Good Days Cause Bad Days.

I should have known better than to revel in the pleasure of a few good days.  That sort of thing rarely lasts... and when it falls apart, it falls apart in a really destructive way...destroying foundations that were in place long before the good days.  It's like a toddler playing with blocks; all I can do is sit back and watch as the towers fall.  Fitting for this time of year, right?

I'm sitting here now, listening to gentle rain and feeling like my heart, along with various other body parts, have been torn to bits and put in a jar with rusty razor blades and barbed wire and salt, shaken, and then poured into a fancy glass over hot coals.  When things are already pissing me off, my memory has a way of connecting things that may or may not actually be related, and then spiraling out of control.  Damn synapses. I've had 3 nights of difficult sleeping... I never sleep well on Mondays, but I have no good excuse for the next two nights.  The way my brain is working right now, I can't count on more than 4 or 5 hours tonight.  This is wearing on me.  And the fact that it's 7:18 and Oliver has been asleep since returning from his dad's means this might be a long night in more than one way.

And...when I'm worn down, I shouldn't listen to music.  It just speeds those possibly-false connections along even faster, and I end up sitting on an ottoman for an hour turning over my unnecessary thoughts.  I don't like having some of the thoughts I've had today...and I really don't like applying "what if" to situations that, years ago, were way outside of what ifs.  I cherish my memories, but sometimes I wish they were unavailable for over-analyzing years later.  I think I should say yes more, and spend more time as far from my comfort zone as possible... but after today, I think I'll be spending some time hiding out and licking my self-inflicted wounds.  Wonder how long it'll take...

If Oliver hadn't started school, I wouldn't have time for all this thinking.  He's doing great at school, though.  Loves it.

But...anyway.  What should I do with the mood I'm in right now?  Use it against myself...because under normal circumstances I would not share my homework with anyone outside my class (and I'll only share it there because it's required).  I wrote a poem.  We all know how I feel about poetry.  The writing process was upsetting and emotionally exhausting.  My book dredged up all sorts of uncomfortable and painful memories, but then told me to discard them if they were too painful to write about.  That seemed very inauthentic...why would I want to be emotionally dishonest in my work?  There's nothing real about avoiding the things that make me uncomfortable...and I want the things that I write to feel real.  Anyway... I'm sharing my super-depressing poem with you...whoever you are...in all its trivial glory.

November

The gray morning hung outside the window

Like some limp sheet

Wet from days of autumn rain

Stray leaves were plastered to the glass

Some trailed through the house

Its doors open to the elements

Its doors open to let out the smell

The leaden sky muted the world

“He always talked about you, wondered how you grew up.

He hoped the world never got to you.”

I sat at the table, empty

Tapping a pen on a notepad

My eyes fixed on the stained coffee cup

The one that stood beside the coffee pot

Full and waiting

Hot until it was cold

For a week, maybe two

“I want his coffee cup,” his best friend said. 

“That’s all I want.  Something to remember him by… we had coffee on Sundays.”

I made a list of little trinkets

Memories for others to hold on to

Gathered these artifacts on the table

And I made a list of to-dos

Check the attic for marijuana

Find bank statements and bills

Call biohazard cleaners about the smell

“We’ve never had a turn-out like this.  Standing room only. 

He touched a lot of people.”

Find address book

Send thank-you notes

See lawyer

Which copy of this manuscript is the newest?

Probably the one on the coffee table,

Half face-down with notes

“That walnut is special, don’t throw it away.

It was his pet.  It had a name, but I don’t remember it.”

Box up a life

Put it in storage

Or don’t, because the smell will linger

The choking sweetness

A smell you’d know as death

Even if you’d never smelled it before

Which memory would I pick to keep?

Which borrowed memory of this man I did not know?

“He took the strings off the guitar.  He always said that if it had strings,

It would distract him and he’d never get anything done.”

But today it had strings

And I remembered a golden summer evening

The last rays of sun warming my tanned skin

My little white sundress billowing in the wind

Chasing fireflies

My father on the back steps, guitar in hand

And his smile as he sang


And now I feel all the things I felt before...and also exposed.  Oh well.  Here's to now and don't look back (says Better Than Ezra)... Here's to honesty.

Fuck.

It's been a long day...

My little one started preschool today, and I think he handled it better than I did.  He was screaming and collapsed on the floor at one point, if that tells you anything.  I know this is one of those things he has to do, and that it'll be good for him...but I missed my little boy.  I found myself wishing I'd had more time with him when he was a baby, or really, that he'd been a baby for a lot longer.  One childhood just doesn't seem like enough...

I love all that he's becoming and I'm proud to be his mom :)

Another Monday Arrives...

