I've been very involved with Resonance of late. I was unable to find any actors who were willing to participate, so I've extremely reluctantly cast myself in the role of Alisha Williams, the central character in the Detroit Resonance story. I'm limited in more ways than one, but I'm going to give it a go anyhow. The video portions of this offering will take the form of a video diary, I think, filmed through my digital camera. We'll see how this works out.

In other areas of my writing, I'm still wrestling with Light at the End of the World and thinking thinky-thoughts about Knight of Sorrows and Catherine's Wheel. I'm also playing with the idea of writing a screenplay that may or may not be based loosely on one of my short stories. We shall see.

In the meantime, keep cool, Crickets. It's been hot out there.

Bugger.

What part of "I have to finish LEW and KOS" sounds like "Please, new characters, come and start telling me a new story"? Idiot cast of thousands, they never let me get anything done around here....

Good afternoon, Crickets! I hope you're all doing well in your respective silent spaces, and that the approach of the holidays on little clawed monster feet isn't giving you conniptions. I've been working on Not Named and trying to avoid being sickly, which if you know me is a fairly constant battle. In the process, I have done a great deal of research, chucked the concept of NaNoWriMo, and learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.

The bomb in question is, of course, my Illustrious So-Called Career, which really does deserve those capital letters. I'm going to give it my all, which means that these updates from me might be coming few and far between. Now, now, Crickets, don't chirp... it will be all right. With luck, I'll come out on the other side of the Long Silence (I'm fairly obsessed with capital letters today - curious) with a brand new Something for you to read, if you're so inclined. I'm pleased with the little baby steppies Not Named is taking, so my hopes are high.

Incidentally, a co-worker at my day job informed me that my writing was the equivalent to other people collecting bottles. I was offended, then I was amused, and now I think I shall just refer to the process of writing as "bottle collecting". That approach annoys my friend Big Cat, but sometimes these things can't be helped.

One last comment before I go soft into that good writing corner: Tristan has taken on all of the characteristics of a bad boyfriend. He drives me insane when I'm trying to spend time with him, takes me completely for granted and mistreats me until I throw him out. As soon as my attention is drawn to a nice, cooperative new friend like Not Named, he comes crawling back, armed with pretty words and a promise to make it work out this time, really. Shall I take him back, Crickets?

Nah. Boyfriend has to work for it this time. ;)

Revelations

Revelation the first (and I needed to have this explained): Rejection of my writing is not the same as rejection of me as a person.


I've always felt that my writing = me, and vice versa, and that if people didn't want to read my writing, they were saying through action that they didn't give a good God damn about me as a person. After a long conversation with my friend Big Cat yesterday, I've come to accept that perhaps this is not the case. It's still hard to believe that when people have no interest in supporting my writing career, that doesn't mean that they have no interest in me as a human being. It'll take some time until I accept this to be true... if it ever happens.

Revelation the second: Knight of Sorrows is henceforth to be known as "Book Not Appearing on the Bookshelf," or B-Nab.

This is the most damnable project, and the one I've had the most damnable time with. I cannot seem to coax it into being. It's something I want to write, very much, but for some reason it's harder to do than pulling teeth by way of the left kidney. I have never had this much trouble with anything I've ever tried to write. In the words of Commodus in Gladiator, it vexes me. I'm very vexed.

As a result, B-Nab has been sent to the orphanage for a few more weeks/months/years. We'll see if it shows up again.

Revelation the third: Just because B-Nab is more or less dead to me, that doesn't mean that NaNoWriMo can't happen.

I haven't officially joined up, but it's sort of a personal goal to see if I can get something book-length written in one month. Big Cat indicated that I should focus on something other than B-Nab and vampires, because she doesn't think people want to read about vampires that aren't all teen-angst and sparkly, and because B-Nab is giving me fits. (I just had the mental image of Tristan in full armor rapping in a nightclub. Hee!) I think she's probably right. To that end, I am taking one of the stories in my short story collection, "Tell Me No Lies," and expanding it. We'll see where it goes and whether this can be my NaNoWriMo accomplishment.

And thus endeth this reading from Revelations.

Just because I don't have nearly enough stress in my life, I'm considering assigning Tristan to be my National Novel Writing Month project for 2010. Think I can get all of Knight of Sorrows written by December 1? No, I don't either. But we'll see how far I get.

I guess this is me sort of kind of throwing down the gauntlet and challenging myself. I wonder if the imaginary people in my head will cooperate.

Full disclosure: I've often tried to do the NaNoWriMo thing, but I've never succeeded. In theory, if you write a chapter a day, you can finish a novel in one month (no promises for quality). I've just never been able to do it.

We'll see. Maybe this is the year.

