opposite; it's like I'm more truly myself than I've ever been before.
At dinner, my ten year old niece had cut all the fat out of her steak and my mother in law was telling her how all the flavor was in it. She made a face of disgust. I looked at my niece, an awkward and frequently sullen child with pale, limp hair and a face just beginning to lose the milky innocent quality of childhood. Then I met her eyes and held her gaze, though the sheer power of the grace inside me.
"When I was your age," I told her, smiling, "I hated the fat too. I spent hours cutting off every tiny piece of it. Now, however, I eat it." I leaned forward, my eyes sparkling. "It's delicious," I told her, as it were it a great and marvelous secret.
I wasn't talking about the steak, of course. I was talking about life. I hope she heard me. I think so, because a great light came up over her face and then she looked down, smiling a secret smile.
Hold on, I wanted to tell her, hold on and don't be afraid. You'll grow up beautifully in the end. There's so much hidden joy and so very little to be afraid of.
I was right about my plot. It revealed itself as I went forward. I haven't been able to write for the last two days and so my story is all backed up in my head, restless and heavy in there. This is going to be a much better story than the previous one, and much, much more challenging. But I love it, I love it even more than the last. It's intoxicating.
Writing is like standing on a shore of words, a great chaos of words. I cast my line in and I pull out something that's alive, that wriggles on the hook. I do this hour after hour after hour, sitting at the computer with the sun on my face and Pandora pouring out seamless music.
I take the private vision, I take the thing I desire the most, my own private world, and I draw it out. I draw it out like a magician pulling an endless handkerchief from his sleeve, line by line. I cloth the naked vision in language, I secure it with words. The vision lives outside of me then, bright and glittering with the sharp edges of its new definition.
I want to be an author so badly. I can't deny it. I want to be professional, I want to be published, I want to be prolific. I don't care if I'm not famous, I don't care if I never see the Time's Best Seller list, so long as I have a little group of people who love me for letting them into my world.
That's what I want. I want my words to speak to someone else, to teach them something I could never have guessed when I wrote the words down. I want my words to live outside of myself. And I'm going to work at this and work at this until I make it happen.
If I have to go to college to make this happen, then damn it, I'll even go to college.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
March 12th
My poor readers. I apologize. When I log on and see that you're all still reading, my heart warms and then I get guilt stricken for feeding you boring material.
But what can I do? I don't even want to make up a different life, I'm so in love with the one I'm actually living right now. I hardly even think about the chances of getting pregnant either. It's just not on my mind. In fact, if I were to give you the brutal truth, I'm thinking that a baby would be a large nuisance at the moment.
How cold is that? Of course, if I happen to get pregnant, such thoughts will fly away like chaff. And then, probably, they'll come back to roost and make me feel guilty. Because, it's true, they are, they're no end of lack of sleep and distruption and fuss. What's more, they frequently make some god awful smells.
Still, though, if one came along, you know. I'd make do. *grin*
Today Keith is going riding and while the Keith is away, the kitten will work on her story. Right now he's stomping around in dirty boots, restless and bored, riling up the dogs, waiting for his fellow rider to arrive and interrupting my train of thought.
I think I'm writing up through the layers of my ego state. The peasant girl was very young, fifteen, and hardly able to talk, powerless. Even at the end of the story, she can't talk without blushing, or stammering, and despite her triumph, she's still defined by her humility. She's frequently horrified or overwhelmed. But she's steady and loyal and has a lot of common sense.
In my new story, the character is twenty and boy is she articulate. She's far more clever than I am, she says things right off the bat that I could never actually find on the tip of my own tongue. Not to mention, she's in college, with her own tiny studio apartment and used car. She can hold her own, even if she is still shy and gauche, a bookworm with messy hair.
Also, my language loosened right up in this story. I shook off the stiff, formal phrases of the faerie tale for a far more limber and contemporary voice.
It still doesn't have a plot, but I'm trying an experiement. I think that the plot will reveal itself as I write. I just have this hunch. I could be wrong, I could be just leading this pointless, meandering story around in circles, only to peter out. But I'm going to try it and see.
But what can I do? I don't even want to make up a different life, I'm so in love with the one I'm actually living right now. I hardly even think about the chances of getting pregnant either. It's just not on my mind. In fact, if I were to give you the brutal truth, I'm thinking that a baby would be a large nuisance at the moment.
How cold is that? Of course, if I happen to get pregnant, such thoughts will fly away like chaff. And then, probably, they'll come back to roost and make me feel guilty. Because, it's true, they are, they're no end of lack of sleep and distruption and fuss. What's more, they frequently make some god awful smells.
Still, though, if one came along, you know. I'd make do. *grin*
Today Keith is going riding and while the Keith is away, the kitten will work on her story. Right now he's stomping around in dirty boots, restless and bored, riling up the dogs, waiting for his fellow rider to arrive and interrupting my train of thought.
I think I'm writing up through the layers of my ego state. The peasant girl was very young, fifteen, and hardly able to talk, powerless. Even at the end of the story, she can't talk without blushing, or stammering, and despite her triumph, she's still defined by her humility. She's frequently horrified or overwhelmed. But she's steady and loyal and has a lot of common sense.
In my new story, the character is twenty and boy is she articulate. She's far more clever than I am, she says things right off the bat that I could never actually find on the tip of my own tongue. Not to mention, she's in college, with her own tiny studio apartment and used car. She can hold her own, even if she is still shy and gauche, a bookworm with messy hair.
Also, my language loosened right up in this story. I shook off the stiff, formal phrases of the faerie tale for a far more limber and contemporary voice.
It still doesn't have a plot, but I'm trying an experiement. I think that the plot will reveal itself as I write. I just have this hunch. I could be wrong, I could be just leading this pointless, meandering story around in circles, only to peter out. But I'm going to try it and see.
Friday, March 11, 2011
March 11th
I was all distracted and, hello, irritated yesterday, without anything to work on. I started to wonder if maybe that was the best I could do, maybe I didn't have anything more in me to write out and I've just been a fool about the whole thing, going on and on about my writing and all it's all childish crap anyway and no good.
And I thought ha! Serves you right, bragging on about your writing, of course it's no good. It's terrible. It'll never go anywhere, it'll just peter out.
It just felt so weird not having anything to work on, no goal, no bright vision pulling me forward.
As an aside, I just have to say that coming in from jogging, hitting that last, long stretch with rubbery legs and warm, liquid lungs and thinking I can't do it, and then hearing Daft Punk's "One More Time" kick in all though my head was one of the most pleasurable moments of my life.