I usually don't have the luxury of sitting down so early on my Monday.  It rained yesterday...and last night... so I didn't have to water this morning.  I've also decided that there's really no use in cleaning up the toys until tomorrow, or starting the laundry until much later today.  As it seems I'm not capable of working on my REAL writing until 9:30AM, I'm here...warming up my hands for typing.

I've made two more changes to the story.  The first was tiny and had to be done.  I was really just fixing a mistake that I'm not sure how I overlooked for so long...it was so OBVIOUS.  The second was yet another time issue...I have spent more time dealing with time than I have with anything else lately.  I suppose that's to be expected, considering the importance of time in this story.  Once these two little bits are cleared up, I can get things moving forward again.  I'd really like to see this done by the end of the month.

In the last week I've also managed to outline a few short stories.  At this point, I'm not sure when I'll find the time to write them, or if they'll have the potential to be expanded into longer works, but it was nice to bleed the creative vein onto something new.

In addition to my names lists and words I like list, I think I'm going to make a list of catchy phrases.  I have a few on my phone, but really need to relocate them.  I don't know what I'll do with them... but some feel like titles to things.

I'm starting a poetry-writing class this month...and having mixed feelings.  I really don't like poetry.  It's not an intimidation factor.  I get it.  It's just that so much poetry is terrible.  I used to waste many nights writing terrible poetry with other people who were also writing terrible poetry... and now I'm not even sure I could produce something terrible, because I'm just so reluctant to add to the mass of terrible that already exists.  I'm taking the class to gain some appreciation for poetry, and I hope my mind opens a bit more to the topic before the class starts.  Right now, the idea of doing a peer evaluation on a poem is nauseating.

My latte is cold and I haven't yet scavenged the kitchen for breakfast...so I should probably get up.  Only 12 minutes to go!

The Nation of Fear

After getting all the gun stuff out of my system... I realized something else was really bothering me.  People.

I am just so mad that there are people who are so alone that no one even notices how far gone they are until it's too late....until we have a pile of bodies to contend with and even more fear instilled in everyone.  How do people end up so alone?  And how do we (yes, we...we're all responsible for this one) let anyone BE that alone?  Are we really that scared....of each other?

I think it's Monday night insomnia...

This has been a real waste of a day.  I'm sitting here, wide awake, despite my relatively small caffeine intake.  Maybe it's just the typical Monday night insomnia.  I had a rare case of Sunday night insomnia last night, coupled with some pretty bizarre dreams that I don't remember.

I suppose the day started off pretty productive.  I got the kid pre-registered for preschool.  It was a bittersweet moment.  He's a big boy now...and I love him...and I miss my little boy.  Three is a really great age.  Selfishly, I'd like for him to stay three for a few years.  Everything that comes out of his mouth is gold.  He's just hilarious.  And he's growing up...

That was about where the productivity ended.  I spent a while drawing little black lines and dots and squiggles on the table top I've been working on, and then I gave it 5 coats of polyurethane.  It's not yet done.  After that, I settled in to write.  I've been doing a pretty big rewrite in the beginning, and have gotten to a sticking point.  It's frustrating...I know what comes next, but really want to get through this little part first.  It's just a couple pages, but I'm stuck.  Over-thinking is probably to blame.  So I paced around and drank my coffee and paced around some more.  There was just no writing it today.

And then I heard a song...and there was that little movie in my head.  That's how I see the story, by the way. It's a movie and I just have to write down what I see.  The movie was awful...in that it was really good, but so depressing that I couldn't write it without crying. So I sat there, listening to the song on repeat and crying as I wrote less than a thousand words.  I'm terrible at goodbyes in any context.  This one is right up there with...well, I haven't had a goodbye like this in my life.  I think I'm thankful for that.  It tore me up pretty bad...and the thing is, the part that I wrote isn't even all that upsetting.  I just know what it takes to get there and what's about to happen...so the tiny moment of calm that my characters have makes me ache for them.

I also made salsa, picked up the outside toys, and went for a walk.  The walk was at least partially rewarding in that I got to spend a considerable amount of time completely lost in my head.  I have a playlist for the book, and I was listening to it.  The fact that monsoons are starting and so much of the story depends on the weather...it's good for inspiration.  I was really hoping to get more focus from my walk, though....to come home with a clear mind and motivation to spare.

It's almost midnight... I should be sleeping.  I should be dreaming...

I should put some of that sweet dream stuff on my pillow and try my very hardest to not think for a while.  Maybe do some progressive muscle relaxation...I used to really love that...and it worked great for insomnia. Becoming a mom seems to have been the ultimate insomnia cure, though.  Except on Mondays...sleep never comes easy when the kid's not home.

