News

Hey, everybody. It’s me again. I am currently listening to a Christmas album by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Why am I listening to Christmas music only a few days before Halloween? Because I’m stuck. The book has come to a dead stop. It’s taking me nearly two weeks to figure out why, but even knowing why, doesn’t make it any easier, not really. It’s like that moment in therepy where you understand the great bad thing and how it effected you, and there is cathartic release, but the damage is still done. Knowing how you got hurt doesn’t make it heal. A rather painful scene is ahead of me, and for the really dark moments, or when I’m really stuck, or both, it’s Christmas music. My husband is actually making me a disc (or is it an mp3) of selected bits of music from the nearly dozen I bought last night. Some will go for presents, but most will stay with me for those days when nothing else will do. I knew I was in trouble when no Tori Amos music was cutting it. I then fell back to THE MUSIC MAN, the new one with Matthew Broderick, and after nearly a week and a half of just that, I had to throw the towell in, and admit defeat. I feel defeated, that I need to fall back on the holiday music, because when nothing else will cheer me, or help me gather my courage, this music does. But I know I’m in a bad spot, or I wouldn’t need it. It’s like it’s nice to have back-up, but when you’re calling in your reserves, you know that your main force has taken a beating.
What is my beating? I can’t tell you. The character in question feels that it would be betraying his trust. How’s that for issues. My imaginaty friends are in worse need of therepy than I am. Scary, isn’t it? Let it suffice to say, that it is emotionally painful, and I was really hoping things would go differently. I like happy endings, honest I do.
Now, if Darla finds the rumor on the internet tomorrow, or later today, that I’m killing off a main character, or something else I did not say here, I’ll be pissed. Let me be as clear as I can. No one is dieing. No one is being killed. Stupid maybe, but not killed. But it depresses me when my characters hurt each other, or themselves.
An aquaintance gave me the advice that I shouldn’t invest so much of myself in my work. They aren’t real people, afterall. It sounds like good advice, but as you’ve already guessed the person who gave the advice isn’t a writer, doesn’t read the books, and is very much an aquaintance. I actually thought about taking the advice for a minute or two, but realized that it wasn’t very good advice. People ask me why do people feel so strongly about your characters, your world, the answer of course, in part, is because I feel strongly. I didn’t really get that, until these last few days where I’ve moped around damn near depressed for real, because of people who do not exisit. Not really. I can buy them Christmas presents, but there is no way to send them. Sometimes I feel like I should be able to walk into the next room and there they will be, but they won’t. These people do not exisit as flesh and blood, but there are different kinds of reality, and there are days when imagination feels very, very real.
I’ll go now, because I’ve got a dozen different kinds of Christmas music to see me through, and I’ve made peace with what’s coming next in the book. I’d save everybody the angst if I could, but apparently, I can’t. So I’ll go write it, and let my imaginary friends make their choices, and live with them. Here’s hoping for better choices futher into the book.