I felt like Rocky Balboa. I was drunk on endorphins and ran right down the middle of the road and almost got run over by what was undoubtedly a very irritated neighbor. Must remember to stay on the side of the road.
I scrapped the idea of expanding the old story and started in on the new and as soon as I did, everything clicked into place. The story shimmers with life. I more than doubled it last night, and now all is well. I am a writer after all.
And I thought ha! Serves you right, bragging on about your writing, of course it's no good. It's terrible. It'll never go anywhere, it'll just peter out.
It just felt so weird not having anything to work on, no goal, no bright vision pulling me forward.
As an aside, I just have to say that coming in from jogging, hitting that last, long stretch with rubbery legs and warm, liquid lungs and thinking I can't do it, and then hearing Daft Punk's "One More Time" kick in all though my head was one of the most pleasurable moments of my life.
I felt like Rocky Balboa. I was drunk on endorphins and ran right down the middle of the road and almost got run over by what was undoubtedly a very irritated neighbor. Must remember to stay on the side of the road.
I scrapped the idea of expanding the old story and started in on the new and as soon as I did, everything clicked into place. The story shimmers with life. I more than doubled it last night, and now all is well. I am a writer after all.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
March 10th
Yesterday I took a slight breather from writing and focused on the house instead, because, let's face it, the poor thing was looking more than shabby.
Then I reread the story and kept smoothing out little loose ends that I think no one else will notice, like why is her hair in a braid in this scene? When did that happen?
So I have the entire first draft written out, beginning to end, and everything in between is up to speed, at least as far as I can see at this point. The straw house came out brilliantly, if I do say so myself, exactly as it should be.
It's so funny. I tell you what, if you yourself write and you periodically get to points where you think, "This sucks." I'm telling you, pay that no mind. Ignore it, put a little bookmark in the section and move right on.
I had no idea how much the ending would inform the middle; there were things I couldn't see clearly until I'd gotten way, way past that point and then suddenly, bang! I knew, and could go back and redo it.
And there is no way, there is just no way on God's green earth that you can capture everything the way you want it, in the first writing of it. It's impossible, simply and completely impossible.
In fact, it's perfectly acceptable to briefly sketch out a section like "Insert description here" and then move on and not bother with description just then.
Maybe these are the things I would have learned in a creative writing class, if I'd ever gone. My therapist keeps getting after me to go to college, she thinks I'll go when my children get older. She'd make a bet, if she was a betting woman.
I don't know, I don't care. All I want to do is write. (And, sooner or later, raise a few children.)
To that end, I have been thinking a great deal about what I will tackle next and I am torn between taking on the Sephiroth story or making a book two of the rosemary faerie tale. I am woefully uninformed about either choice, since I have at this point, no idea what I would be writing them about.
The faerie tale is exactly half what it should be in terms of word count, it sits at just 40,000 words, or a little over a hundred pages. I need twice that to get to the lowest typical word count for a novel, 80,000 words.
So, I'm thinking, why not take another faerie tale, deconstruct it if necessary, and bend it to my needs for the second half the Rosemary story. After all, I've left strings dangling, I couldn't see how else not. But now I kind of want to know- what happens to the Princess? Does the King try and get some revenge for the failure of his plans and his daughter's humiliation? Did the Magus die? I leave all these things unclear.
Answering them cannot be the point of the second story, those things must be answered as the second story unfolds with its own, wider purpose.
Or I could leave the story pretty much as it is, and move on. I'm going to be doing some brainstorming today, trying to figure out in which direction to go. I could work on both ideas for a little while and see which one takes hold.
Then I reread the story and kept smoothing out little loose ends that I think no one else will notice, like why is her hair in a braid in this scene? When did that happen?
So I have the entire first draft written out, beginning to end, and everything in between is up to speed, at least as far as I can see at this point. The straw house came out brilliantly, if I do say so myself, exactly as it should be.
It's so funny. I tell you what, if you yourself write and you periodically get to points where you think, "This sucks." I'm telling you, pay that no mind. Ignore it, put a little bookmark in the section and move right on.
I had no idea how much the ending would inform the middle; there were things I couldn't see clearly until I'd gotten way, way past that point and then suddenly, bang! I knew, and could go back and redo it.
And there is no way, there is just no way on God's green earth that you can capture everything the way you want it, in the first writing of it. It's impossible, simply and completely impossible.
In fact, it's perfectly acceptable to briefly sketch out a section like "Insert description here" and then move on and not bother with description just then.
Maybe these are the things I would have learned in a creative writing class, if I'd ever gone. My therapist keeps getting after me to go to college, she thinks I'll go when my children get older. She'd make a bet, if she was a betting woman.
I don't know, I don't care. All I want to do is write. (And, sooner or later, raise a few children.)
To that end, I have been thinking a great deal about what I will tackle next and I am torn between taking on the Sephiroth story or making a book two of the rosemary faerie tale. I am woefully uninformed about either choice, since I have at this point, no idea what I would be writing them about.
The faerie tale is exactly half what it should be in terms of word count, it sits at just 40,000 words, or a little over a hundred pages. I need twice that to get to the lowest typical word count for a novel, 80,000 words.
So, I'm thinking, why not take another faerie tale, deconstruct it if necessary, and bend it to my needs for the second half the Rosemary story. After all, I've left strings dangling, I couldn't see how else not. But now I kind of want to know- what happens to the Princess? Does the King try and get some revenge for the failure of his plans and his daughter's humiliation? Did the Magus die? I leave all these things unclear.
Answering them cannot be the point of the second story, those things must be answered as the second story unfolds with its own, wider purpose.
Or I could leave the story pretty much as it is, and move on. I'm going to be doing some brainstorming today, trying to figure out in which direction to go. I could work on both ideas for a little while and see which one takes hold.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
March 8th
Last night, as I was fixing a taco dinner, in order to make my husband's Monday not so bad after all, I got this text from my brother Scot.
hey jenny that fragment at the end of your blog, was it a story or real life?
At first, I didn't understand the question, because besides trying to shave some cool, slippery lettuce, I felt this huge rush of fondness for my brother Scotty and texted back to him that I loved that he read my blog.
pshhhhh yeah i do, was his brotherly reply. now answer my question please ^^ It sounded so real i wasn't sure and I was like YOU MET SEPHIROTH IN REAL LIFE!?
There is no word for the delight that ran like fire through my veins at hearing this. It was glee, it was joy, it was darling.