I have never had a project kick my ass the way that Knight of Sorrows is doing. I'm sweating blood over this fucking thing (pardon my French), and I'm not entirely certain that it's going to be worth it.

Talking to my imaginary friends

Pardon me, Crickets, while I see to a few points of order with a few representatives of my cast of thousands.

Arthur and Tristan, thank you for coming to the point and helping get me back on track. Chapter 12 can now happen. Furthermore, Arthur, my darling boy, this little introduction to your unique personage and relationships has planted the seed for just what I didn't need - another God damned book. So, no thanks. But thanks. Er... yeah. That. And as a side note: Lance, since when are you such a douche bag? Really, now. You're surprising me. Maybe you and Tristan just didn't hit it off well? Or maybe it was like Arthur said, and you're just protective and don't understand this political stuff. I don't know, but you'd better shape up, buddy. I'd hate to dislike you. You're supposed to be a flawed hero. Heroes aren't normally jerks (Tobyn notwithstanding).

And here endeth the letter to the people in my head.

Yes, Crickets, work on Knight of Sorrows continues apace. Now it's going to be one awkward conversation in Tintagel (or Aravon), then onward to the legend. Appropriately enough, I think the legend will be properly rejoined in Chapter 13, a suitably ill-starred number to associate with the moment when an ill-starred young man encounters his fate.

Fasten your seatbelts, Crickets. It's all high-speed from here.

Real people can be hugely annoying.

Imaginary people can sometimes be so much worse.

Tristan, meet Arthur. Arthur, meet Tristan. Would one of you overly-polite chaps kindly get to the freaking point?? Oh, hi, Lancelot. Hi, Merlin. You fellows can just... keep doing whatever it is you're doing over there in that corner while these two yammer about politics.

Gentlemen, really. I'm shaking my spear. Can you not see me shaking my spear?

We narrowly averted disaster last night, Crickets. I was steaming along in Knight of Shadows and went to save Chapter 11 so I could take a potty break. Unfortunately, I saved it as Chapter 10 and wiped all 9 pages I'd already written! My squawk of horror alarmed the cats, let me tell you. Thank God for back-up drives. After a few moments of panic and another moment of combing through my external F: drive, I found those 9 pages and brought them back. Whew! I did not want to go through Chapter 10 again. It was hard, and made me grind to a halt, and anyway, there were a few turns of phrase in there that I was pretty proud of. I'm so grateful for technology today!

Chapter 11 features an encounter with a certain High King and his loyal if adulterous knightly BFF. Yes, Tristan has met up with Arthur and Lancelot. I still haven't gotten to the meat and potatoes of the Tristan and Iseult myth, but hey, Tristan was a Knight of the Round Table, so he had to have met old Artie at some point, right? Now is as good a time as any, before he gets all distracted by Irish princesses and such.

Also, there is now a dragon in Ireland. Almost all of the chess pieces are in place.

The one thing that I'm not understanding (and trust me, even though I'm writing, I'm certainly not the one piloting this boat) is why Merlin seems intent on playing the part of Greek Chorus. Maybe he'll reveal his (always ulterior) motives in time.

Meanwhile, back to our Camelot-ish confab in Kaer Gradawc...

Another country heard from

I was driving to work this morning and passed a tennis shoe sitting in the middle of the lane on the highway. Immediately, a voice I've never heard before spoke in my brain. (Writing is like controlled schizophrenia - just go with it for a minute, Crickets.) She said, "The mother of the victim was cradling his shoe when I arrived on the scene." The speaker is a beat cop. She's a 30-something married mother of one. That's all I know, and I'm not pursuing it right now.

I rarely if ever write in the first person, and I'm certainly not going to start writing about Officer Whatzis right now. She bears no resemblance to a certain knight from Lyonesse, and he's got to have my attention right now. This may be filed under "projects that will never happen," along with several hundred other little mental jots and jiggles.

I know why my brain is doing this to me. I'm stalled with Knight of Sorrows because I'm relunctant to do the damage to my main characters that the plot requires. My brain, ever helpful, is supplying me with an out, like flashing tin foil in front of a bothersome magpie. "Ooh! Shiny!"

I will not be distracted by this little scrap of tin foil. I will, however, carry it back to my nest.

Oy.

Crickets, if any of you write, have you ever had a character who just refuses to do as he or she is told? It will surprise none of you to know that my head is chock full of them.

Naturally, the biggest offender is Tobyn from the Clans books. Even the other characters in the book just gape at him from time to time. He's walking chaos, so I shouldn't be shocked that he gives me fits.

Then there are characters like Marvin from "Headhunter", one of my short stories, who moved into my head like a disease. He made his nasty little self all comfortable until I finally exorcised him with the final paragraph of the story. I couldn't get him to mitigate his horrible behavior, and I couldn't make him stop being such a creeper. By the time I finished the story, I desperately wanted to apply some Lysol to my braincase.

