It's been almost a year since my last post. What happened was, I began writing a short story for a competition. The story can be found here: Black Powder. I really wanted to do a good job, and had very little time to do it. I asked for beta help from a half-dozen people, many of whom did not even know I was writing, so this was their first experience reading my work. It was also my first experience having my work read by anyone except my mother, without the comforting blanket of anonymity.
Furthermore, it was my first experience submitting creative writing to be judged. I didn't expect to win, but I wanted to be sure that I did the best I could anyway. My goal was to practice being rejected, on a smaller scale, so my first rejection experience would not be on my novel. I figured I would be better able to withstand rejection of a project I'd only spent a month on instead of one I'd been working on for years.
At the same time, my sister came to visit. Now, I love my sister, and her family, but I find the lot of them extremely tiring and stressful. Minette is getting better about it, but she's always been very pushy. She wants, maybe feels entitled to, a level of intimacy between us that matches what is shown in movies and TV between sisters. I'm not able to provide that for her. She is just too raw. It hurts to open up to her, not because she's mean but because I'm fragile. But I tried anyway, since I so rarely have the opportunity.
The climax of all this was the worst illness I've ever had. Nobody could figure out what it was. I was just too tired to move for a month and a half, and my throat hurt like a blazing sun. The doctor suspected mono but couldn't prove it.
I got back on my feet eventually... except not really. I used to get sick maybe once a year, if that. But last fall, I got three colds, each one precipitated by a stressful day or night of bad sleep. All it took was a tiny trigger to break my immune system's pathetic resistance.
I also had pain in my hands and wrist and thumb if I worked too long or too hard. And then in December I broke my finger. It has taken months to heal and it's still not better, it still hurts. And then I got a bartholin's gland cyst, which I do not recommend googling, and which was by far the most painful thing that has ever happened to me. That still hasn't healed, either.
Clearly I'm not yet recovered. I feel better, and look better, but I'm brittle. And because I'm so worried about getting sick again, I am loathe to do any more "work" than is remotely necessary, and try to conserve every ounce of energy either for making money at my job or physically exercising to regain my strength. Writing, or thinking about writing, scares me. I'm afraid I will get sick again.
Oh, and the contest? I didn't win. So all of the suffering was for nothing. Except, hopefully, that I will handle it better next time, and not get cancer and die or something.
Two weeks ago, I got a book on repetitive stress injuries, hoping to improve my typing stamina. I found a set of movement exercises designed to keep nerves healthy, and the pain in my thumb left that very day. It hasn't come back for more than a twinge or two on occasion.
This is very exciting, and leaves me with no more reason to fear the occasional writing session, now that I know I am no longer destroying my hands every time I type a key. I've started writing again. I posted a chapter. Nobody read it. I'll write another.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Researching Prisons
Just a quick note to help keep me on track with posting.
I'm still having trouble using my writing time to write. I think I'm intimidated. But I'm getting better at remembering to write, and feeling like I want to. I think I'm digging back out of that weird funk I fell into around Christmas (jeez, it took me long enough).
I wanted to work on my original story, but the next couple chapters take place in a prison, and my personal knowledge of such things is limited to what they show on TV. So, I decided to do some research, not only on prisons in general but specifically on the psych wards and on some local prisons that I might use as the setting. I'm going to try to use real places when I can, but altered slightly to reflect the AU we're in.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that we don't really have psych wards. What we have is regular prison and isolation. That's a bit of an oversimplification, but it appears that our prison system is vastly underserving the needs of its mentally ill. For starters, we don't really have mental asylums anymore, with the result that upwards of 60% of our prisoners have mental illnesses (probably most of them are understandably depressed, though). Psychiatrists don't make their rounds, prisoners are prescribed old, cheap generics or nothing at all, and the wardens use isolation ("a night in the box) to punish prisoners for exhibiting psychologically unbalanced behavior, such as suicide attempts.
Yeah, that's right. They put suicidal prisoners into sensory-deprivation isolation.
I think that's Hell on earth, in the real and actual meaning of the word - a place away from God. I also think that's cruel and unusual. Even in regular rooms, the prisoners are often denied the right to have property, such as magazines. What the eff to they do all day?!
The prison where my character lives isn't as bad, since the East Coast prisons seem to be regulated a bit more. The really bad ones are the privately operated industrial prisons in the Midwest. I doubt anyone in the government gives a flying fuck what they do to people out there. Out of sight, out of mind.
However, one of the prisons I might use is New York's Rikers Island, which apparently has a ward where a reporter went to talk to the prisoners and found about half of the cells were covered in Plexiglass, such that she could only hear them if they shouted. The wardens explained that the Plexiglass was "for the shit-throwers." We have hundreds of shit-throwers? Really? That was the only way the prisoners could express themselves?
I had begun my research because I wanted to make sure I didn't accidentally over-dramatize the prisons. Now I realize I was under-dramatizing them. Nothing I could have thought of would be as bad as the reality. I find this grimly humbling.
I'm still having trouble using my writing time to write. I think I'm intimidated. But I'm getting better at remembering to write, and feeling like I want to. I think I'm digging back out of that weird funk I fell into around Christmas (jeez, it took me long enough).
I wanted to work on my original story, but the next couple chapters take place in a prison, and my personal knowledge of such things is limited to what they show on TV. So, I decided to do some research, not only on prisons in general but specifically on the psych wards and on some local prisons that I might use as the setting. I'm going to try to use real places when I can, but altered slightly to reflect the AU we're in.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that we don't really have psych wards. What we have is regular prison and isolation. That's a bit of an oversimplification, but it appears that our prison system is vastly underserving the needs of its mentally ill. For starters, we don't really have mental asylums anymore, with the result that upwards of 60% of our prisoners have mental illnesses (probably most of them are understandably depressed, though). Psychiatrists don't make their rounds, prisoners are prescribed old, cheap generics or nothing at all, and the wardens use isolation ("a night in the box) to punish prisoners for exhibiting psychologically unbalanced behavior, such as suicide attempts.