I think my chances of falling asleep will be greatly improved if I turn off the computer...

What's in a Name?

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a thing for naming things.  I once had hundreds of rubber duckies, and almost all had names.  Yes, I knew those names.  My computers are named (Friday, Dexter, and Howard).  My son has two middle names, and I would have given him a dozen if I'd thought it socially acceptable.  Two is kind of the limit on that, right?  Maybe three.  I don't know.

Anyway...

I haven't officially named the series I'm writing.  It has a working title, as an overall kind of thing for the whole series.  However, not a single one of the individual books has been named.  I feel that this is a hindrance, and that by leaving them unnamed for this long, I'm losing a valuable piece of my story.  What if the name is important to the story?  What if, once I know what it's called, I have to rewrite the whole thing?  That seems all too likely.

The naming issue has been in the back of my mind for over a year, and it's never mattered nearly as much as it does right now.  Why?  Because I named something else.  It's another story that's been in the back of my mind for close to a year now.  I could blame Rumi or Deepak Chopra for it, because I'm sure one of them had something to do with its origin, but I don't remember.  It's not that I'm unhappy that I named it, it's just that... doing so makes me wonder about what I'm doing.

If that name came so simply, does that mean I should shift my focus?  I wasn't even working on that story...I just have a couple notes written down...but the name is there, and it's a real driving force.  I already know I'll be starting the story in August.

I'm not burnt out on the story I'm working on... I hope to have the entire first draft finished relatively soon, but have already gotten caught in a seemingly endless cycle of edits.  I have this terrible habit of putting in placeholder text...it gets a very vague idea across, but isn't what I actually want to say.  Then, I have to go back and clean it up...and sometimes I'm not yet prepared with the right words.  Today I found  a few of them, but not many.  It's been exactly a week since I sent out a section to early readers, and it's already changed quite a bit.

Also, I'm not sure if it's just MY version of Word, or if there's some universal issue with the program.  After page 60, the grammar and spell check functions seem to go insane.  They're missing things that are incorrect, but wanting me to make changes to things that are correct.  I know to, too, and two; I know their, there, and they're, tyvm...but Word is trying to make it look like a text message composed by Swype (which is typically grammatically incorrect to an embarrassing degree).  No, Word, the water did not "creep too her feet."

All that said... I should be writing :)

On Reading and Writing...

Yesterday I finished reading Insurgent by Veronica Roth. I was left feeling both overwhelmed by the excellence of the story and depressed because I don't have that level of conflict in my story.  I have been reminding myself all day that I am not writing the same kind of story, but I still feel somehow disheartened.  It's tough to see something so good, and to then sit for hours comparing myself and my work to that something.  It'd be nice to just appreciate it for what it is and then move on.  Or, not even necessarily move on, but just not beat myself up over it.  The worlds are so different that I shouldn't even be thinking the things that I'm thinking... (oh no, I'd better add some more violence and kill a few more people or no one will keep reading!!).

Insurgent was fantastic, though.  The first book in the series, Divergent, was also pretty good.  It's just nice when a second book is as good or better than the first... the story didn't slump at all.  The character development improved, the world building was amazing and far more detailed than in the first book, and the conflict...omg the conflict.  There wasn't a moment to breathe; no peace, no safety.  It was intense from beginning to end.  The end, for me, was predictable but really great.  It's taken the story from the average dystopia to something much more shocking.  It's a direction I've not seen in YA before... and it's just sooooo good.  I hate that I have to wait a year to find out how it all ends.

But here I am, comparing my otherworldly YA speculative fiction to a dystopia.  Some of the overall themes are similar, but the story...the things that happen to the characters to drive them to the conclusion are completely different.  I worry that the basic conflicts I'll present aren't dramatic enough... especially when you take into consideration the complete lack of vampires, werewolves, angels, fairies, or any other fairy tale creatures.  No magic, either (not in the traditional sense, anyway).  I'm not even going to have a genuine love triangle...or a love-at-first-sight thing (because those totally piss me off).  I'm actually so caught up in the 'what-ifs' that I'm stuck.  Should I add a bit of violence?  It'd only make a complete mockery of the world I'm creating.  Book two will have violence..plenty of it, I'm sure.  Should I throw in a glitter-covered something-or-other as a love interest, just to get the love triangle thing going?  Maybe, rather than having my male leads be science geeks who doing things that seem like magic...I'll give them actual magic.  But wait, no...that would ruin the story, too.  :|  There IS government conflict, but the point isn't to drive the story with conspiracy theories.  That'd make a great book, and I'll probably go there someday... but not now.

I just need to stop beating myself up.  My story is different.  I can't compare myself to everything out there.  It's a GOOD thing to like books... :)  Mine included... damnit.