Odd Still Life My Odd Still Life (In A Few Well And/Or Badly Chosen Words)

Never Be . . .

Desperate.

It's dangerous. Desperation will break your heart and drive you (at least slightly) insane.

If you ever feel yourself becoming desperate: a)stop what you are doing, b) walk away. Go do something, ANYTHING else.

You will regret a desperate act for the rest of your life.

Don't ask me how I know.

I've had this particular post planned for weeks now and I get around to writing it and it's pretty straight forward. And very, very short.

This would have made 5 or 6 fairly decent tweets. Oh, well. Things are what they are.

Something To Say

If I'd been awake for just a moment, at just the right moment in 1994, I would have gotten off a Greyhound Bus in the middle of Denver, Colorado. I would have gotten a job and worked for awhile. I would have walked that city, just the way that I did, only just too many years later. My heart would have felt it's place and known it's space.

But I didn't. I was very ill that night and I stayed on that bus and I slept. I slept most of the way for another thousand miles. I stayed asleep and the chance disappeared without me even knowing it. Before I even knew the dream existed, the chance to fulfill it disappeared.

Seven years passed before I saw the light that would have guided me forward. By then it was just too late. Or so I imagined.

But still I prayed over this thing, this dream that was something I had never envisioned. I knew it was improbable, maybe impossible. My life was so broken and flawed by that time that I couldn't imagine how I would fix it enough to convince myself to even hope to fulfill such a dream.

I prayed. A thing I hadn't done in years. I cried and screamed and crawled. I suffered over a dream that I didn't know how to believe in. I begged and for a few months I waited.

Then something terrible happened. It wasn't a sign. It was a warning. Life was short. It was too precious to waste waiting. I made a plan. I made a decision. I fixed this dream in my heart and I wouldn't let it go.

For one solid year -- a few months more, really -- I held fast to the dream. I searched for the things I prayed for -- a pathway, a light, a sign, a goal -- something that would tell me I was doing the right things, that would tell me the dream was within my reach.

I received nothing. No light. No clue. Only more darkness and confusion. I wound up in Denver, so many years too late and for a moment I thought I knew what I was meant to do. I could see and smell and taste it.

Then, and I promise that I am not kidding, I was hit by a truck. Literally. One second, one half-second in time and I would have died.

Still I struggled. I fought to stay in the city. A city that I felt a connection to, that I felt some real possibility from. But it wasn't possible.

Days after that fateful accident I was on another bus headed to California, a place I was sure was the answer. I spent days traveling the coast and wound up in Santa Monica.

I walked the beaches from Malibu to Venice. Sometimes alone, sometimes with other people. I walked and a I wondered and I cried. I cried a lot.

I was somewhere familiar, but I was lost. There was so much time between what I dreamed and what was real. Finally, I broke my own heart, trying to rid myself of the dream that I was now sure was insanity.

I did things that I would never have done. Did them because they were something to do besides reaching out for something incomprehensible. I did things that were against my heart, anathema to my soul, because I wanted to put the dream behind me and because I had to change my life, somehow.

I had prayed for strength and patience and ability and in the end I gained none of those things and instead I lost all of myself.

I have crawled through the last nine years of my life. Crawled with a broken spirit and a  shattered heart. I have tried to forget the dream, but it still haunts me. I think of things that I might have done, if I'd had the strength, the insight, the patience. Even now I find things that connect me to the dream. I can not escape them. They are everywhere.

The life I'm living now is not one I should have ever lived. It's as if I stepped out of my own skin 9 years ago and into someone else's, someone I was never meant to be. I know I can't undo the things I've done. I can only start again.

But to do that I have to take a hammer to this life. I have to break it away from me as if chiseling myself out of a stone tomb. I have to change everything. That means doing what I did before, only with some meaning this time. Not trying to escape from something, but fighting towards something. Fighting to get back to myself, my real self.

Things Being What They Are

I always plan November out so carefully.  I know what I'm going to write almost before I start, I get everything ready and  -- things tend to fall apart pretty quickly. Hardware problem, timing problems, personal problems -- all these things wait until November to gang up on me.  This year has been no exception.

I wrote and I wrote and this time, as I wrote I began to see something in the story that bothered me. There are some difficult relationships within the story, especially a mother/daughter relationship between two (or three) of the main characters. I began to realize that I was injecting too much of my own experience into at least one third of this relationship.

I've come to the conclusion that if I am going to write this damn thing I'm going to have to admit that there are pieces of myself in the characters. (I've been thinking about it and working on it -- in the abstract -- for so long that it has become as much a part of me as something like this can reasonably be.)

The point is, while I struggle with the monstrosity that is this novel, other things get pushed aside.  So, if I haven't posted here in a while you have to forgive me. I have two major posts in the works -- I mentioned them on twitter a while back -- I fully intend to have them up by the end of the month.  Also, I have a few new Scenes written already and hope to have them up by the end of the day, today. (I've really specifically tried to keep my promise to myself not to edit them --except perhaps for glaring spelling errors -- so I need to post them ASAP before I change my mind.)

I actually started this post a week ago and changed my mind thirty times about finishing it and posting it. Anyway, here it is. Thanks for your patience.

Things That I Can Never Explain

I'm working on the novel. But it is very slow going and I find that the harder I focus on the story the slower things get. I've tried just "free writing" writing down anything that comes to my mind about the story, but it irritates me that I can't make it come together.

So, terribly, I've been letting myself write other things. Well, actually I've become slightly obsessed with creating a story set just for this site and while, apparently, trying desperately not to work on the novel, I've actually come up with an idea that seems to flow for me.