Yeah, that's right. They put suicidal prisoners into sensory-deprivation isolation.
I think that's Hell on earth, in the real and actual meaning of the word - a place away from God. I also think that's cruel and unusual. Even in regular rooms, the prisoners are often denied the right to have property, such as magazines. What the eff to they do all day?!
The prison where my character lives isn't as bad, since the East Coast prisons seem to be regulated a bit more. The really bad ones are the privately operated industrial prisons in the Midwest. I doubt anyone in the government gives a flying fuck what they do to people out there. Out of sight, out of mind.
However, one of the prisons I might use is New York's Rikers Island, which apparently has a ward where a reporter went to talk to the prisoners and found about half of the cells were covered in Plexiglass, such that she could only hear them if they shouted. The wardens explained that the Plexiglass was "for the shit-throwers." We have hundreds of shit-throwers? Really? That was the only way the prisoners could express themselves?
I had begun my research because I wanted to make sure I didn't accidentally over-dramatize the prisons. Now I realize I was under-dramatizing them. Nothing I could have thought of would be as bad as the reality. I find this grimly humbling.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Lazarus
Well, I should probably have blogged about this already. Some journal-keeper I am.
I had an idea for an original story. I had been going to write a zombie apocalypse story, but frankly, I realized that has been done, and, more importantly, done BETTER than I can do it. I still want to write it, but it would probably be for my family, not for publication. Then, while hiding in the bathroom doing nothing recently, I had an idea.
I could not tell you how I arrived at this idea if you paid me, but apparently I was thinking about something that started bothering me just this year at Easter. When Jesus rises from the dead, he still has his wounds - the holes in his hand, we know about from poor, maligned Doubting Thomas, but presumably also the hole in his side. You know, the one that PIERCED HIS HEART? The FATAL wound?
How the heck is Jesus alive if he still bears a mortal wound?!
The answer is simple: He isn't. He's a zombie.
I used to get kind of mad at people who made jokes about Zombie Jesus Day, thinking "No! He's not a zombie, he's resurrected! He's alive!" But he won't be for long, if he's still got a hole in his heart. Explain THAT, New Testament!
Thence arose the idea that Jesus was raised from the dead not by God, who despises the undead, but by an evil necromancer interfering in God's New Testament. That's our central conflict, and our hero has to solve it by going back in time to battle the necromancer and free Jesus in order to save the souls of all humanity. Ta-da!
There's more to it than that, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to blog the entire plot of a story I want to sell for actual money. It might not have been the best idea to go for something so controversial as Zombie Jesus for my first story, but I'll tell you one thing, it's never been done. It's an original idea and it will definitely stand out and stick in editors' memories.
As long as I can get someone interested enough to be willing to help me edit it to the point that they are comfortable publishing it, I'm golden - and I don't mind editing it until it's pablum. I still have my original version and I can self-publish that if I want to, or just share it with my friends and family. I trust the editors to tell me what the general readership wants. I also don't want fundies showing up on my doorstep and shooting me dead.
I wrote the first draft of the first chapter, and my plan is to release it for free to everyone in order to help gather interest (lots of authors do that so I think it's an accepted procedure). Here it is, since I think later on someone (me) might be amused by reading it:
---------------------------------------------
"Lazarus, we've been over this," Rob, the court-appointed psychiatrist, was beginning to lose his veneer of patience. "If you don't take your Clozapine, you won't get better."
"I do take my Clozapine." Laz shifted uncomfortably in the hard chair, the chains of his handcuffs clinking over its plastic armrests. The chair was too small for his massive fame, and his left buttcheek was falling asleep. Would it kill them to put a cushion on these things? Just a folded-up towel would be an improvement.
"Lazarus, I'm hurt," the psychiatrist said with a reproving look. "I thought we were past this. I know you're not telling me the truth."
"I am. I do take my pills. I take them, and throw them in the toilet." Laz grinned, and the greenish flourescent lights of the prison's therapy room glinted off his broken front teeth.
Rob leaned forward, his brow creasing with fatherly concern. "Lazarus. Laz. Please, work with me here. If I can't tell the wardens you're taking your medication, they'll start administering it via syringe."
Laz's normally ruddy skin paled visibly, but his voice was steady, his tone light. "Oh, I don't know. It might be a fun blast from the past. Getting shot up with shit that scrambles my brain." He tugged at his handcuffs again, unconsciously trying to hide the wealth of track marks on his meaty arms.
"It won't scramble your brain, Laz. It'll help you straighten it out again." Rob leaned back in his chair and smiled encouragingly at him. "I can see this topic is distressing you. Let's take a deep breath. In... Out... There you go. Let's talk about something else before our time is up. Have you had any episodes since last week?"
Laz grinned again. "Met any new demons, you mean? Nah. Not since week before last. The red Choronzonite down the hall is still there, though."
Rob winced. "Lazarus. Manuela is just a disturbed man. Please don't tell the other inmates he is a demon. We don't need any of them getting excited and trying to kill the poor man. Remember what we talked about?"
Laz sighed and recited in monotone, "Demons are a metaphorical representation of the baser sides of human nature. They are not real. They are a myth. When I see a demon, I am to tell my wardens immediately and I am to drink my special calming tea."
"Well done. You have an excellent memory. How about-" Rob broke off with a hiss of pain as the therapy room's door swung open and pinched the end of his barbed tail.
"Oh, sorry, Mr. Wallace, didn't mean to catch your coat in the door," apologized the warden standing in the door.
"Is that what it looks like to you?" Laz laughed. "The end of his coat? Ha! Good, one, Rob."
"Laz, please." Rob curled the tail into his lap and checked it for damage, its small scales rasping against the thicker ones that coated his thighs. He flicked out the end of his long, forked tongue a few times, nervously tasting the air. The door must have pinched him pretty hard, Laz thought. Good. Smarmy bastard.
"Sorry, Rob," he said out loud. "I'm just kidding with you. I know you're not a demon."
"I'm so glad," Rob said dryly and let his tail fall back to the scuffed tile floor, turning to the warden. "Now, what was so important that you had to interrupt our session, sir?"