Only my brother Scotty would think such a thing, only my brothers would know, they that played the game with me, that know that I even owned, at one time, a plastic figurine of the character. (That then got thrown out or donated during one of my frequent, religiously driven purges. I lost the tape cassette soundtrack of "The Lion King" in the same way. So sad.)
There is just something so thrilling when someone else sees something in the exact way that you yourself do. Not to mention the fact that it was a great compliment to my writing, that he thought, even for a moment, that it could have been real, that I could have bumped into some eccentric, clever man with ridiculously long silver hair in the Peterborough Library years ago, and told no one until today.
I finished my story last night. The very end of the story took me two days to nail down properly, I kept going off on these little tangents that weren't, in fact, ending up where they needed to go.
But when I finally wrote the last line, it came down like thunder, it reverberated all through me. Oh, my lovely avatars, my simulacrums! How I love them, for dancing to my tune and playing all my parts, the bitter and the sweet.
This won't be the best story I'll write. I feel others in me, they glint in the distances like the snows of Kilimanjaro. I have my eye on their slopes, I am packing the rope, the ice picks.
But no story will mean as much to me as the one I just finished. It was a pathway through to a completely different way of writing and it released all those ghosts trapped for years in side their snow globe, beating against the glass like moths.
I could not sleep last night, I tossed and turned for hours. My imagination flows like a stream of running water all through me. It belongs to me, it sets me apart from others. I am entirely and beautifully myself.
That's what my writing has taught me.
You know what I love about marriage? That moment at night when Keith comes to the bed, where I am already demurely reading, having hogged all the pillows. He comes, he pulls his shirt off and throws it carelessly to the floor, where it will lie until I pick it up the next morning.
The lamplight gleams on the skin of his rounded, heavy shoulder muscles, the side of his throat, his cheekbone. He leans forward and arrogantly throws the covers back, almost all the way to the foot of the bed, revealing the smooth, worn sheet below. And he looks at me then, one swift glance of his eyes and I think with a sudden thrill, that this man has every intention of sleeping in my bed and I had better put my book down and surrender his pillow.
hey jenny that fragment at the end of your blog, was it a story or real life?
At first, I didn't understand the question, because besides trying to shave some cool, slippery lettuce, I felt this huge rush of fondness for my brother Scotty and texted back to him that I loved that he read my blog.
pshhhhh yeah i do, was his brotherly reply. now answer my question please ^^ It sounded so real i wasn't sure and I was like YOU MET SEPHIROTH IN REAL LIFE!?
There is no word for the delight that ran like fire through my veins at hearing this. It was glee, it was joy, it was darling.
Only my brother Scotty would think such a thing, only my brothers would know, they that played the game with me, that know that I even owned, at one time, a plastic figurine of the character. (That then got thrown out or donated during one of my frequent, religiously driven purges. I lost the tape cassette soundtrack of "The Lion King" in the same way. So sad.)
There is just something so thrilling when someone else sees something in the exact way that you yourself do. Not to mention the fact that it was a great compliment to my writing, that he thought, even for a moment, that it could have been real, that I could have bumped into some eccentric, clever man with ridiculously long silver hair in the Peterborough Library years ago, and told no one until today.
I finished my story last night. The very end of the story took me two days to nail down properly, I kept going off on these little tangents that weren't, in fact, ending up where they needed to go.
But when I finally wrote the last line, it came down like thunder, it reverberated all through me. Oh, my lovely avatars, my simulacrums! How I love them, for dancing to my tune and playing all my parts, the bitter and the sweet.
This won't be the best story I'll write. I feel others in me, they glint in the distances like the snows of Kilimanjaro. I have my eye on their slopes, I am packing the rope, the ice picks.
But no story will mean as much to me as the one I just finished. It was a pathway through to a completely different way of writing and it released all those ghosts trapped for years in side their snow globe, beating against the glass like moths.
I could not sleep last night, I tossed and turned for hours. My imagination flows like a stream of running water all through me. It belongs to me, it sets me apart from others. I am entirely and beautifully myself.
That's what my writing has taught me.
You know what I love about marriage? That moment at night when Keith comes to the bed, where I am already demurely reading, having hogged all the pillows. He comes, he pulls his shirt off and throws it carelessly to the floor, where it will lie until I pick it up the next morning.
The lamplight gleams on the skin of his rounded, heavy shoulder muscles, the side of his throat, his cheekbone. He leans forward and arrogantly throws the covers back, almost all the way to the foot of the bed, revealing the smooth, worn sheet below. And he looks at me then, one swift glance of his eyes and I think with a sudden thrill, that this man has every intention of sleeping in my bed and I had better put my book down and surrender his pillow.
Monday, March 7, 2011
March 7th
I should make clear that we didn't actually buy the key board, by the way.
I woke up this morning, got out of bed and felt sickeningly dizzy. I think the clomid is finally kicking in.
Then I went downstairs and was shocked to see that I hadn't washed last night's dishes. That is not like me. Furthermore, I couldn't even remember how I forgot- I couldn't bring to mind the whole sequence of the night before, the point at which I was like, ok, I'm good, heading up to bed now.
I've been on this kick lately where all I've done is reread old books. It's been close to six months since I've had any new reading material. The strange thing is, those books I'm rereading are more alive to me now than they ever were before.
I've never seen the writing so clearly. I see the world the book is creating, and I love it. It's my own world. But, I also see how the author is structuring her paragraphs, how many she uses for descriptions, the words she uses to evoke an entire feeling. I keep switching my focus in and out of the story.
And by the way, never has Maxim de Winter ever appeared so attractive to me. Oh my sweet lord. I think probably because he reminds me vividly of our man in Magic. I suppose because both of them are much older men who had the worst luck to fall in love with girls that hadn't finished growing up yet and then botched things royally by having good intentions but no clue.
Speaking of which, I've straightened out the ending sequence and I am now mere paragraphs away from being completely finished, in terms of beginning and ending. The middle still needs a fair amount of editing and filling in.
But in a few paragraphs, my characters will live no more. I will be able to reread the story and they'll leap back up into life once again, but the creative process of bringing them to life, with its feeling of limitless possibility, has ended. They were finite after all; they have run their course.
They don't go quiet into that dark night, no, they live on vividly in my mind, playing their parts, ad libing, perfecting, going off on tangents. They seem full of life yet, glowing with possibility, and I have been listening with half an ear.
Half an ear, because I already have another story that I keep toying with. It lacks only a plot. But, oh, how the characters do spark, the best of their type. I have several, distinct character types that are integral to my imagination, and the Sephiroth character is one of them.