In actuality this story and my novel are based on the same idea. This story is just a little less "speculative fiction" and more mainstream romantic/drama fiction.  The characters are no less problematic, but with this story I'm not concerned at all with any specific difficulties, either story wise or character wise. I made the decision that I could never actually turn this story into a novel (or any other kind of salable product). I  could never explain exactly why. (Thus the title of this post.)

Another thing about this story is that it will be barely, if ever, edited.  So, none of you write me long comments or e-mails about how the grammar or tense or punctuation is terrible. It will be terrible, very likely. The point to it even being here is that when I can not write anything else I will be (should be) able to write a page or two for this story without having to worry about editing or where a comma needs to go (or whether I mean your or you're).

The name of the set is Scenes From Her Life and the one concession that I will make to some sort of rule is that I will try to keep the scenes in consecutive order. So,  anyone trying to,  should be able to follow along. (The first Scene is titled First, the second will be Second and so on to infinity-- or til I go crazy and throw this freaking computer thru the window.) I'll be trying to use WordPress tools to keep the site from getting wildly cluttered. So, of course, things may be wildly cluttered  (or worse) until I get everything figured out.

So, finally some sort of regular content on this site. I'm a little busy with other things to even think about adding anything more. (I mean, really, who decided NaNoWriMo should be in November. Freaking Thanksgiving takes days of my life, not to mention the run up to the holidays.)

The first page(s) should be up in the next few hours and I may have more if I can't rethink the religious ideas in the novel. (Yes. That's what I'm working on right now and it's driving me up the wall. I'd take it out entirely, but the whole thing is basically about something that happened to one of the characters that might have been an Act of God.)

This post turned out to be about ten times longer than I intended it to be, so I'll go now and see about handling everything else. Good bye.

Getting Lost Along The Way

I get a little lost sometimes. Things don't go well during a day and I let myself drift off and do other things. I've been trying to write. I've been meaning to come here and leave a small note.

Today I got thru another idea that I think is important to the story. I keep thinking I'll have more problems with it later on and I'm not sure if I can focus on it as a major piece of the story. It bothers me and when things bother me I normally cut them out.

So, I have been working the last couple of days. I've just had a lot of other things (personal and home) to deal with.  I'm always working. It's always in my head. The words come when they will and I'll bring them here when I can.

Two days.  That isn't so bad. Bug me when it's been a week. (Hahahaha.)

[That's uncomfortable laughter if you didn't recognize it.]

Working On It. Really, I Am.

I've been working on the same five pages all day. I just can't find the right way to introduce two of my characters to each other.  I'm trying for a very dramatic reveal and it just isn't working. I'm hoping to get more done by the wee hours of the morning. (I'm shooting for 8 pages a day. I haven't hit that mark yet. I'm hoping to be able to spend more time on it over the weekend and get caught up.)

I'm also working on a post about a completely different subject, something that I alluded to over at twitter, but with the problems I'm having with the novel it may go on the back burner until at least Sunday. I'm also thinking of adding a few new pages to the site. Things I'm doing on the side, when the novel gets to be too much. (I know that's a no-no, but when I just can't think about my characters for one more second I need to break away and I don't want to quit writing completely.)

That's my process, though. Whether it really works or not, we'll figure out next year when we see whether I actually get this thing out there. You know, into the real world.

Okay. So, that's my update. It's still the 3rd and I'm on a roll. (Yeah, me!)

Struggling

I'm having real problems with the novel I've decided to write this year. It's been in the planning stages for years. I've invested time and mind and heart to it. I finally decided to just get a full first draft out during NaNoWriMo, just to be done with the thing and be through with it.

Yesterday started out fine. I got several pages done and some problems worked out. This morning I hit a road block in trying to figure out how I was going continue the story. I decided and undecided for about two hours how to proceed. Then I decided to walk away and stop thinking about it, fully intending to come back to it later in the day.

Walking away is a no-no for me. I tend to walk away and never want to go back. It makes me think that the thing is impossibly hard. It isn't, of course.  It seems that way to me because I over-think things.  I think and think until my thinker is sore and I burn myself out.

I'm resigned, as of today, to not do that again, at least until the end of this NaNoWriMo. I will work on the problems that I'm having with the narrative, tomorrow. I will get the next scene squared away (possibly tonight) and I will do everything within my power to finish this draft within the next 29 days.  I have made myself a solemn promise that if I can't get this thing done (or at least very nearly done) by December 1st, I will never write the story.

These characters want to be written about, they claw at my brain and spirit and beg me to finish, but then they get obstinate and make it hard to write about them. This is their last warning. In 29 days, if their story isn't told it never will be. The end. No more.

There is always another story. I have plenty to tell.

Yes, But I Have An Explanation

You see, The Kid had a dentist appointment, which was just supposed to be a check-up. Turns out she had a capped baby tooth that had to come out. The Kid is nothing if not squeamish. The slightest amount of blood and she's all screams and "Check it! Check it! Is it STILL BLEEDING?!"

It maybe bled for a couple of minutes. Checked the gauze, it was fine. Unfortunately, then it was all about the Tooth Fairy.  "I want to put the tooth under the pillow, now!"

"No. Wait until bedtime."

"No. Now."

We share our home with dogs.  Who generally sniff things out and then either eat or mangle them. Anything new to the area, left unattended for more than 5 minutes is fair game.

"At bedtime, or the pups will eat the tooth and then what?"

"Fine. But I want to eat candy. Now!"

This scenario played itself out over the next several hours, eating up my time and energy.  So, no post yesterday, but there will probably be at least two today, so, hey, I'll come out ahead. Yeah!