"Time's up, Mr. Wallace. They shortened the sessions to half an hour. Budget cuts." The warden moved towards Laz, taking out a thick ring of keys. "I need you to leave, sir, before I unlock the cuffs. This is a very dangerous man."
"Half an hour? I'm a doctor! I need time to work! How am I supposed to do any good with only half an hour," Rob snarled, lips curling to display the points of hollow fangs as he stalked out. Laz felt his eyebrows rise. Apparently Rob was venomous. He should keep that in mind, when it was time to kill him.
"You don't really think I'm dangerous, do you, Allen?" Laz gave the warden his most charming smile, which really wasn't saying much, since smiling just made the scars, broken teeth, and crooked nose all the more visible.
Allen glared at him. "You're a goddamned mass murderer, Lazarus. If I were a judge, I'd give you the chair, and it'd be too good for you."
Allen pulled Laz's hands behind his back and slapped another pair of handcuffs onto his thick wrists before unlocking the ones that chained him to the chair. Then he pulled Laz to his feet by his collar and prodded him hard between the shoulder blades with the end of his nightstick, shoving him towards the door.
"Ow, Allen," Laz complained. "Use your words. Language seperates us from the animals, you know."
Allen grabbed the chain of his handcuffs and jerked it down and back, twisting Laz's shoulders painfully and pulling his head down to Allen's level. "Get. In. Your. Fucking. Cell," he growled into Laz's ear.
"See, that wasn't so hard," Laz said, and smiled at him again because it seemed to annoy him. "Even for you."
"Fuck you."
"You're not my type, Allen, but if your mother is available-"
"You shut your goddamned mouth!" Allen gave another hard jerk on the handcuffs, the steel cutting into the skin of Laz's wrists and drawing blood.
Well, that was probably enough for now, Laz decided. If he bruised up his wrists too badly, the cuffs wouldn't fit at all anymore, and they would just leave him confined to the cell until the swelling went down. 'One Size Fits All' generally meant 'This Will Be Too Small For You, Lazarus,' and handcuffs were no exceptions. He twisted his wrist, managed to wrap two fingers around the handcuff chain, and pulled it out of Allen's grip without apparent effort before sauntering briskly down the hall, up two flights of stairs and along a windowless corridor. He stopped at the door to his cell and waited patiently for Allen to catch up and unlock it.
The unlovely cell was as it had been a half hour ago: green walls, whitish floor, two narrow bunks, steel sink and toilet, single broken chair. His roommate was stretched out on his bunk, reading a naughty paperback for the umpteenth time. As the door clanged shut behind Laz, he looked up and grinned. "Hey, Laz. You kill Rob today?"
"Nah," Laz said. He backed up to the door and stuck his hands through the slot for Allen to unlock the cuffs. "Not today."
"Next time, then."
"Yeah."
"When you break out, you gonna take me with you, right?"
"Sure thing, Paulo."
"No talking about escapes," came Allen's voice through the heavy door.
"Sorry, Allen," Laz called back. "We'll talk about your mom instead."
"Fuck you." They could hear the jingling of his keys as he stomped away.
"He keeps saying that," Laz said to Paulo, "but I don't think he really means it."
"Tease." Paulo went back to his book while Laz went to the sink and ran cold water over his wrists. He dried them off and threw himself down on his bunk, which creaked dangerously under his weight. Paulo looked up again, his swarthy face vaguely curious. "Lazy?"
"That's a misnomer. What?"
"Is Rob really a demon?"
"Oh yes. Most definitely."
Long pause. "You sure you ain't crazy?"
Laz chuckled and started to sing. "Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe you're crazy. Maybe we're crazyyyyy..."
"Aw, Lazy, I hate Gnarls Barkley, and you sing like a damned crow."
"True." Laz settled a little lower into his bunk. "Seriously, though. I'm probably at least a little bit crazy, but not about this. Not about demons."
"Because this is the psych ward, I mean, they put us here because we crazy."
"Yeah, they think I'm a paranoid schitzophrenic. I'm not, though. I'm just surrounded by demons who want to kill me."
Paulo turned a page in his book before he spoke again. "You really murder all those people?"
"No."
Paulo looked up again. "Really? You framed?"
"No, I killed them. They just weren't people."
"Oh, right. They demons."
"Right."
I had an idea for an original story. I had been going to write a zombie apocalypse story, but frankly, I realized that has been done, and, more importantly, done BETTER than I can do it. I still want to write it, but it would probably be for my family, not for publication. Then, while hiding in the bathroom doing nothing recently, I had an idea.
I could not tell you how I arrived at this idea if you paid me, but apparently I was thinking about something that started bothering me just this year at Easter. When Jesus rises from the dead, he still has his wounds - the holes in his hand, we know about from poor, maligned Doubting Thomas, but presumably also the hole in his side. You know, the one that PIERCED HIS HEART? The FATAL wound?
How the heck is Jesus alive if he still bears a mortal wound?!
The answer is simple: He isn't. He's a zombie.
I used to get kind of mad at people who made jokes about Zombie Jesus Day, thinking "No! He's not a zombie, he's resurrected! He's alive!" But he won't be for long, if he's still got a hole in his heart. Explain THAT, New Testament!
Thence arose the idea that Jesus was raised from the dead not by God, who despises the undead, but by an evil necromancer interfering in God's New Testament. That's our central conflict, and our hero has to solve it by going back in time to battle the necromancer and free Jesus in order to save the souls of all humanity. Ta-da!
There's more to it than that, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to blog the entire plot of a story I want to sell for actual money. It might not have been the best idea to go for something so controversial as Zombie Jesus for my first story, but I'll tell you one thing, it's never been done. It's an original idea and it will definitely stand out and stick in editors' memories.
As long as I can get someone interested enough to be willing to help me edit it to the point that they are comfortable publishing it, I'm golden - and I don't mind editing it until it's pablum. I still have my original version and I can self-publish that if I want to, or just share it with my friends and family. I trust the editors to tell me what the general readership wants. I also don't want fundies showing up on my doorstep and shooting me dead.
