A Map of the Way Forward

I’m writing a story —or shall I boldly call it a novel?— that’s been giving me a lot of trouble.

All the stuff I’ve written before has seemed to flow easily. Things made sense; POV, voice, choice of scenes, etc. all seemed to come to me (relatively) with no trouble. Mind you, except for the short stories, most of it is just lying around, not at the bottom of a drawer, but in a (forgotten) folder on my computer.

Well, this time, scenes came to me easily too, but that was about it. A lot of scenes. Actually, too many of them; too many things needed to happen at the same time, too many characters to introduce, 3rd person limited POV, 1st person POV, etc. I knew the story I wanted to tell, but I didn’t know how to tell it. I was not happy with it and I was beginning to panic.

I realized at that point, that I needed an outline. Yet, I simply cannot write an outline. If there’s an element of the story that I have to put on paper because I think I might not remember it, then it’s as good as lost. The story is all in my head. The ideas that I cannot cram in my head are as good as gone even if I record them in one way or another.

However, I did my homework diligently. I searched the web for good outlining methods, I even bought a book and followed its suggestions step by step. I'm sure it's a good book. It didn’t work.

Then, I fell upon this site: Write Like Rowling  and everything changed. Because this article, “Story Structure of Sorcerer’s Stone”, which by itself is quite interesting and very useful, led me to Larry Brooks’s Story Fix.

Chances are you’re already familiar with it, or at least heard of it. Larry Brooks has also written a book, "Story Engineering”, but the website gives detailed explanations and great examples, by deconstructing well-known and successful novels.

Story structure. The four parts: the Setup, the Response, the Attack, the Resolution. The first plot point, the midpoint, the second plot point, the pinch points, the hook… The exact place where each of them should be in your story. The meaning and the role of each part, how much and how little to give to the reader at each step. And so on. Very cool stuff that makes a lot of sense. Try it for yourself. Maybe you're already using it, knowingly or not.

So now I think I can say that I’m on track and that I have a very good map. There’s still plenty of freedom of exploring on the road, but the landmarks are there...

And Summer has begun today, which is a good thing...

Drew Buckley Photography

The Pardon of the Fogs in the Lovecraft eZine

 cover by Lee Copeland, www.leecopeland.com

Issue #36 of the Lovecraft eZine, the magazine featuring cosmic horror and the Cthulhu mythos, is now available on-line and I'm happy and proud that my story, The Pardon of the Fogs, is part of it.

Go read it on-line for free, if you'd like. Kindle and print edition will be available soon.

You gotta love that cover! And this is the wonderful and intriguing illustration for my story, by Giuseppe Balestra, dieGBdie.blogspot.com

Not Lost - and a Bit of News

No, I did not get lost in Manhattan... though sometimes I wish I did... :-)

Thanks, everybody, for your comments and good wishes on my previous post. It's kind of late to answer them individually, but please know that I appreciate them and I am very grateful for all of them.

Since I returned home, I've been very busy writing a story at the request of Mike Davis, the editor and publisher of the Lovecraft eZine, who has published one of my stories before. That's done now and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he'll like it. :-)

Check out the very nice 5* review that "Wanderings on Darker Shores" got at  Pure Jonel ~ Confessions of a Bibliophile. There's also a giveaway for three paperbacks and five pdf copies that ends on April 17th.

And last, but not least, "Airships & Automatons", the steampunk anthology from White Cat Publications -with my story "The Thing with Feathers" in it-  is now available both as a Kindle ebook and as a paperback. Why not give it a try?

Lucky or Not?

I think that most stories worth telling are in fact stories about unlucky people. Of course, in the end everything might turn out just fine, with a happy ending, but the beginning has to be bad, hasn’t it?

Think about it.

A girl has loving parents who protect her and who care for her. She grows up surrounded by her loving family, goes to school, always has good friends, gets a great job, meets the right guy, and they live happily ever after. Lucky girl. End of story.

Very nice. Now, how about this?

A girl has loving parents but her mother dies and, unfortunately, her father marries a woman with two daughters of her own and then he has to go on a long trip, leaving the girl alone with the very mean stepmother and stepsisters. You know the rest of the story…

Some guy goes on a balloon ride, has a great time watching the landscape from the sky, then lands back nicely and is ready to show to his friends all the pictures he’s taken.