Yes, by the way. For those of you who might have played Final Fantasy II, I do mean the character from that game. In order to put the following in context, you will have to remember that when I was playing that game, I was twenty years old, in a miserable marriage, having only recently ruined my entire idea of myself and the world. I was sitting amid the wreckage.
I assumed that Sephiroth was a character that I could play. And oh, did I want him on my team. I played half the game away before I realized, after a fair amount of slaughter on his part, that he was, in point of fact, the ultimate foe, and not ever going to be on my team.
I almost didn't finish the game. And I adopted Sephiroth as my own. Over the next ten plus years, he evolved, leaving behind the character of the game and taking on those aspects that I wanted him to have. I wrote over half a dozen short stories that feature the character.
Only two of those stories are any good at all, one is Taxi Fair and that doesn't have the possibility of opening up any wider. The other has no title. I rewrote it as I copied it out of my old lap top and was deeply intrigued. Where on earth was I thinking of going with that story? I don't think I had any idea at the time.
Now I want to try and answer it again, if I can. The characters in that story are so alive already, nuanced already and they have undeniable chemistry together. The story is set in the present, which I wouldn' tmind trying to tackle. Against the modern world, even the smallest amount of Faerie can be stunning.
Doesn't the following just pull at you? It pulls at me.
I thought that would be the end of it, something interesting to tell my friends around coffee. But it was only the first chapter in something longer, and stranger.
I was in the library, studying at the wooden table in the Reference section when a person walked by. Something in the lithe, almost arrogant stride snagged my attention. I looked up from my papers.
The man was slender and tall, wearing a thick, worn leather coat over cord trousers, brown leather boots to his knee. His hair was silver gray, long and pulled back from his face in a braid.
I heard the tenor of his voice as he spoke quietly to the librarian and I knew then that it must be him. The librarian rose deferentially and walked away from the desk to fetch something in the room beyond. The man turned from the desk, idly looking over the books on a nearby shelf.
His face, in that strong light, was pale and finely chiseled, terribly masculine in its strength and arrogance. Under the bright florescent lights his eyes were dark, shadowed. His gray hair belied his age; he could not have been more than forty.
I must have been staring, for he looked up at me. His smile was at once unexpected, and slightly roguish. It caught me off guard.
“Well, if it isn’t the misplaced baby sitter,” he said quietly, respecting the universal rule of the library.
“Well, if it isn’t the eccentric New England Heathcliff,” I quipped, before I could stop myself.
His smile deepened. He slipped himself gracefully into the empty chair beside mine. “How does your car fare these days?” he asked, his eyes on my face.
“Not so bad. I had to change the oil recently.”
“No fault of mine, I hope,” he said.
“If it was…?”
“Well, we’d have to come to some kind of terms,” he said easily. “What would you like from me?”
“Your name, to start with.”
I have a hundred things to do today, stuff I've been putting of. I must go grocery shop, do the laundry, clean the bathrooms. Off I go.
I woke up this morning, got out of bed and felt sickeningly dizzy. I think the clomid is finally kicking in.
Then I went downstairs and was shocked to see that I hadn't washed last night's dishes. That is not like me. Furthermore, I couldn't even remember how I forgot- I couldn't bring to mind the whole sequence of the night before, the point at which I was like, ok, I'm good, heading up to bed now.
I've been on this kick lately where all I've done is reread old books. It's been close to six months since I've had any new reading material. The strange thing is, those books I'm rereading are more alive to me now than they ever were before.
I've never seen the writing so clearly. I see the world the book is creating, and I love it. It's my own world. But, I also see how the author is structuring her paragraphs, how many she uses for descriptions, the words she uses to evoke an entire feeling. I keep switching my focus in and out of the story.
And by the way, never has Maxim de Winter ever appeared so attractive to me. Oh my sweet lord. I think probably because he reminds me vividly of our man in Magic. I suppose because both of them are much older men who had the worst luck to fall in love with girls that hadn't finished growing up yet and then botched things royally by having good intentions but no clue.
Speaking of which, I've straightened out the ending sequence and I am now mere paragraphs away from being completely finished, in terms of beginning and ending. The middle still needs a fair amount of editing and filling in.
But in a few paragraphs, my characters will live no more. I will be able to reread the story and they'll leap back up into life once again, but the creative process of bringing them to life, with its feeling of limitless possibility, has ended. They were finite after all; they have run their course.
They don't go quiet into that dark night, no, they live on vividly in my mind, playing their parts, ad libing, perfecting, going off on tangents. They seem full of life yet, glowing with possibility, and I have been listening with half an ear.
Half an ear, because I already have another story that I keep toying with. It lacks only a plot. But, oh, how the characters do spark, the best of their type. I have several, distinct character types that are integral to my imagination, and the Sephiroth character is one of them.
Yes, by the way. For those of you who might have played Final Fantasy II, I do mean the character from that game. In order to put the following in context, you will have to remember that when I was playing that game, I was twenty years old, in a miserable marriage, having only recently ruined my entire idea of myself and the world. I was sitting amid the wreckage.
I assumed that Sephiroth was a character that I could play. And oh, did I want him on my team. I played half the game away before I realized, after a fair amount of slaughter on his part, that he was, in point of fact, the ultimate foe, and not ever going to be on my team.
I almost didn't finish the game. And I adopted Sephiroth as my own. Over the next ten plus years, he evolved, leaving behind the character of the game and taking on those aspects that I wanted him to have. I wrote over half a dozen short stories that feature the character.
Only two of those stories are any good at all, one is Taxi Fair and that doesn't have the possibility of opening up any wider. The other has no title. I rewrote it as I copied it out of my old lap top and was deeply intrigued. Where on earth was I thinking of going with that story? I don't think I had any idea at the time.
Now I want to try and answer it again, if I can. The characters in that story are so alive already, nuanced already and they have undeniable chemistry together. The story is set in the present, which I wouldn' tmind trying to tackle. Against the modern world, even the smallest amount of Faerie can be stunning.
Doesn't the following just pull at you? It pulls at me.
I thought that would be the end of it, something interesting to tell my friends around coffee. But it was only the first chapter in something longer, and stranger.
I was in the library, studying at the wooden table in the Reference section when a person walked by. Something in the lithe, almost arrogant stride snagged my attention. I looked up from my papers.
The man was slender and tall, wearing a thick, worn leather coat over cord trousers, brown leather boots to his knee. His hair was silver gray, long and pulled back from his face in a braid.