I wrote the first draft of the first chapter, and my plan is to release it for free to everyone in order to help gather interest (lots of authors do that so I think it's an accepted procedure). Here it is, since I think later on someone (me) might be amused by reading it:
---------------------------------------------
Lazarus (working title), Chapter 1, Draft 1
"Lazarus, we've been over this," Rob, the court-appointed psychiatrist, was beginning to lose his veneer of patience. "If you don't take your Clozapine, you won't get better."
"I do take my Clozapine." Laz shifted uncomfortably in the hard chair, the chains of his handcuffs clinking over its plastic armrests. The chair was too small for his massive fame, and his left buttcheek was falling asleep. Would it kill them to put a cushion on these things? Just a folded-up towel would be an improvement.
"Lazarus, I'm hurt," the psychiatrist said with a reproving look. "I thought we were past this. I know you're not telling me the truth."
"I am. I do take my pills. I take them, and throw them in the toilet." Laz grinned, and the greenish flourescent lights of the prison's therapy room glinted off his broken front teeth.
Rob leaned forward, his brow creasing with fatherly concern. "Lazarus. Laz. Please, work with me here. If I can't tell the wardens you're taking your medication, they'll start administering it via syringe."
Laz's normally ruddy skin paled visibly, but his voice was steady, his tone light. "Oh, I don't know. It might be a fun blast from the past. Getting shot up with shit that scrambles my brain." He tugged at his handcuffs again, unconsciously trying to hide the wealth of track marks on his meaty arms.
"It won't scramble your brain, Laz. It'll help you straighten it out again." Rob leaned back in his chair and smiled encouragingly at him. "I can see this topic is distressing you. Let's take a deep breath. In... Out... There you go. Let's talk about something else before our time is up. Have you had any episodes since last week?"
Laz grinned again. "Met any new demons, you mean? Nah. Not since week before last. The red Choronzonite down the hall is still there, though."
Rob winced. "Lazarus. Manuela is just a disturbed man. Please don't tell the other inmates he is a demon. We don't need any of them getting excited and trying to kill the poor man. Remember what we talked about?"
Laz sighed and recited in monotone, "Demons are a metaphorical representation of the baser sides of human nature. They are not real. They are a myth. When I see a demon, I am to tell my wardens immediately and I am to drink my special calming tea."
"Well done. You have an excellent memory. How about-" Rob broke off with a hiss of pain as the therapy room's door swung open and pinched the end of his barbed tail.
"Oh, sorry, Mr. Wallace, didn't mean to catch your coat in the door," apologized the warden standing in the door.
"Is that what it looks like to you?" Laz laughed. "The end of his coat? Ha! Good, one, Rob."
"Laz, please." Rob curled the tail into his lap and checked it for damage, its small scales rasping against the thicker ones that coated his thighs. He flicked out the end of his long, forked tongue a few times, nervously tasting the air. The door must have pinched him pretty hard, Laz thought. Good. Smarmy bastard.
"Sorry, Rob," he said out loud. "I'm just kidding with you. I know you're not a demon."
"I'm so glad," Rob said dryly and let his tail fall back to the scuffed tile floor, turning to the warden. "Now, what was so important that you had to interrupt our session, sir?"
"Time's up, Mr. Wallace. They shortened the sessions to half an hour. Budget cuts." The warden moved towards Laz, taking out a thick ring of keys. "I need you to leave, sir, before I unlock the cuffs. This is a very dangerous man."
"Half an hour? I'm a doctor! I need time to work! How am I supposed to do any good with only half an hour," Rob snarled, lips curling to display the points of hollow fangs as he stalked out. Laz felt his eyebrows rise. Apparently Rob was venomous. He should keep that in mind, when it was time to kill him.
"You don't really think I'm dangerous, do you, Allen?" Laz gave the warden his most charming smile, which really wasn't saying much, since smiling just made the scars, broken teeth, and crooked nose all the more visible.
Allen glared at him. "You're a goddamned mass murderer, Lazarus. If I were a judge, I'd give you the chair, and it'd be too good for you."
Allen pulled Laz's hands behind his back and slapped another pair of handcuffs onto his thick wrists before unlocking the ones that chained him to the chair. Then he pulled Laz to his feet by his collar and prodded him hard between the shoulder blades with the end of his nightstick, shoving him towards the door.
"Ow, Allen," Laz complained. "Use your words. Language seperates us from the animals, you know."
Allen grabbed the chain of his handcuffs and jerked it down and back, twisting Laz's shoulders painfully and pulling his head down to Allen's level. "Get. In. Your. Fucking. Cell," he growled into Laz's ear.
"See, that wasn't so hard," Laz said, and smiled at him again because it seemed to annoy him. "Even for you."
"Fuck you."
"You're not my type, Allen, but if your mother is available-"
"You shut your goddamned mouth!" Allen gave another hard jerk on the handcuffs, the steel cutting into the skin of Laz's wrists and drawing blood.
Well, that was probably enough for now, Laz decided. If he bruised up his wrists too badly, the cuffs wouldn't fit at all anymore, and they would just leave him confined to the cell until the swelling went down. 'One Size Fits All' generally meant 'This Will Be Too Small For You, Lazarus,' and handcuffs were no exceptions. He twisted his wrist, managed to wrap two fingers around the handcuff chain, and pulled it out of Allen's grip without apparent effort before sauntering briskly down the hall, up two flights of stairs and along a windowless corridor. He stopped at the door to his cell and waited patiently for Allen to catch up and unlock it.
The unlovely cell was as it had been a half hour ago: green walls, whitish floor, two narrow bunks, steel sink and toilet, single broken chair. His roommate was stretched out on his bunk, reading a naughty paperback for the umpteenth time. As the door clanged shut behind Laz, he looked up and grinned. "Hey, Laz. You kill Rob today?"
"Nah," Laz said. He backed up to the door and stuck his hands through the slot for Allen to unlock the cuffs. "Not today."
"Next time, then."
"Yeah."
"When you break out, you gonna take me with you, right?"