Another guy goes on a balloon ride but the ropes break and he’s up in the air on his own and before he knows it he’s blown away. After days of being a toy to the winds, he lands in an unknown land, full of wonder and dangers…

Maybe something like this…

An illustration by Edouard Riou for Jules Verne’s “Five Weeks in a Balloon”, 1863

When I was reading Larry Niven’s “Ringworld” – have you read it? – I was very intrigued by the concept of “the luck of Teela Brown.” Teela Brown was a young woman, with very “lucky” ancestors, six generations of winners of the Earth’s Birthright Lottery. She was recruited by Nessus, the Puppeteer, for a voyage to the Ringworld, in the hope that her luck will rub off the entire expedition bringing it success. I can only wonder, though, if her “luck” didn’t really end right there…

I’m thinking that even the meaning of “luck” could be interpreted in different ways. Is one lucky to live a sheltered, dull, “normal” life, or is one lucky to live an “interesting” life albeit with some serious heartache in it? I assume the answer depends on which side of the “fence” you consider yourself to be when you’re giving it. Of course, there’s always the combination of dull and unlucky…

Care to share your thoughts?

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!

Taking the Plunge

After years of watching my friends from the blogs and from elsewhere courageously and tenaciously putting their work out for the world to read, I've decided to finally do it too.

So, I'm preparing a collection of tales - most of them have appeared on this blog but there are also a few new longer ones. I hope to have them published in October.

As you can see, I'm working with the printed book template.

I love my Kindle. It’s with me everywhere I go. It’s my treasure box. A treasure box that is starting to become chaotic. That is starting to resemble a little black hole.

I’m not patient enough to be super-organized. I have close to 400 books on the Kindle itself and probably at least 200 others in the ‘cloud’. However, I have many times more printed books. I know exactly what printed books I have and where they are, on which shelf, in which room. The Kindle ones not so much.

I know e-books are the future. Or at least a very big part of the future. For writers they are convenient. Easy to get them out. Better royalties. Maybe other advantages that I'm not aware of. For readers too they are convenient, especially these days when everything is about instant gratification. I want a book. Click and I have it. No need to wait for Amazon to send it or to go to the bookstore.

But then, what happens to all these e-books? How do they endure through time?

I'll prepare the Kindle version later but, for now, I would really like to give this book a chance to live on paper, at least for a little while.

Whoo-hoo! Lovecraft Ezine!

I’m sooooo excited! Of course, you can tell.

I just got word from Mike Davis, the publisher and the editor of the LovecraftEzine, a free online magazine featuring lovecraftian horror and the cthulhu mythos, that my story, A Whisper from the Deep, will appear in the upcoming March issue, #23! The magazine is available to read free on-line and for sale in Kindle or Nook versions.

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve written A Harvest from the Deep (part 1 and part2). Many of you have read it. I’m mentioning it because, although I had heard of H.P. Lovecraft before writing it, some of your comments incited me to read his work. I’m so glad I did! It was as if finding again an old friend long lost...

A Whisper from the Deep is a different story. (Although the titles are weirdly similar....) But I hope you’ll also read it when issue #23 comes out. I’ll give you another shout!

Are the (Occasional) Highs Worth the (Many More) Lows? or Giving Up is Tempting

Writing stories has been a most important part of my life ever since, at twelve I believe, I read "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" by Jules Verne. Imagining fantastic adventures was my way of living them. I wanted to be a speleologist, a palaeontologist, a marine biologist, and archaeologist, an astronaut. I wrote, wrote, and wrote about that.

Over the years, I have started many novels, which I never finished. However, that never actually seemed important. I have always written for my pleasure. For the thrill of living many lives at once. I never worried about publishing my work. That made me light and carefree. I was also very young and the future stretched endlessly in front of me.

Yet, sometime during the past few years, something has shifted. I got older, of course. The thought of seeking publication has acquired a more tangible shape. The future, also, suddenly appeared finite –as it truly is, unfortunately- hence adding urgency to all my actions. Instead of being hopeful, I have become impatient, anxious. Except for the moments of complete trance, the writing has become (a bit) painful with apprehension. Just a little bit.

I buy a lot of books. However, I rarely go to bookstores anymore. I love books, I adore books, but seeing them all together like that makes me sad. It discourages me big-time. That’s because I can’t help thinking: What are the chances of all these beautiful, colourful, wonderful, shiny, published books to be bought and read by (many) people? I would say, rather slim. Except for the best-sellers, of course, which sell best because, well… they are best-sellers.