Other characters have similar issues: they do their own thing, or they intrude into my "waking hours" (non-writing time) to whisper plot points into my ears, or they take left turns at Albuquerque when I wasn't even aware we were on Earth. They're bothersome little creatures.

I expected better from a so-called "perfect knight," fine upstanding prince of the realm and all-around good egg like Tristan. I keep trying to get him to stay put and keep his date with destiny, but like a willful puppy, he just keeps gamboling off every which way. I can make it work, I can, but I really wonder how long this book of mine is going to end up being by the time he finally goes through his legend-assigned paces. It's already 10 chapters long, roughly 98 pages or so...and I have yet to get him to his first mark.

Now, dear Crickets, I know that I'm technically in charge here, being the keyboard-bearing, thumb-wearing primate with the words, but I think someone forgot to tell my cast of thousands that this writing thing goes a lot easier if they just behave. I hope Tristan gets the memo.

I have a nasty feeling that he won't.

Blogger has been seriously misbehaving for the last five minutes... or else I've suddenly developed a very bad case of advanced idiocy. At any rate, now that I've finally been permitted to log in, I thought I'd drop a line or two and let all the crickets know what's been going on.

I'm still working on Knight of Sorrows, and I'm in the middle of chapter ten. The story is steaming along, but it has yet to bear much resemblance to the actual legend of Tristan and Iseult. All in good time.

My webmistress has been working like a fiend, putting together a new look for the website. It's beautiful, and it encompasses the feel of my work as a whole, not just the vampires. I don't want to be a "one-note Johnny", as they say, and my writing isn't all about fangs and blood. The new look of the site reflects that, I think.

Well, Crickets, that's all for now.

Fly-by update

Knight of Sorrows is up to seven chapters and is plugging along quite nicely. I'm enjoying this foray into Arthurian myth and magic, as well as the furlough from Tobyn and his misbehaving ways.

When the writing is going so well, I haven't much else to say... pardon me as I get back to that thing I do that made this blog possible/necessary in the first place...

Whew! Nightchild is finally done being revised for the eBook edition. I'm so relieved to be done with it! I was starting to really hate it toward the end.

I'm taking a break from Tobyn and company for a while. Powering through two novels in less than a year has made me a little tired of him, to be honest, and if the author is bored, then you know the reader will be, too. It's time to do something else for a while, like a mental palate cleanser.

I'm going to return to my retelling of the Tristan & Iseult legend, which I'm calling Knight of Sorrows. I'm excited about it, and I can't wait to get to work. I've already done an author's forward and a prologue, and now I can get to the meat of this very meaty story. It'll be a lot of fun, and I think I've finally freed my mind from my concerns about historical accuracy and research and whatnot. This is a fantasy, not a thesis, so I'm going to let my imagination have some room to play.

I call my company "Irish Horse Productions" for a reason. This horsie doesn't like being reined in.

Eureka

I realized what tripped me up on Knight of Sorrows. I was trying to be too historically accurate and yet true to the original Arthurian story, which was an anachronism when it was first recorded in the 1400’s. I just have to tell the story as it’s in my head and stop worrying about what historians and Arthurian purists are going to say. Once I finish Catherine’s Wheel, I’m going back to Tristan.

Superstition and the written word

I've had the opening line for another Clans book running in my head, but I'm afraid to start it until I have Sacrifice finished. My writing is a fragile thing, or perhaps I'm simply superstitious. I'm nervous to start something new in the middle of working on something else, for fear that the original project never gets completed. I've made a mental note about this opening line, but I can't bring myself to even put it on a page for fear of upsetting my muse's internal balance.

I used to describe the stories as I was preparing to write them, but that was disastrous. Once the words left my lips, they left my head, and I was never able to get them back. Now I have to hoard my words like a miser, keeping them a deep, dark secret until I'm able to reveal them in a finished work. I'm even hesitant to tell acquaintances the title of the work in progress. It's ridiculous, and I'm far too precious about it, but I've been so disappointed in the past...perhaps I'm going to absurd lengths to stave off more sorrow.

I wonder if other writers have superstitions about their work. I have more than my share. I'm convinced that if I take a break from writing a new book before it reaches page 15, I'll never finish. I'm equally convinced that if I can just finish three chapters, I'll finish the whole. That's not always the case, though (Knight of Sorrows comes to mind, and I still tell myself I'll finish that). Still, despite the lack of probitive evidence, I persist in these tics and foibles until I drive myself nearly insane.

Maybe I don't want to stop the madness. Madness is, after all, the mother of some really awesome stories...