Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
“I’m not really a morning person,” the first said with an air of contrition.
The second said, “But you’re not really a night person, either.”
The third said, “It sounds like you’re a middle-of-the-day person.”
“Yes,” the first said with a smile, “but it’s a very small window.”
Aided by coffee, it was just one of those days.
I came in, drank coffee for about fifteen minutes, and then put my head down and typed. The scenes came without too much effort, along with the words to describe them. I wrote like crazy for about sixty minutes, finishing with over two thousand words. Another thirty minutes of editing what I’d written followed, and then hunger called time. Not much time spent on the actual mechanics of writing, but that’s typical for me.
Just one of those days, nothing spectacular, but progress was made. Time to go eat.
Floofster Sunday (catfinition) – a holiday celebrating cats, normally observed on the first Sunday in April.
In use: “For Floofster Sunday, he filled small cloth mice and birds with catnip and treats, and then hid them around the house for the cats to find.”
Certainly makes me think differently about the old expression, “Go pound sand.”
Floofilous (catfinition) – of or involving cats.
In use: “His was a floofilous life, a mobious band of feeding cats, cleaning after them, and cuddling with them, taking comfort, and giving some back.”
I’ve been head-streaming this off and on for the last few days. Fragile by Yes was an album we frequently listened to in art class. I always enjoyed the silent communion among students as we listened to rock music and worked on art projects. This song, “Long Distance Runaround,” grew on my consciousness, first because of the unique sounds they employed in the song, but then the lyrics drew me in. It’s progressive seventies rock at its finest.
When I finished writing yesterday, I’d completed another chapter. Now I had three chapters that needed to be pulled together. Each was a thread that seemed unrelated to the others, even though I knew they were related.
Walking along, I thought about that writing process. I’d envisioned something happening to these characters, gone down several side trails (creating the three threads) and now had to tie them together to return to the original story line. I thought about how much of my writing seems like problem solving, and things I’ve done all my life, from solving math problems in school to logic problems done for pleasure, personnel issues because I’d become a manger, on to difficult business cases that required me to find, compile, and analyze data using spreadsheets.
I’ve heard people say that they wrote something but didn’t finish it, because they didn’t know what to do next. Resolving those things shouldn’t stop us, if we’re writers. We dig more deeply, searching for ways to finish the story we’re telling. How we get to that point that we find a way varies. I walk and noodle, and sometimes read other books. Reading fiction often seems to open another door in my mind. It’s a fresh reminder of the importance of reading if you’re writing. Reading stimulates my imagination and creativity.
While I walked and thought, I recognized that I was also intimidated. I was afraid of making a mistake, tying the three together. It’s a major moment in this series.
That amused me, since I knew that what I wrote when I write like crazy is rarely the finished product. I make mistakes, and correct them, trying to improve the story and how I’m telling it. But I also realized that I was over-analyzing what was going on, a regular problem I have with myself for everything from deciding what to order on a menu to, well, writing a novel.
I also laughed at myself because I thought, a million words written, and it seems like a million more to go. It staggered me to think that these four novels plus the support documents for this series added up to over a million words. It didn’t seem like a million words, but I never thought about the sum total when I wrote them. I just wrote, word by word, and it all came together.
It reminded me, too, of walking to get somewhere, and stopping partway through the journey because I’m hot, sweaty, and tired, and realized, I’ve come so far, but there’s more to go. So I pause, look around, accept that I have to walk on to get anywhere, and continue on the path that I began to follow.
So, deep breaths, I told myself. Just sit down, have some coffee, and write. I’ve written a million words; what’s a million more?
Okay, I’ve had the coffee, and I’m sitting down. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
I started out with a dream about eggs. Not surprising, given that Easter is soon. Coloring eggs was an entertaining annual experience when I was a child. We always had a big bowl of colored hard-boiled eggs for Easter.
But my dream eggs weren’t colored. I was looking for eggs, first in the kitchen refrigerator, which was an old, white Kelvinator model. Not finding the eggs in the refrigerator, I went out a side door to where I knew there was supposed to be a chicken coop.
I stepped out onto a small porch painted gray and went down rickety steps to a green hillside. Cumulonimbus clouds were mounding against a blue sky, partially obscuring the sun. A strong wind was blowing, whipping my jacket around me. People on the dream’s periphery were trying to draw my attention to other things going on. They had somewhere they wanted to go. It seemed like they were back in the house. Exasperated, I kept telling them, “Just a minute, I’m looking for eggs.” I was becoming angrier as they kept heckling me, refusing to be patient as I searched for eggs.
Entering a sagging chicken coop made of old graying lumber (I’ve never been in a chicken coop in my life), I finally saw some eggs, and then I saw a dusty half-hidden egg. It looked like gold. Disbelieving, I picked it up. Amazingly heavy, it taxed my strength. I had to use two hands to hold it. Wiping the dust away by rubbing the egg against my shirt, I confirmed, yep, it’s gold. The more I polished it, the shinier it became. As heavy as it was, I thought, it has to be solid. I couldn’t imagine anything being inside of it.
Unsure whether I should, I took the egg out to show the others. It was sunnier, but colder and windier outside. Nobody else was out there and the house was silent. I realized the others were gone. The dream ended with me standing alone by the chicken coop holding a golden egg. I awoke feeling isolated and alone.