"Sure thing, Paulo."
"No talking about escapes," came Allen's voice through the heavy door.
"Sorry, Allen," Laz called back. "We'll talk about your mom instead."
"Fuck you." They could hear the jingling of his keys as he stomped away.
"He keeps saying that," Laz said to Paulo, "but I don't think he really means it."
"Tease." Paulo went back to his book while Laz went to the sink and ran cold water over his wrists. He dried them off and threw himself down on his bunk, which creaked dangerously under his weight. Paulo looked up again, his swarthy face vaguely curious. "Lazy?"
"That's a misnomer. What?"
"Is Rob really a demon?"
"Oh yes. Most definitely."
Long pause. "You sure you ain't crazy?"
Laz chuckled and started to sing. "Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe you're crazy. Maybe we're crazyyyyy..."
"Aw, Lazy, I hate Gnarls Barkley, and you sing like a damned crow."
"True." Laz settled a little lower into his bunk. "Seriously, though. I'm probably at least a little bit crazy, but not about this. Not about demons."
"Because this is the psych ward, I mean, they put us here because we crazy."
"Yeah, they think I'm a paranoid schitzophrenic. I'm not, though. I'm just surrounded by demons who want to kill me."
Paulo turned a page in his book before he spoke again. "You really murder all those people?"
"No."
Paulo looked up again. "Really? You framed?"
"No, I killed them. They just weren't people."
"Oh, right. They demons."
"Right."
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Update
Posted a chapter of the werewolf story late last night, which was probably a bad idea - should have waiting until today. Only one review, although a very nice one, with lots of detail and comments.
This morning I was excited to start writing, but also really jonesing for a stupid casual game called Alchemy because it has an awesome soundtrack. Yeah, yeah, I know. I found the game and the soundtrack and played for two freakin' hours. Then I wandered into Neopets in the hopes of being able to transfer a pet (long story) and got distracted by another casual strategy game THERE.
Well, the morning is shot. However, I am going to consider it an improvement anyway, because I was playing games instead of doing nothing. I'm going to try to hold onto that momentum and go do some chores, because I think I need to get up from the computer now. Wish me luck!
This morning I was excited to start writing, but also really jonesing for a stupid casual game called Alchemy because it has an awesome soundtrack. Yeah, yeah, I know. I found the game and the soundtrack and played for two freakin' hours. Then I wandered into Neopets in the hopes of being able to transfer a pet (long story) and got distracted by another casual strategy game THERE.
Well, the morning is shot. However, I am going to consider it an improvement anyway, because I was playing games instead of doing nothing. I'm going to try to hold onto that momentum and go do some chores, because I think I need to get up from the computer now. Wish me luck!
Monday, May 2, 2011
Short vs. Long Chunks of Writing Time
One of the things I struggle with every day is whether "now" is a "good time for writing."
This is a problem that plagues my entire life, actually. Generally, "now" is NOT a good time for anything at all except, possibly, what I already happen to be doing. Yet, the thought process always begins with "Is now a good time to trim the dogs' nails / pay my taxes / mop the floor / wash my hair / work on my story?" and the answer is invariably NO. The daily life-support tasks always take first precedent, and anything that is in any way unusual always loses out to the dishes, making dinner, or giving the dogs their walk.
Frequently, I am paralyzed by indecision. I have many things I need to do, and it is not a good time for any of them. I don't have time to do even two or three of the things on my list, much less ALL of them. This means I have to pick one, and all the others won't get done. Inherent in that decision-making process is a value judgment: the thing I choose to do is more valuable to me than the thing I do not do. More importantly, the thing I do SEEMS TO OTHERS to be more important to me than the ones I don't do.
This leaves me terrified of NOT doing a thing that my husband, my boss, my friends, or my government considers important, lest they think I don't value that task, or worse, don't value THEM. I'm also afraid of beginning a task and then discovering I can't finish it, with the result that my day becomes completely derailed - for example, beginning to do my taxes only to discover that I have to get a bunch of statements from the bank, only to discover the bank here is closed, so I have to drive to Boston, only it's rush hour, and my whole afternoon is shot, and not only did I not finish my list but I ALSO didn't make dinner or walk the dogs.
The result? Do NONE of the items. Tell everyone I was too busy to do anything other than make dinner and walk the dogs. Thing that nobody can argue with, that we can all agree must be done on a daily basis.
What do I do instead, you ask? NOTHING.
That's right, nothing. I sit in my chair and refresh my email, or hide in the bathroom.
I can't tell anyone that hiding in the bathroom was more important than the thing they wanted me to do, because it isn't. To anyone, least of all me. This forces me to evade or lie if pressed on what I was doing. And I can't lie by saying I was doing anything that could be verified - I have to say I was doing some unnamed but important chore. That causes me to feel ashamed about not doing anything, which starts a guilt spiral that can ONLY be broken by urgency. That is to say, I can only get out of it by running out of time entirely. Then there's no more decision to be made. I just have to start dinner.
When nobody is home, for example if Ariel is visiting his parents, I might not ever "run out" of time, because nobody is waiting for me to do anything. I might not break out of the shame spiral until two or three in the morning. As I get tired at the end of the day, it becomes more and more difficult to escape. Only when physical exhaustion overcomes me can I go lie down and turn off the light. In fact, if I didn't have a job that I needed to be alert for, I'm not sure when I would go to bed at all. I might never. I might fall asleep at my desk, for all I know - I've never tested it (and I never will, because that would be stupid).
Because writing is a thing that I want to do, ME and JUST me, I am not accountable to anyone but myself. It is easier to disappoint myself than to disappoint anyone else. After all, I can't give MYSELF a disappointed glare, nor can I refuse to talk to myself, or refuse to pay myself (not true, actually - I often don't bill clients out of a sense of not deserving their money because I didn't work hard enough, but that's another issue). You might be able to see where this is going, but I'll finish the thought anyway.
If I use my normal criteria, writing always loses the argument about whether it's a good time to write. There is always something more important. ALWAYS.