I heard the tenor of his voice as he spoke quietly to the librarian and I knew then that it must be him. The librarian rose deferentially and walked away from the desk to fetch something in the room beyond. The man turned from the desk, idly looking over the books on a nearby shelf.
His face, in that strong light, was pale and finely chiseled, terribly masculine in its strength and arrogance. Under the bright florescent lights his eyes were dark, shadowed. His gray hair belied his age; he could not have been more than forty.
I must have been staring, for he looked up at me. His smile was at once unexpected, and slightly roguish. It caught me off guard.
“Well, if it isn’t the misplaced baby sitter,” he said quietly, respecting the universal rule of the library.
“Well, if it isn’t the eccentric New England Heathcliff,” I quipped, before I could stop myself.
His smile deepened. He slipped himself gracefully into the empty chair beside mine. “How does your car fare these days?” he asked, his eyes on my face.
“Not so bad. I had to change the oil recently.”
“No fault of mine, I hope,” he said.
“If it was…?”
“Well, we’d have to come to some kind of terms,” he said easily. “What would you like from me?”
“Your name, to start with.”
I have a hundred things to do today, stuff I've been putting of. I must go grocery shop, do the laundry, clean the bathrooms. Off I go.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
March 6th
Well, we should have known better, but we went to Best Buy again, the scene of battle titanic over 60 inches of overpriced technology.
This time we found a perfectly priced MP3 player for me, along with arm band and were heading to the cashier when Keith stopped, his eye caught by some keyboards.
"Ours is getting a little worn out," he said. "What do you think of this one?"
I tried it, I liked it. I looked at the sticker price. It was a hundred dollars.
Cue epic battle number two.
"Keith," I said, enunciating carefully, "It is a key board. For a hundred dollars."
"Yeah, but it's cool, it lights up in the dark."
"Listen to me," I said, desperate. "It's a keyboard for a hundred dollars. One hundred dollars."
"No it's not, it's ninety nine dollars."
That store is not for the faint of heart.
Then we got home and I went jogging with music and it was a revelation. Don't try jogging without music, it's hardly worth doing. The joy, the deep, abiding joy of ripping into the steep hillside at the end of my run, with Nickelback's heart pounding back beat and harsh, gravely voiced lyrics throbing in my head was something else indeed.
I think I've figured out my story. I see how it should end, and it makes me sad. Though it's a happy ending, of course. I heard this line and I thought, it's the last line.
"I remember you dreamed once of flying, didn't you? If you like, I can teach you how to do that in waking life."
(Um...yes please?)
Or something like that. Without the parenthetical comment, naturally.
This time we found a perfectly priced MP3 player for me, along with arm band and were heading to the cashier when Keith stopped, his eye caught by some keyboards.
"Ours is getting a little worn out," he said. "What do you think of this one?"
I tried it, I liked it. I looked at the sticker price. It was a hundred dollars.
Cue epic battle number two.
"Keith," I said, enunciating carefully, "It is a key board. For a hundred dollars."
"Yeah, but it's cool, it lights up in the dark."
"Listen to me," I said, desperate. "It's a keyboard for a hundred dollars. One hundred dollars."
"No it's not, it's ninety nine dollars."
That store is not for the faint of heart.
Then we got home and I went jogging with music and it was a revelation. Don't try jogging without music, it's hardly worth doing. The joy, the deep, abiding joy of ripping into the steep hillside at the end of my run, with Nickelback's heart pounding back beat and harsh, gravely voiced lyrics throbing in my head was something else indeed.
I think I've figured out my story. I see how it should end, and it makes me sad. Though it's a happy ending, of course. I heard this line and I thought, it's the last line.
"I remember you dreamed once of flying, didn't you? If you like, I can teach you how to do that in waking life."
(Um...yes please?)
Or something like that. Without the parenthetical comment, naturally.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
March 5th
I feel bad about constantly blogging about my writing.
I can't help but think that it must be boring, but I just have to blog about it. For one thing, it's the thing that I'm wrestling with the most, and that's always what I blog about. And for another, seeing as I don't have a writer's group to go to, I use the blog as a kind of silent board against which I can throw ideas.
I do this mostly in my head actually. Ninety percent of the blogs I think about posting never get written, but they still help.
I'm at the end of the story. It's like any of the books that were so good I had to devour them. It's like sitting up til one in the morning, propping your eyelids up with toothpicks to keep reading and then you finish and you are bereft.
And I'm stuck about how to wrap up the ending.
Here's the problem.
In the faerie tale, the king has taken the magician's memory, right? Well, how did he do that? I see only two possibilities. Either the king himself is a magician, or the king has in his service a magician of equal or similar power to ours.
I picked the later option, mostly because a king who is also a mage just seems too formidable and beast to write about besides.
So there's now two magicians in the story.
In the faerie tale, all it says is that the girl comes, touches our magician with rosemary and then they go back to her house.
That is not helpful. Not in the least. It just doesn't translate well:
Does Evil Magician try and stop her?
Logical.
Does he know she is there?
Raises more questions than it answers.
Does our magician stay and fight right then and there?
Problematic. (How does he win against his enemy and the King's Guard, right after coming out of a powerful spell himself and with his tower broken?)
Does he hot foot back to his own territory?
Cowardly or good strategy?
Do they fight sometime during the flight?
Probable.
Does he raise the tower first and then fight, or fight and then raise the tower?
Problems either way.
Or does he not fight at all and I just leave that string dangling, a perpetual rivalry that never comes to its head?
Oh so tempting.
I don't like fight scenes, they're remarkably hard to do, especially when it's magic. It just comes out so silly, to my mind. Magic is best when it's half hidden, almost completely unexplained and coming out of no where. I like it best when it's tied up in nature and when it makes vivid, beautiful images for one moment, and then it's gone and you wonder if you saw it or not.
That's not the kind of magic you fight with, I think. Isn't it?
The fact of the matter is, my imagination has temporarily left me high and dry right at the end of the story, so now I am stuck with only whirling bits of hackneyed ideas. I want my story to be seamless, I want it logical, both in emotion and in action, and I want it as simple as possible.
I just don't know how I'm going to make it that way.
Bugger.
I can't help but think that it must be boring, but I just have to blog about it. For one thing, it's the thing that I'm wrestling with the most, and that's always what I blog about. And for another, seeing as I don't have a writer's group to go to, I use the blog as a kind of silent board against which I can throw ideas.
I do this mostly in my head actually. Ninety percent of the blogs I think about posting never get written, but they still help.