Then, there’s Amazon, with so many more books, all kind of books, including a lot of self-published books. While I’m not eloquent enough to express my admiration for these people who wrote their novels and published them, one way or another, I also cringe when I see Amazon best-selling ranks into hundreds of thousands or millions.

Don’t get me wrong. I still find an exhilarating motivation in seeing other people’s accomplishments, especially those of my blogging friends. Maximum kudos to all of them! I do not feel one drop of envy, please believe me, only admiration.

In this sea of books, I feel so lost. I’m not even capable of finishing my novel. I’m too stupid or too lazy, or both, to even finish one novel. I’m too overwhelmed by OCD – what else could it be this obsessive polishing of each sentence, this endless pondering of the logic of each plot element – to go from one paragraph to the next. I couldn’t agree more with whoever said first that perfectionism breeds paralysis. I’m really fighting hard to snap out of it.

I’m not giving up. No way. No matter the outcome, I will still be fooling myself and pushing myself because the “highs” are definitely worth more than the “lows.” And I will never be able to be just a reader.

Oh, Jules Verne, what have you done to me?

On Book Reviews

I like reading book reviews, the good ones and especially the bad ones. I can extract a lot of useful information from them, on character and plot development, on readers’ expectations. I read them on Amazon, on GoodReads, and on other few sites that publish reviews on a regular basis.

Being written by people, reviews are subjective so they have to be taken with a grain of salt. However, the reviewer’s dislike or ignorance of a genre shouldn’t mean a bad mark for the book.

I mostly ignore the good reviews, especially when they are overly enthusiastic. Sometimes, they look partisan, as if written by friends to give a boost to the ratings. But even if they are sincere, too much praise feels kind of syrupy. When the praise, however, is backed by a thorough analysis then it becomes useful.

Of course, many times the bad reviews are prejudiced too and you can tell the reviewer hasn’t even read the book carefully. There are also the self-righteous reviewers who think they know everything about how somebody should behave, fall in love (I’m reading a lot of YA lately) and generally react to a given situation, on the principle that what they would or wouldn’t do is a universal rule. But people are extremely diverse and, although we all partake in the same human nature, we each might take a different bite out of it. If a character in a book annoys you because of how she behaves, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the author is a bad writer, maybe quite on the contrary. In real life, there are stupid people and intelligent people, cautious people and rash people, etc., etc. If we would all be the same, then where would the fun be?

For good or bad reviews, you have to know how to read in between the lines and, in the end, of course, form your own opinion. I love reading excerpts to get a taste of a book, and I have bought many books after doing that. I have also borrowed books from the local library and then bought them because I loved them so much I had to have them. There are books that I cannot put down and have to force myself to put them down, because if I don’t then my stay in their universe would be over too soon. And there are books (I can still count them on one hand’s fingers) that are simply not palatable to me and that I had to put down unfinished.

I know it is very difficult to write a useful book review and I admire those who can. I’ve tried it but I’m not gifted or patient enough to dissect on paper the whole justification behind a simple “I like it” or “I don’t like it.”

I can read, though, read, read, read. And this is a small sample of what I have piled up on my nightstand… (rubbing my hands in gleeful anticipation)

It even makes for nice little almost-poem…

Midnight in Rosary

Hold me closer, necromancer

Die for me,

Shipbreaker,

Our Lady of Darkness,

shatter me

across the Universe.

Spring is in the Air (and Update)

Do you recognize the view?

Yes, it’s the East River down there in a pigeon’s-eye view from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building.

Can you tell that I’ve just got a fresh dose of Manhattan? I’m heartsick now that I’m back in Montreal, but also exhilarated and very eager to write (again). Maybe, hopefully, some of that frenzy that is New York City has rubbed off on me.

I must say that the outlining hasn’t gone that well. (Outlining’s a bitch!) I knew it, but I didn’t want to jinx it. I’ve (re)discovered that the moment I try to put on paper more than the sketchiest of ideas, I become totally blocked. The ideas chase each other around the back of my head and refuse to be chained down on paper in an orderly manner. The story is all in my head and has to be written the way it comes to me. What my brain cannot hold is quite likely to get lost.


However, I did a lot of thinking and re-thinking, and I got some direction from my dilemmas, and my confidence in being able to finish what I’ve started feels a bit timid yet also resilient, like a snowdrop at the end of winter.

These beauties are in my kitchen, not in my garden, but still… spring is in the air.