I have to acknowledge that, because I have to internalize that there is never going to be a good time to write, period. I will never be able to finish all my work so I can write guilt-free - after all, a woman's work is never done (boy, is that true). I will never have nobody waiting for me. I will never be perfectly ready and creative and rested. There will always be something waiting that I'm putting off in order to write.
I have to be okay with that. I have to be strong in my determination to publish a novel, and aware that that might require writing MORE THAN ONE, and definitely will require sending mail and e-mail and making trips to New York to visit publishers and God only knows what, and that there will never be a good time to do any of this, ever.
This started out as a discussion of whether it is better to write in a short chunk, or whether I should attempt to carve out long chunks. It's certainly more satisfying to sit down and bang out a whole chapter in one sitting, but it's also really hard to grab that time. Writing in shorter chunks is easier, but produces a choppier result. I was intending to write up pros and cons and then pick a strategy.
I have instead convinced myself that this is just another part of my "good time" thought process. Another attempt to convince myself not to write, because I don't have the right amount of time to write in. What nonsense! It takes me a fraction of a second to type a letter, only a little longer to type a word, less than a minute to write a sentence. How silly of me to think I don't have enough time to write!
I don't know if it will help to think that way, though. There IS time lost when sitting down to write, in finding my place and remembering what I was doing. Functionally, ten minutes is actually not enough time. I will get frustrated. But four hours is tiring, and the result of a marathon writing session is a burnt-out writer - I don't pick up the keyboard again for a couple days after that. I have heard from too many places that writers must write every day to be willing to make any decision that will cause me to write only once or twice a week.
I'm also a little worried that marathon writing sessions cause me performance anxiety. The longer I have set aside to write, the longer it takes me to start. And the more excited I am about a topic, the harder it is to write it. I don't want to be disappointed. I don't want to discover I'm not good enough, or not as good as I thought, not good enough to break out.
I think, I'm going to seize any chunk of time that is at least half an hour in length, but ideally one hour. I don't think I will let myself write longer than an hour, even if I'm on a roll. That might sound stupid, but I think if I make myself stop, I will be excited to start again, and that will cut down on the lost transitional time. Longer than 90 minutes and I begin to be physically uncomfortable and I don't want to associate writing with being tired and in pain, nor do I want to worsen the aches in my fingers.
That will probably create choppiness, but you know, I don't think choppiness is my biggest problem. Shay has only commented on it twice, ever. If I do write choppy work, it is both easy and fun to fix it. I like editing. I like fixing problems when it is clearly better. I think I've lost track of that.
This is a problem that plagues my entire life, actually. Generally, "now" is NOT a good time for anything at all except, possibly, what I already happen to be doing. Yet, the thought process always begins with "Is now a good time to trim the dogs' nails / pay my taxes / mop the floor / wash my hair / work on my story?" and the answer is invariably NO. The daily life-support tasks always take first precedent, and anything that is in any way unusual always loses out to the dishes, making dinner, or giving the dogs their walk.
Frequently, I am paralyzed by indecision. I have many things I need to do, and it is not a good time for any of them. I don't have time to do even two or three of the things on my list, much less ALL of them. This means I have to pick one, and all the others won't get done. Inherent in that decision-making process is a value judgment: the thing I choose to do is more valuable to me than the thing I do not do. More importantly, the thing I do SEEMS TO OTHERS to be more important to me than the ones I don't do.
This leaves me terrified of NOT doing a thing that my husband, my boss, my friends, or my government considers important, lest they think I don't value that task, or worse, don't value THEM. I'm also afraid of beginning a task and then discovering I can't finish it, with the result that my day becomes completely derailed - for example, beginning to do my taxes only to discover that I have to get a bunch of statements from the bank, only to discover the bank here is closed, so I have to drive to Boston, only it's rush hour, and my whole afternoon is shot, and not only did I not finish my list but I ALSO didn't make dinner or walk the dogs.
The result? Do NONE of the items. Tell everyone I was too busy to do anything other than make dinner and walk the dogs. Thing that nobody can argue with, that we can all agree must be done on a daily basis.
What do I do instead, you ask? NOTHING.
That's right, nothing. I sit in my chair and refresh my email, or hide in the bathroom.
I can't tell anyone that hiding in the bathroom was more important than the thing they wanted me to do, because it isn't. To anyone, least of all me. This forces me to evade or lie if pressed on what I was doing. And I can't lie by saying I was doing anything that could be verified - I have to say I was doing some unnamed but important chore. That causes me to feel ashamed about not doing anything, which starts a guilt spiral that can ONLY be broken by urgency. That is to say, I can only get out of it by running out of time entirely. Then there's no more decision to be made. I just have to start dinner.
When nobody is home, for example if Ariel is visiting his parents, I might not ever "run out" of time, because nobody is waiting for me to do anything. I might not break out of the shame spiral until two or three in the morning. As I get tired at the end of the day, it becomes more and more difficult to escape. Only when physical exhaustion overcomes me can I go lie down and turn off the light. In fact, if I didn't have a job that I needed to be alert for, I'm not sure when I would go to bed at all. I might never. I might fall asleep at my desk, for all I know - I've never tested it (and I never will, because that would be stupid).
Because writing is a thing that I want to do, ME and JUST me, I am not accountable to anyone but myself. It is easier to disappoint myself than to disappoint anyone else. After all, I can't give MYSELF a disappointed glare, nor can I refuse to talk to myself, or refuse to pay myself (not true, actually - I often don't bill clients out of a sense of not deserving their money because I didn't work hard enough, but that's another issue). You might be able to see where this is going, but I'll finish the thought anyway.
If I use my normal criteria, writing always loses the argument about whether it's a good time to write. There is always something more important. ALWAYS.
I have to acknowledge that, because I have to internalize that there is never going to be a good time to write, period. I will never be able to finish all my work so I can write guilt-free - after all, a woman's work is never done (boy, is that true). I will never have nobody waiting for me. I will never be perfectly ready and creative and rested. There will always be something waiting that I'm putting off in order to write.