I'm at the end of the story. It's like any of the books that were so good I had to devour them. It's like sitting up til one in the morning, propping your eyelids up with toothpicks to keep reading and then you finish and you are bereft.
And I'm stuck about how to wrap up the ending.
Here's the problem.
In the faerie tale, the king has taken the magician's memory, right? Well, how did he do that? I see only two possibilities. Either the king himself is a magician, or the king has in his service a magician of equal or similar power to ours.
I picked the later option, mostly because a king who is also a mage just seems too formidable and beast to write about besides.
So there's now two magicians in the story.
In the faerie tale, all it says is that the girl comes, touches our magician with rosemary and then they go back to her house.
That is not helpful. Not in the least. It just doesn't translate well:
Does Evil Magician try and stop her?
Logical.
Does he know she is there?
Raises more questions than it answers.
Does our magician stay and fight right then and there?
Problematic. (How does he win against his enemy and the King's Guard, right after coming out of a powerful spell himself and with his tower broken?)
Does he hot foot back to his own territory?
Cowardly or good strategy?
Do they fight sometime during the flight?
Probable.
Does he raise the tower first and then fight, or fight and then raise the tower?
Problems either way.
Or does he not fight at all and I just leave that string dangling, a perpetual rivalry that never comes to its head?
Oh so tempting.
I don't like fight scenes, they're remarkably hard to do, especially when it's magic. It just comes out so silly, to my mind. Magic is best when it's half hidden, almost completely unexplained and coming out of no where. I like it best when it's tied up in nature and when it makes vivid, beautiful images for one moment, and then it's gone and you wonder if you saw it or not.
That's not the kind of magic you fight with, I think. Isn't it?
The fact of the matter is, my imagination has temporarily left me high and dry right at the end of the story, so now I am stuck with only whirling bits of hackneyed ideas. I want my story to be seamless, I want it logical, both in emotion and in action, and I want it as simple as possible.
I just don't know how I'm going to make it that way.
Bugger.
Friday, March 4, 2011
March 4th
I. love. Pandora.
My brother Tim laughed at me over the phone a couple days ago, "You know that's been out for like, five years?" he said.
Yesterday I started writing around as soon as I posted my blog and didn't stop until about eight o'clock at night. I ate a bologna sandwich for lunch and didn't even bother with the mayo. I didn't even go jogging. I didn't make dinner; Keith wasn't hungry and neither was I.
By the time I got up from the desk, my back was on fire, all up my spine and down into my ribs. I've never felt anything like it. But I didn't feel any pain while I was typing.
I went from forty pages to seventy nine in a day.
And I still had stuff going on in my head when I forced myself to stop. I had entire ghost conversations while at the same time trying to focus on moving plans with Keith.
"I rode with the swans to the house of Sol Invictus and I spoke with him. He was very nice."
"If we rent a twenty four foot box truck from..."
"Very nice? He was very nice? Do you know that you spoke with a god?"
"On the other hand, we'll need a car dolly if you end up driving the HD..."
"Yes, a merry god, just as Alona said."
"...and if we change our plans, we can get our money back up to forty eight hours before we're scheduled for pick up. Jenny? Jenny, are you listening?"
"And this is from her, by the way."
"Ow! What the hell! What did I ever do to her?"
I have a hard time getting to sleep lately. I'm a little nervous to reread it, I was plowing through everything so damn quickly. Now I can go back and fill in. It's going to rain, I think I'll go out for a jog before it does, get some fresh air before going over all that material.
My brother Tim laughed at me over the phone a couple days ago, "You know that's been out for like, five years?" he said.
Yesterday I started writing around as soon as I posted my blog and didn't stop until about eight o'clock at night. I ate a bologna sandwich for lunch and didn't even bother with the mayo. I didn't even go jogging. I didn't make dinner; Keith wasn't hungry and neither was I.
By the time I got up from the desk, my back was on fire, all up my spine and down into my ribs. I've never felt anything like it. But I didn't feel any pain while I was typing.
I went from forty pages to seventy nine in a day.
And I still had stuff going on in my head when I forced myself to stop. I had entire ghost conversations while at the same time trying to focus on moving plans with Keith.
"I rode with the swans to the house of Sol Invictus and I spoke with him. He was very nice."
"If we rent a twenty four foot box truck from..."
"Very nice? He was very nice? Do you know that you spoke with a god?"
"On the other hand, we'll need a car dolly if you end up driving the HD..."
"Yes, a merry god, just as Alona said."
"...and if we change our plans, we can get our money back up to forty eight hours before we're scheduled for pick up. Jenny? Jenny, are you listening?"
"And this is from her, by the way."
"Ow! What the hell! What did I ever do to her?"
I have a hard time getting to sleep lately. I'm a little nervous to reread it, I was plowing through everything so damn quickly. Now I can go back and fill in. It's going to rain, I think I'll go out for a jog before it does, get some fresh air before going over all that material.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
March 3rd
I'm officially on clomid as of today, so...forewarned is forearmed. I've no idea how I'll be blogging from here on out. Maybe I won't be able to, or maybe I'll spew Alice in Wonderland type thoughts all down the page, like a melting clock face.
Yesterday I started in for real on part two of my story. I needn't have worried, it was rough, but it turns out my character is more resilient than I thought she was.
You're probably rolling your eyes, like, that's your character, Jenny, she can be anything you want her to be.
I know. I agree, I feel the same way. I used to read other authors and they'd say stuff like, "Well, the character just ran away with me," and then I'd roll my eyes too and be all like, whatever.
But the funny thing is, is that it's partly true. Characters really do take on, in a strange way, a life of their own. I don't know where it comes from, probably my subconscious or some deep ego state that my therapist could explain.
I refuse to let them run away with the story, though. That would just be embarrassing. No character of mine is going to dictate to me my own story! Spare the rod, spoil the story.
Oh, I can't help it, I can just imagine it so clearly.
Magician: "The hell I'm going to marry that dirty peasant girl."
Peasant girl: "I'll never unlock that door!"
Old Woman: "Upon my soul, I'd never betray his lordship over a snip of a girl, I've more wits than that."
Ha! Little do they know.
Yesterday I started in for real on part two of my story. I needn't have worried, it was rough, but it turns out my character is more resilient than I thought she was.
You're probably rolling your eyes, like, that's your character, Jenny, she can be anything you want her to be.
I know. I agree, I feel the same way. I used to read other authors and they'd say stuff like, "Well, the character just ran away with me," and then I'd roll my eyes too and be all like, whatever.