Last but not least, I wish to thank all of my friends who wrote comments on the previous post. May your kind wishes and thoughts return to you thousandfold. I feel ashamed for answering this late -it's not at all in my nature to be this rude- and I really, truly, deeply apologize. I have you, all of you, in my heart.

Missed October

I haven’t stopped in a long time to smell the roses… or the chrysanthemums… and not even the coffee steaming in my mug. I missed crisp, fiery, possibly-my-favourite-month-of-the-year October entirely –this is the first year I haven’t prepared at least one Halloween story or poem- and I am almost inconsolable… I also miss you, my blogging friends, and the creative environment of our community, and the warmth or your virtual presence… very, very, very much…

I’ve hit some dead ends in my novel and that brought me to the realization that I no longer can avoid a (detailed) outlining. It was fun for a while to make it up as I went along, to play the “archaeologist” uncovering the story and the characters, but if I want to get anywhere, in any good way for what I want to do, I really need to take the map out of my pocket. So, that’s what I’m doing now, thinking, thinking, thinking, plotting, plotting, plotting. I’m not sure it goes that well...

There is a minuscule stretch of woods next to my house, which has escaped the excavators, and which is, in its unkempt wildness, much more beautiful than the enormous houses that suffocate it. I took a few pictures there two Sundays ago and I would like to share them with you as a taste of the fine poetry of nature…

The Cat's Out of the Bag...

...and my story is up at The White Cat Magazine.

I feel humbled to be in the company of so much talent and extremely proud at the same time.

If you have some spare time, do have a look.

Still Here

It’s crazy how time disappears into the black hole of routine, of fierce struggles to do, more than to be.

I know, I know, time doesn’t exist. It’s just a measure of a passage, of our existence as well as of the stars’. It’s psychological.

However, as the second month of this year (not ‘new’ anymore, is it?) is approaching its end, I cannot help wondering if maybe there is some truth in all those speculations about the Schumann resonances and time speeding up.

It certainly feels galloping to me…

I do not have time…

I think with longing to the wonderful pleasure of reading your blogs, of pondering over your words and pictures, of writing comments in which to speak from my heart… I hope to be able to do it again, rather sooner than later…

In the mean time, I use every spare moment I have working on my novel. As my best friend said to me after she read a chapter, “it’s written in blood…”

So I got out of my little cave where I watch shadows on the wall, just to say “Hello!” and that I’m not dead yet, and that hope is always alive…

And to leave you with two pics from last Sunday in the local park…


The lake looks dreary but I know it's just snugly waiting for the spring to return...


And a place to get bit of maple syrup on ice to sweeten your heart...

High-Concept

The other day, I was reading the New York Times review of Audrey Niffenegger’s “Her Fearful Symmetry.” I like the book and I haven’t finished it yet – it’s one of the several books I’m reading now – and the review is a good one.

I was quite intrigued by the reviewer describing the book as a “high-concept tour de force, with the flashiness that the term implies.”

I didn’t think of this right away, but then I asked myself what “high-concept” meant. I had no idea.

Of course, I turned to Google and immediately found plenty on the topic.

An article by James Bonnet, a long time writer for television and film, starts with the sentence “In Hollywood and New York, the concept is king.” And later, he writes: “a high concept is an intriguing idea that can be stated in a few words and is easily understood by all.”

This is how most of the articles that I’ve found define high-concept: an idea that is immediately accessible and appealing to many people, something that is relatable, familiar, and universal yet has a unique, interesting twist. In addition, a high-concept novel usually has a catchy title that tells the reader exactly what the novel is.

James Bonnet lists four elements that might help one build this high-concept story:
- the fascinating subject – a subject that is in itself intriguing;
- the great title – a title that also reveals the genre of the story thus whetting the reader’s appetite for the feelings associated with that genre;
- the inciting action – the onset or the cause of the problem;
- the hook - a unique aspect of the problem that suggests intriguing possibilities.

All this got me thinking…

How about you? Do you keep such elements in mind when writing your stories? Do you plan them accordingly? Does your novel have the characteristics of high-concept?

Somewhere...

My friends, I thought I should let you know about my whereabouts, just in case anybody started thinking I was dead. Well, I’m not dead but I’m not on this Earth either...

art from aerphis.deviantart.com

I’m on a spaceship, abducted – not by aliens – by an idea and a character. Bizarre things are happening there – and romantic...

So obsessed am I by this, so madly in love with my character, so deep in the entrails of this spaceship, that I can do little else. This trance is deeper than all the others...

