Melancholia

My computer is a less than satisfactory tool right now. The battery is completely dead, so it runs only when plugged in - and with just a little tug,,, beeeeeeooop. Laptop down. Highly annoying. I have been wanting to buy a netbook as my primary writing tool for some time now (like a year or more), but I can't justify the purchase right now when we're about to move. Damn these less than well-paying jobs D and I have!

The past two days have been peculiar. I came home from work on Wednesday with a painful and incredibly itchy welt on the inside of my left knee. Benadryl didn't do anything but knock me out, so we went to the ER around midnight. Docs gave me a diagnosis of cellulitis, but preferred to give me a lon antibiotic regime just in case it's Lyme disease or something else unexplained. It was very painful to walk so I stayed home the past two days. Today things are looking up, swelling going down and redness finally retreating, but I still have a million other itchy bug bites to deal with so I guess I don't begrudge myself some time to recover.

(Though taking time off work is certainly not helping my financial woes.)

My sleep schedule has been all out of whack since the Benadryl/ER. That always leaves me with an odd feeling of unreality. I've also been a reading a book (which is very good) in which one of the main characters seems to be suffering some kind of mental breakdown - and all of the other POV characters have various levels of paranoia and flashbacks to abuse. Spending so much time reading that story has probably not helped my feeling of unreality.

I don't know why, but I definitely slip more into the minds of characters who have some degree of crazy going on. I find it compelling to read, and even more compelling to write. I suppose it might be because all of my darkest moments have consisted of me "losing it" in some way - feeling a slip on the grip of what's real, wondering if I can control my thoughts or actions, watching the world spin around me without me.

Today I'm having that feeling in a disconnected sort of way. Trying to gauge what my reactions to words and experience should be rather than just having them. Spending too much time in meandering thought. It's nothing that I can pin on a particular incident. I don't feel like there's anything I can do to make it stop. I just have to drift through with it until normal feeling floods back in.

Jeez, human brains are weird.

P.S. The book is called All For One by Ryne Douglas Pearson. I'm about 3/4ths of the way done with it, and it's a pretty fantastic little thriller. http://www.amazon.com/All-For-One-ebook/dp/B0044KM16I

Back to the Lighthouse

I've been struggling with getting words out of my head lately. I'm not sure why. It's frustrating and depressing to feel like my voice is gone. I don't think it's a permanent thing, but it's definitely been affecting my ability to finish Wings of Destiny - an unfortunate fact that is causing everyone I know to constantly ask me that horrible question: "How's your novel coming?"

Okay, okay. I know I told everyone that I would be done with this book by now. I know I promised myself to buckle down and finish. But here's the thing: I am buckled down. I am trying to finish. I am stuck in Luke Skywalker's head apparently. Too much trying, not enough doing. But how is a writer sans her voice supposed to finish her damn book? If my muse was tangible, I'd throttle him. For realsies.

I guess most people would say I have writer's block. I'm not sure that's true. I can brainstorm easily enough. In fact, in the past two weeks, I've come up with grand and wonderful ideas, plots, and characters for at least three of my other books. I even had a small breakthrough with an issue I've been having with the plot of Wings. However, none of that plotting and world-building did a lick of good for my actual writing. I just came back from spending the weekend (mostly) with my best writing friends, usually an inspiring atmosphere for getting words down, and I got approximately five sentences of real writing done the entire time. On the other hand, I also reread an entire manuscript of mine, gave it an entirely new plot, fixed a conflict with another manuscript, and wrote a new and improved antagonist into another. Not to mention, I brainstormed a new story with said best writing friends.

Sigh.

Bigger sigh.

Sigh with a (headdesk) thrown in for good measure.

This is the time when I try going back to my lighthouse. If you're new to this whole thing, or just don't remember all of my crazy-weird methods of keeping sane (or is it insane?), my lighthouse is where all of my characters from all of my stories go when a) I am not using them or b) they are hiding from me. I wrote a post describing it awhile ago: http://mysticalminx.blogspot.com/2011/05/subconscious-theater.html So on my laptop I have a document called "Subconscious Theater" that I write in as a therapeutic way to figure out what's going on with all of these clamoring voices inside my head - and perhaps why they're not coming through clearly.


P.S. I'm also big into running as a new way to clear my mind of reality and immerse myself in my own worlds.
I'm going to go try that now.

P.P.S. It sort of worked? I feel like blogging more at least. -_-