But the funny thing is, is that it's partly true. Characters really do take on, in a strange way, a life of their own. I don't know where it comes from, probably my subconscious or some deep ego state that my therapist could explain.
I refuse to let them run away with the story, though. That would just be embarrassing. No character of mine is going to dictate to me my own story! Spare the rod, spoil the story.
Oh, I can't help it, I can just imagine it so clearly.
Magician: "The hell I'm going to marry that dirty peasant girl."
Peasant girl: "I'll never unlock that door!"
Old Woman: "Upon my soul, I'd never betray his lordship over a snip of a girl, I've more wits than that."
Ha! Little do they know.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
March 2nd
My anxiety keeps growing.
I keep thinking, there's no way I can be this happy. I can't possibly be this fulfilled or this successful, or this satisfied. It's going to end up costing me big.
I keep thinking I'm going to have to pay for all this good stuff later on, maybe soon.
What the heck is going on with me? Where are these thoughts coming from?
Anyway, what's the worst that could happen? I stop jogging and put on fifty pounds and feel depressed? Or I turn eighty one years old and nothing that I wrote ever got published and all I have are enough rejection slips to paper my room in the retirement home?
Grant you, that is depressing. But think of all the wisdom I'll have by then, from managing rejection! I'll be like a paragon of compassion. Depressed nursing home workers will sneak into my room and tell me how depressed they are because they can't pass anatomy 101 and I'll know exactly what to say to them and every body will call me "Sweetie."
Besides, I'll have my children and their children, if they have any. And Keith, in a motorized wheelchair, terrifying the other residents by going too fast and taking out decorative side tables by accident.
Hope is a frightening thing sometimes. Well, maybe not hope so much as expectation. I have high expectations of myself now, and I'm starting to live up to them. That is terrifying.
I can't help but notice that in these thoughts, God holds so much vindictive desire. Like, God is leaning out of heaven saying, I curse you for raising yourself up too high. You will crawl before me, you will suffer, you will fail. You're stiff necked and arrogant, hard hearted and I will break you down. Like my own personal Old Testament, version 2.0.
But that isn't God, you may protest. God gave you the gift of writing, He wants you to develop it and use it, not bury it. He wants you to invest yourself in other people's lives by revealing your own in words. He wants good things for you, He's a good God.
Well, that may be true, in fact, I think probably it is, but I still carry a voice of this false god around inside me, because I served this god for years and he is also a jealous god. He pops up sometimes. He usually pops up when I'm feeling successful or proud of myself.
Sometimes, I'm like one of those tribal peoples who have the custom of not naming their children until they're a year old, for fear of drawing a bad spirit's attention to them. If I just laid low, and didn't talk so much about how good I was doing, maybe god would pass over me and leave me be.
But no, I have to go and blog about how awesome I am doing! If that isn't god provoking, I don't know what is.
I don't know how to resolve this, to be quite honest. I have a really hard time correcting thoughts that have to do with God and religion, because growing up I completely absorbed the teaching that I have no authority in those areas, and must accept instead the teaching of people who are in authority over me.
So, frequently, I just feel helpless, like a ship tossed in a stormy sea. I know above the storm is the open sky and the real God. But I'm all caught up in the turmoil of my own thoughts.
And then the only thing to do is to throw the whole thing into the hands of Christ and close my eyes and wait. I know He'll sort it all out for me. He's good like that.
In the meantime, I'm going to keep on writing, even if it never comes to anything in the end. I still think it's worth doing, just for its own sake.
I keep thinking, there's no way I can be this happy. I can't possibly be this fulfilled or this successful, or this satisfied. It's going to end up costing me big.
I keep thinking I'm going to have to pay for all this good stuff later on, maybe soon.
What the heck is going on with me? Where are these thoughts coming from?
Anyway, what's the worst that could happen? I stop jogging and put on fifty pounds and feel depressed? Or I turn eighty one years old and nothing that I wrote ever got published and all I have are enough rejection slips to paper my room in the retirement home?
Grant you, that is depressing. But think of all the wisdom I'll have by then, from managing rejection! I'll be like a paragon of compassion. Depressed nursing home workers will sneak into my room and tell me how depressed they are because they can't pass anatomy 101 and I'll know exactly what to say to them and every body will call me "Sweetie."
Besides, I'll have my children and their children, if they have any. And Keith, in a motorized wheelchair, terrifying the other residents by going too fast and taking out decorative side tables by accident.
Hope is a frightening thing sometimes. Well, maybe not hope so much as expectation. I have high expectations of myself now, and I'm starting to live up to them. That is terrifying.
I can't help but notice that in these thoughts, God holds so much vindictive desire. Like, God is leaning out of heaven saying, I curse you for raising yourself up too high. You will crawl before me, you will suffer, you will fail. You're stiff necked and arrogant, hard hearted and I will break you down. Like my own personal Old Testament, version 2.0.
But that isn't God, you may protest. God gave you the gift of writing, He wants you to develop it and use it, not bury it. He wants you to invest yourself in other people's lives by revealing your own in words. He wants good things for you, He's a good God.
Well, that may be true, in fact, I think probably it is, but I still carry a voice of this false god around inside me, because I served this god for years and he is also a jealous god. He pops up sometimes. He usually pops up when I'm feeling successful or proud of myself.
Sometimes, I'm like one of those tribal peoples who have the custom of not naming their children until they're a year old, for fear of drawing a bad spirit's attention to them. If I just laid low, and didn't talk so much about how good I was doing, maybe god would pass over me and leave me be.
But no, I have to go and blog about how awesome I am doing! If that isn't god provoking, I don't know what is.
I don't know how to resolve this, to be quite honest. I have a really hard time correcting thoughts that have to do with God and religion, because growing up I completely absorbed the teaching that I have no authority in those areas, and must accept instead the teaching of people who are in authority over me.
So, frequently, I just feel helpless, like a ship tossed in a stormy sea. I know above the storm is the open sky and the real God. But I'm all caught up in the turmoil of my own thoughts.
And then the only thing to do is to throw the whole thing into the hands of Christ and close my eyes and wait. I know He'll sort it all out for me. He's good like that.
In the meantime, I'm going to keep on writing, even if it never comes to anything in the end. I still think it's worth doing, just for its own sake.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
March 1st
I am so tired today.
I finished that whole section of the story yesterday and sent it to my friend, who has conveniently returned from a soul stirring trip to Spain, just in time to read it. Thank God. I was beginning to perish.
As soon as I sent it off to her, I re read it, with much trepidition. Immediately I could see it with greater clarity.