I barely speak, I won’t read anything except for comic books, and I can only listen to certain music, much like the one written by Mark Snow for the X-Files.

So, I simply cannot descend long enough from this spaceship to get myself to write something for this blog – well, other than this post...

I don’t know where this trip will take me but I’m certainly enjoying the ride. I’ll try visiting you as much as possible and... I’ll be back sometime...

On Novels and Short Stories

I deeply admire those who can write novels. Who can weave a complex tapestry of destinies and happenings, of loves and adventures, of feelings and action, of ideas.

I used to try doing just that.

Since I was – maybe – twelve and until a few years ago, I have always been writing novels… I would always enthusiastically start a new one and then a while later abandon it only to start work on another. I couldn’t conceive writing anything but novels. Short stories seemed insignificant to me, compared to the scope of a novel. But then I realised that I was never finishing anything and that, no matter how deeply I was living in those novels, it would have been nice to actually finish something at some point. That plus the realisation of how cruel time is.

So I started working on short stories. Those gave me at least the illusion of a much closer (in time) ending and thus of a chance at publication.

Yet, it didn’t take me less to write them. I suppose that is the effect of several factors. In no particular order, among them I would place the lack of time dedicated to writing, the absence of will power leading to procrastination, a tendency to perfectionism leading to profound research and endless plot tweaking even for the shortest of stories, maybe even the fear that once finished I will have to leave this world I’m building. I also noticed that the more detached I am from the characters, the easier it is for me to write their story. The more involved I am with them, including making myself a character, the more difficult it is to complete a work.

This (again) extended time frame, led me to a somehow bad experience with one of my most beloved stories. The idea for it came to me in ’97 (I know because I always put a date on the notes I scribble down) and, on and off, it took me till 2005 to put the magical words ‘the end’ at the bottom of the last page. At about 22,000 words, it’s more of a novella size story. I was very proud of it and ready to start sending it out, although magazines hardly accept works of such a size. And then I bought Orson Scott Card’s excellent book “How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy” and in there, in a chapter where he enumerates various means of time travel, I found my idea listed under a famous author’s name who, obviously, had already published a (different) story based on the same idea, in ’99 I believe. What a dreadful coincidence! I was so terribly, awfully, hopelessly depressed.

But, hey, that’s life! The onus is on me to work harder, to work faster. To remind myself that I couldn’t live without writing and that, regardless of whether or not I will ever be a published writer, I will always be a writer. And, to thicken my skin.

I am now more afraid than ever to even consider working again on a novel. There is a harsh world out there. Moonrat’s wonderfully insightful posts about the world of publishing confirm something that I half-knew and fully suspected.

As the New Year approaches, I wonder if I should make a resolution…

Hold'Em

I believe there comes a moment in life when you realise that “that’s it!” These are the cards you were dealt. You did your best with them, or your worst, but there’s no reshuffling of the deck, no second chance at a better hand. Nothing will fundamentally change. None of the great deeds you were going to accomplish will happen. The miracle you’ve always thought to be just around that next corner has never come and will forever elude you.

Certainly, you continue to fight, and dream, and build, and cry, and hope, and create, and love, and dream some more, but somewhere deep inside you, where the harshest of truths are held, sometimes unrecognisable even to yourself, lurks this cold fact. Maybe you’re living your perfect life, you’re happy, you have a great family, a good job, maybe you’re a published writer or whatever else meets your fancy. It doesn’t mean you have to be sad – you could be perfectly content - it’s just a fact.

Look around you. Look inside you. That is the place where you were born and this is your family; these are the choices you’ve made; this is the person you’ve married and not somebody else, this is where you live, in this house, in this town and not in another, this is what you do, these are your children, or maybe you don’t have any, by your choice or nature’s. I’m not saying that you’re not happy with your spouse or that you’re not content with your life. But, could you have done everything – or at least some things - differently? How would your life have been had you taken another decision at some crossroads? Do you wonder?

It’s not true discontent that I’m voicing, but a nostalgia coming from the idea of closed (or drastically narrowing, to be more optimistic) possibilities. Others are eighteen now, not you, others are starting their lives.