I have to be okay with that. I have to be strong in my determination to publish a novel, and aware that that might require writing MORE THAN ONE, and definitely will require sending mail and e-mail and making trips to New York to visit publishers and God only knows what, and that there will never be a good time to do any of this, ever.
This started out as a discussion of whether it is better to write in a short chunk, or whether I should attempt to carve out long chunks. It's certainly more satisfying to sit down and bang out a whole chapter in one sitting, but it's also really hard to grab that time. Writing in shorter chunks is easier, but produces a choppier result. I was intending to write up pros and cons and then pick a strategy.
I have instead convinced myself that this is just another part of my "good time" thought process. Another attempt to convince myself not to write, because I don't have the right amount of time to write in. What nonsense! It takes me a fraction of a second to type a letter, only a little longer to type a word, less than a minute to write a sentence. How silly of me to think I don't have enough time to write!
I don't know if it will help to think that way, though. There IS time lost when sitting down to write, in finding my place and remembering what I was doing. Functionally, ten minutes is actually not enough time. I will get frustrated. But four hours is tiring, and the result of a marathon writing session is a burnt-out writer - I don't pick up the keyboard again for a couple days after that. I have heard from too many places that writers must write every day to be willing to make any decision that will cause me to write only once or twice a week.
I'm also a little worried that marathon writing sessions cause me performance anxiety. The longer I have set aside to write, the longer it takes me to start. And the more excited I am about a topic, the harder it is to write it. I don't want to be disappointed. I don't want to discover I'm not good enough, or not as good as I thought, not good enough to break out.
I think, I'm going to seize any chunk of time that is at least half an hour in length, but ideally one hour. I don't think I will let myself write longer than an hour, even if I'm on a roll. That might sound stupid, but I think if I make myself stop, I will be excited to start again, and that will cut down on the lost transitional time. Longer than 90 minutes and I begin to be physically uncomfortable and I don't want to associate writing with being tired and in pain, nor do I want to worsen the aches in my fingers.
That will probably create choppiness, but you know, I don't think choppiness is my biggest problem. Shay has only commented on it twice, ever. If I do write choppy work, it is both easy and fun to fix it. I like editing. I like fixing problems when it is clearly better. I think I've lost track of that.
Friday, April 29, 2011
A Reminder
Right now I'm sitting in an uncomfortable chair, in a windowless basement, while I wait for my boss (who is my dad, so I can't actually complain, nor can I change jobs, although I do get excellent job security) to proof-read the mass mailer we are about to send. I worked on it for two hours on my day off in order to get it out promptly today. It is now two hours LATE and I'm still waiting... for feedback that I asked for two days ago and still haven't got.
That's a lot of very pointless whining. The actual point to this post is that I'm bored. I don't want to be here and I don't want to do what I'm doing. Technically this is the "Creative" part of my job, too, where I write ad copy and retouch images, and it's boring anyway.
Reminder to self: Being bored sucks. I am never bored when writing. Tired, frustrated, upset, or stressed, but not bored.
That's a lot of very pointless whining. The actual point to this post is that I'm bored. I don't want to be here and I don't want to do what I'm doing. Technically this is the "Creative" part of my job, too, where I write ad copy and retouch images, and it's boring anyway.
Reminder to self: Being bored sucks. I am never bored when writing. Tired, frustrated, upset, or stressed, but not bored.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Purpose
I don't ever expect anyone but me to read this blog.
Its purpose is to help me keep track of my progress as I attempt to break out of having a job. I suppose I could just marry someone wicked rich, but I kind of like the husband I have already *blows kisses* and I get bored sitting around being decorative.
There has got to be some way to make a living doing something I like. I thought that would be working with animals and helping train animals, but it turned out my social anxiety is too severe for that to be a viable option. Discovering that was heartbreaking and I still haven't recovered. To say my self-esteem took a hit is a bit of an understatement.
I'm good at a lot of things, but I can't make a career out of them. I can cook, and enjoy it, but doing so as a career requires exhausting hours and I would never see my husband, who, as I've mentioned, I kind of like. I can draw, sort of, and would be able to draw a lot better if I practiced, but LOTS of people can draw and the market is painfully competitive and I lack the powerful calling that a real artist like my mother has. I love crafts and thought briefly that I might make jewelry, and then I suffered a repetitive-stress injury as a result of my job that I hate, which made jewelry-making impossible. I'm really good at solving problems, any problems (except my own, ugh), but it's hard to have a job title of "Fixer." For a while I thought I might become a counselor or psychologist/psychiatrist and help people sort through their problems that way, but... yeah, the anxiety thing.
Wow, that was a depressing and whiny paragraph.
I really realized all this after my dog had her puppies in the fall of 2009. I managed it, raised the pups and placed them in homes and did a damned good job, but I realized I couldn't do it again. God, that was hard. I was so hurting that I spent a lot of time in my head. I also started playing a game called Dragon Age. The two things combined to capture my imagination in a powerful way.
I love stories, and used to continually narrate what I was doing inside my own head, with embellishments to make it more interesting. I discovered fanfiction in college by accident, and for a while I thought all fanfiction was slash (homosexual porn). Then I found out that a lot of people are writing actual stories with actual content that just happen to feature characters and places that fans already know and love.
I read some Dragon Age fanfiction, hungry for more of that good stuff, especially the extremely hunky Alistair (you can slay darkspawn for me any day, baby). It didn't take me long to realize people are bad at proofreading their own stuff. I offered to help one or two authors. Soon I was doing more than just correcting commas, and soon after that I put pen to paper (metaphorically) for the first time.
It felt good. It felt really good.
For a few months, I thought about my story all the time. I worried I was obsessed, that my other chores and my job would suffer. The problem was that writing my story was more fun than anything else. ANYTHING else. Except maybe hubby, who I kind of like, just a little. When I confessed to said hubby in the darkness of our bedroom one night that I liked working on my story better than anything, he said immediately, "Then you should do it more."
Well, okay, but you do realize that means I will be NOT doing something else, right? What do you want me to stop doing - grocery shopping? Laundry? My job?