I tell you what, when writing a story, I just can't see it. I can't see how the words are capturing what I have living, wordless, in my head, because the two parts, the living story and the words, are all tangled up, joined. Eventually, it builds up this huge weight and to plow forward in the story feels just like that; pushing forward against more and more resistance.
But when I have sent it out to someone else to read, I'm blissfully and sometimes painfully, severed from the story. I get to see the words clearly and can evaluate how well I did in capturing it that way.
When I re read it, I'll tell you straight up, I knew it was the best thing I've ever done. Period. The best ever. I was stunned, to tell you the truth.
Apart from spelling the word curtsy about four different ways all through the story (sigh), changing my mind half way through about whether or not to have a bride price or a dowry and not remembering to go back and make it all congruent, and starting to build up to a scene that I just plain forgot about later, about from those things, the whole thing was amazing to me.
It's not as good as other published authors, I've a way to go yet. But in personal terms, everything that I've tried to do before as a writer, and fell short, in this, I got as close as I've ever come. Everything that I love, everything, as Tolkien says, that I have greatly desired, is captured in the story. But, before, I captured it in a very two dimensional way, like a beautiful stained glass picture.
But this is alive. Or as close to alive as I've ever come. I was able to put a great deal of what I've learned as a woman, as a person, into my characters.
Thank God I stopped selling myself short and starting just writing. It's never been so clear to me. If a person decides that their goal will end in failure, then it will. It's that simple. They will end in failure, because they've killed any chance at trying for success. If they won't try, then they won't learn what they need to in order to succeed eventually.
But if a person takes a chance on success, eventually they will taste some. They must, because if they keep trying, then they'll keep learning. You can't guarantee success, but you can guarantee failure.
After I went back and made those changes to my story, and wrote out a couple more scenes that I realized I needed, and added more detail to a few others, I then sketched out the ending of part one. Then I sat back and was exhausted.
I'm still exhausted. I spent the rest of the afternoon watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars. I'm dreading the next section of the story. I don't want to write about self loathing and guilt and shame and depression and I'm afraid I won't get the right balance and it'll make the whole story drag down terribly.
I also can't figure out the right beginning. I have changed the first five paragraphs of the story about a million and one times. The first sentence is of paramount importance. Consider these:
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."
Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier
"They said later that he rode into the village on a horse the color of buttermilk, but I saw him walk out of the wood."
Winter Rose, by Patricia McKillip
"It wasn't as if he hadn't been warned."
Sackett, by Louis L'Amour
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"When the lights went off the accompianist kissed her."
Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett
"I met him in the street called Straight."
The Gabriel Hounds, by Mary Stewart.
It makes you want to keep reading, right? Met who? What's Manderley? Firing squad? Who walked out of the wood?
So last night, I'm wrestling with this and my mundane first sentence ("Through the shadows of late fall, a peasant girl hurried home, a bundle of firewood humped on her back.") and I just couldn't figure out how the crap to redo it, unless I cut way back into the story and then use flash back to go back to the beginning, but that's so much freakin' work.
Then bang! it comes to me.
"If she had known, she never would have taken it."
Much better, right? I'm going with that for now. Ok, no more procrastinating.
I finished that whole section of the story yesterday and sent it to my friend, who has conveniently returned from a soul stirring trip to Spain, just in time to read it. Thank God. I was beginning to perish.
As soon as I sent it off to her, I re read it, with much trepidition. Immediately I could see it with greater clarity.
I tell you what, when writing a story, I just can't see it. I can't see how the words are capturing what I have living, wordless, in my head, because the two parts, the living story and the words, are all tangled up, joined. Eventually, it builds up this huge weight and to plow forward in the story feels just like that; pushing forward against more and more resistance.
But when I have sent it out to someone else to read, I'm blissfully and sometimes painfully, severed from the story. I get to see the words clearly and can evaluate how well I did in capturing it that way.
When I re read it, I'll tell you straight up, I knew it was the best thing I've ever done. Period. The best ever. I was stunned, to tell you the truth.
Apart from spelling the word curtsy about four different ways all through the story (sigh), changing my mind half way through about whether or not to have a bride price or a dowry and not remembering to go back and make it all congruent, and starting to build up to a scene that I just plain forgot about later, about from those things, the whole thing was amazing to me.
It's not as good as other published authors, I've a way to go yet. But in personal terms, everything that I've tried to do before as a writer, and fell short, in this, I got as close as I've ever come. Everything that I love, everything, as Tolkien says, that I have greatly desired, is captured in the story. But, before, I captured it in a very two dimensional way, like a beautiful stained glass picture.
But this is alive. Or as close to alive as I've ever come. I was able to put a great deal of what I've learned as a woman, as a person, into my characters.
Thank God I stopped selling myself short and starting just writing. It's never been so clear to me. If a person decides that their goal will end in failure, then it will. It's that simple. They will end in failure, because they've killed any chance at trying for success. If they won't try, then they won't learn what they need to in order to succeed eventually.
But if a person takes a chance on success, eventually they will taste some. They must, because if they keep trying, then they'll keep learning. You can't guarantee success, but you can guarantee failure.
After I went back and made those changes to my story, and wrote out a couple more scenes that I realized I needed, and added more detail to a few others, I then sketched out the ending of part one. Then I sat back and was exhausted.
I'm still exhausted. I spent the rest of the afternoon watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars. I'm dreading the next section of the story. I don't want to write about self loathing and guilt and shame and depression and I'm afraid I won't get the right balance and it'll make the whole story drag down terribly.
I also can't figure out the right beginning. I have changed the first five paragraphs of the story about a million and one times. The first sentence is of paramount importance. Consider these:
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."
Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier
"They said later that he rode into the village on a horse the color of buttermilk, but I saw him walk out of the wood."
Winter Rose, by Patricia McKillip
"It wasn't as if he hadn't been warned."
Sackett, by Louis L'Amour
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"When the lights went off the accompianist kissed her."
Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett
"I met him in the street called Straight."
The Gabriel Hounds, by Mary Stewart.
It makes you want to keep reading, right? Met who? What's Manderley? Firing squad? Who walked out of the wood?
So last night, I'm wrestling with this and my mundane first sentence ("Through the shadows of late fall, a peasant girl hurried home, a bundle of firewood humped on her back.") and I just couldn't figure out how the crap to redo it, unless I cut way back into the story and then use flash back to go back to the beginning, but that's so much freakin' work.
Then bang! it comes to me.
"If she had known, she never would have taken it."
Much better, right? I'm going with that for now. Ok, no more procrastinating.
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