But when you have a relatively “normal” life, all this sounds trivial in the end compared to the tragedies that devastate other people’s lives. Just an example from yesterday’s newspaper: In 2006, after being forced to squat on the floor for three hours, 19-year old Private Andrei Sychyov, from the Russian army, developed gangrene and the doctors had to amputate his legs and genitals. And his future, of course. Talk about a bad hand…

And another pespective: On the drive home to my older daughter’s school, I sometimes catch a glimpse of a man or a woman; I see them because there is an old people’s home there and they get out for a stroll or just a breath of air when the weather’s permitting. Not together. He is thin, frail, wears huge round glasses, and has a walking cane. She is diminutive and needs a four-legged metal support, just to stand. I’ve rarely seen them move. And I think of them that they just exist, enduring each day, or maybe enjoying it and hoping for the next one. Yesterday, I saw the man and thought, what about this man, how was this life of his that brought him here, how good, how bad? Does all this existential angst mean anything to him?


* * *

That’s probably one of the reasons why writing means so much to me. When I plunge into it, everything else is erased. I have a clean slate. I can start a new life every time, without discarding my “real” one. I have myriad possibilities, all waiting for me. I can open a new deck of cards and even cheat…

5 Strengths as a Writer

Dear Colleen at Loose Leaf Notes has so graciously tagged me for this meme. At first I was scared, I admit. Wait, I thought, am I a writer? Yes, of course you are, I said to myself, this is what you think of you, but what scares you is to be called that in the outside world without the credentials of at least a published story, as if, by doing that, others were somehow going to call your bluff. Having recognized this fear, though, I started thinking about extracting something positive from my insecurities. I thank Colleen for the challenge.

So here it goes:

1. I can hear well my voice, my writing voice, and I think – without false modesty – that it’s not such a bad one. This voice comes to me, it sings to me, and it flows. I might have to dress it up or clean it up a bit, but I still think it flows quite well.

2. I am very determined, very stubborn. I will not give up. If kicked down, I will not stay down for long. A rejection slip will give me a sinking feeling for a day or two, and then I’m up and fighting again (that is, writing again!). I have an utter faith in my abilities (I am an Aries, remember!).

3. I am willing to learn all the time – from books, from people. I welcome constructive criticism, and can put my ego aside, relatively easily, for the sake of learning how to improve my craft.

4. I am a good listener and have an intuition that allows me to see, quite accurately, behind the façade of people, reach their soul, understand their real motives, and use the knowledge in creating my characters.

5. There is nothing I like more than writing. I couldn’t imagine life without writing. It is like air to me; I look in amazement at people who have no interest in it and wonder how they can possibly live like that.

I’m tagging for this:

Canterbury Soul at Doors Left Open
David, at Witnessing Am I
Jason, at Clarity of Night
Seamus (the Lion Tamer!), at Shameless Words
Taffiny, at To Taste a Peach

My Miserable Muse

Is there a device somewhere - a wiry contraption (preferably invisible) that you could attach to your scalp to extract all those wild beautiful scary heroic sad lovely images travelling at the speed of thought through your brain, transform them into words and put them on paper? Nothing like that?
I guess not… (sigh)
Or maybe a typewriter like the one in Stephen King’s “The Tommyknockers”? No?
A magical laptop? Please?! Yes?! No?… Maybe?…
Unh-unh, nope, no sirree, no such thing…
Then, what can we do, those of us who are hit by inspiration at the most inappropriate moments – like when we are at work, or when we have to guide our children with their homework, or when we do the cooking, or the dishes, or the raking of leaves – anytime but that half hour at the end of the day when all the rest has somehow calmed down and we have a moment to ourselves. Those of us who cannot spend their day in coffee shops writing, or just noticing things?
Steal, then. A minute here, a few words there, an idea scribbled on a sticky note during a soul-killing meeting or while enduring the excruciating yackety-yak of a co-worker (this happens daily, and for the whole day, and no, I can’t really protest because technically the guy is my boss).
I even thought of a recorder for when I’m in the car, but then I don’t like much to talk – I like to write.
So, this is it. Slowly, furtively, too slowly, my hands, my fingers waltz on the keyboard. Rarely at the right time, always in a hurry. I can see, hear, feel, smell, taste in my head. I live the story. The only problem is to capture its shape of words before it disappears into the smoke of oblivion.
My lovely broody muse (I must not upset her, battered as she is!) still grabs my hand and guides me – like these days, when I’m rewriting a story for which the endearing Minx has offered invaluable advice. But with my daily forced betrayals aren’t we heading, oh, so straight, so inexorably towards that… what is that dull shapeless thing not so far ahead? I’m afraid it’s the nasty grey wall of writer’s block.