Actually, all hyperbole aside, I do spend an unfortunate amount of time doing absolutely nothing - sitting on the floor in the bathroom, for example, or blankly watching my email in-box automatically refresh, or minutely examining the texture of my hair. I don't know why it is so difficult to stop wasting time in this way except that I get more anxious until I feel I have to "stop" and spend some time doing something soothing and repetitive. There is probably a medical term for this and a drug I should be taking. I dunno.
Compounding the problem is a deeply ingrained attitude that I "should" be doing some sort of chore, and that writing is an indulgence. I'm pretty sure I feel this way for two reasons - it doesn't make money, and I enjoy it. It sucks that I feel guilty about doing a thing simply because I enjoy it, but I do.
I don't know how to get around that. But I do hope to get around the money thing eventually. Someday this will pay, and then maybe I will feel guilty about NOT writing. Wouldn't that be amazing? If Ariel asked why dinner was late and I could say "Because I was writing" and that would actually be a valid reason instead of an excuse?
That will be a very long road. The initial rush that I felt when I first started writing has now worn off, and is no longer powerful enough to overcome my anxieties and my guilt. As a result, it's become difficult to keep writing.
I don't want to stop. I want to finish these stories and then write more. I want my awesome mom to paint a book cover for me. I want to get a royalty check in the mail and know I actually earned the damned thing by doing something only I can do, with ideas from my own head, instead of just regurgitating HTML code than any jackass could do if given the training.
So I started this blog. I'm hoping it will keep me accountable. I want this blog to keep my eyes on the prize, and keep me on this road until I get to its end. I want to break out into a world where these black letters I am typing are my REAL JOB. I don't want to forget that and maybe, now that it's written down, I won't.
Wish me luck.
Its purpose is to help me keep track of my progress as I attempt to break out of having a job. I suppose I could just marry someone wicked rich, but I kind of like the husband I have already *blows kisses* and I get bored sitting around being decorative.
There has got to be some way to make a living doing something I like. I thought that would be working with animals and helping train animals, but it turned out my social anxiety is too severe for that to be a viable option. Discovering that was heartbreaking and I still haven't recovered. To say my self-esteem took a hit is a bit of an understatement.
I'm good at a lot of things, but I can't make a career out of them. I can cook, and enjoy it, but doing so as a career requires exhausting hours and I would never see my husband, who, as I've mentioned, I kind of like. I can draw, sort of, and would be able to draw a lot better if I practiced, but LOTS of people can draw and the market is painfully competitive and I lack the powerful calling that a real artist like my mother has. I love crafts and thought briefly that I might make jewelry, and then I suffered a repetitive-stress injury as a result of my job that I hate, which made jewelry-making impossible. I'm really good at solving problems, any problems (except my own, ugh), but it's hard to have a job title of "Fixer." For a while I thought I might become a counselor or psychologist/psychiatrist and help people sort through their problems that way, but... yeah, the anxiety thing.
Wow, that was a depressing and whiny paragraph.
I really realized all this after my dog had her puppies in the fall of 2009. I managed it, raised the pups and placed them in homes and did a damned good job, but I realized I couldn't do it again. God, that was hard. I was so hurting that I spent a lot of time in my head. I also started playing a game called Dragon Age. The two things combined to capture my imagination in a powerful way.
I love stories, and used to continually narrate what I was doing inside my own head, with embellishments to make it more interesting. I discovered fanfiction in college by accident, and for a while I thought all fanfiction was slash (homosexual porn). Then I found out that a lot of people are writing actual stories with actual content that just happen to feature characters and places that fans already know and love.
I read some Dragon Age fanfiction, hungry for more of that good stuff, especially the extremely hunky Alistair (you can slay darkspawn for me any day, baby). It didn't take me long to realize people are bad at proofreading their own stuff. I offered to help one or two authors. Soon I was doing more than just correcting commas, and soon after that I put pen to paper (metaphorically) for the first time.
It felt good. It felt really good.
For a few months, I thought about my story all the time. I worried I was obsessed, that my other chores and my job would suffer. The problem was that writing my story was more fun than anything else. ANYTHING else. Except maybe hubby, who I kind of like, just a little. When I confessed to said hubby in the darkness of our bedroom one night that I liked working on my story better than anything, he said immediately, "Then you should do it more."
Well, okay, but you do realize that means I will be NOT doing something else, right? What do you want me to stop doing - grocery shopping? Laundry? My job?
Actually, all hyperbole aside, I do spend an unfortunate amount of time doing absolutely nothing - sitting on the floor in the bathroom, for example, or blankly watching my email in-box automatically refresh, or minutely examining the texture of my hair. I don't know why it is so difficult to stop wasting time in this way except that I get more anxious until I feel I have to "stop" and spend some time doing something soothing and repetitive. There is probably a medical term for this and a drug I should be taking. I dunno.
Compounding the problem is a deeply ingrained attitude that I "should" be doing some sort of chore, and that writing is an indulgence. I'm pretty sure I feel this way for two reasons - it doesn't make money, and I enjoy it. It sucks that I feel guilty about doing a thing simply because I enjoy it, but I do.
I don't know how to get around that. But I do hope to get around the money thing eventually. Someday this will pay, and then maybe I will feel guilty about NOT writing. Wouldn't that be amazing? If Ariel asked why dinner was late and I could say "Because I was writing" and that would actually be a valid reason instead of an excuse?
That will be a very long road. The initial rush that I felt when I first started writing has now worn off, and is no longer powerful enough to overcome my anxieties and my guilt. As a result, it's become difficult to keep writing.
I don't want to stop. I want to finish these stories and then write more. I want my awesome mom to paint a book cover for me. I want to get a royalty check in the mail and know I actually earned the damned thing by doing something only I can do, with ideas from my own head, instead of just regurgitating HTML code than any jackass could do if given the training.
So I started this blog. I'm hoping it will keep me accountable. I want this blog to keep my eyes on the prize, and keep me on this road until I get to its end. I want to break out into a world where these black letters I am typing are my REAL JOB. I don't want to forget that and maybe, now that it's written down, I won't.
Wish me luck.
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