The Dark Side Is Calling...

I have one writing gear...thats it. No multiple settings for this baby.  When things are good, they're awesome.  I write like I've main-lined pure adrenaline. Nothing distracts me, I start typing and before I know it, my husband is telling me to take a break four or five hours later. Poof! Just like that...and I swear it feels like I just sat down. I take a quick coffee with him, wish him good night, and start writing again.  Two or three in the morning? No problem.  I just type till I notice the tops of my hands are hurting. I pound out twenty plus pages a night this way and its fantastic.

That is not what is happening right now. Right now I sit and stare at my computer like I'm in a Barton Fink remake. I've alphabetized all of my cd's and books, dusted my keyboard and printer, and generally farted around. The problem with my writing binges is that they end. They last one night, two nights...three at the most, and then they're gone. Poof! Just like my lost hours, my steam is gone and I end up buying microwave pasta cookers online at two in the morning instead of working on my novel.

How does this happen? Its not like I don't know what to type. I'm extrememly organized and usually block out my scenes so I don't think that is the problem.  I know what needs to occur next in my story so why can't I write it? Maybe I just hate my characters and don't care if the two of them ever get out of the alligator invested swamp.

No, I think its that my heart is in another story right now.  One I'd resolved not to write. The tale of the dark and dangerous Siyah and the self-hating Raven.  It's not a happy journey. I'm not even sure they both survive it. I'm not sure about ANYTHING having to do with them. The entire plot and story is just a thick fog randomly lit up with sparks of electric possibilities. I've refuse to block it out or even think about the ending. But I can't work on anything else because their tale of terror and temptation is too, well...too tempting for me to focus on my "official" novel.

So I sit here, munching on M&M's and lurking amid the Facebook posts about new babies and the Tweet announcements of "awesome" summer antics.  Your pictures are blurry, by the way, just an observation from a grumpy insomniac.

My eyes flit from time to time to the scribbled notes I grudgingly jotted down about gypsy legends and curses. I thumb through an article about grifter scams, but quickly toss it away.  I will not abandon a perfectly good, well constructed novel, to work on this...this...wait -- is that a book on talismans over there?

Photograph by Jamie Neely.  Photograph by Horia Varlan.