Do you ever have a difficult time sliding back into reality after a long bout of writing? I always feel a bit disjointed, wandering around the house blinking and reacquainting myself with the world I’ve made for myself. Sometimes, I’ll be writing and notice the foot is wiggling and certain areas of my body have gone numb. They’ve been screaming in complaint, but the mind has been in Fictionland and unable to hear.
But, I do remind myself to take a break, put on some soothing music and do something for my world… like make dinner for my family. Tonight, I’m listening to the entire CD Ohio by Over the Rhine, sinking into the talent of a band who can say so much with so few words. A band who can steal your breath and make you cry. And smile.
I’m making lime chiffon pie for dessert. Super easy, but you’d think I forged treasures of gold by my family’s reactions. It’s the little things that make people feel pampered. Remember that.
Disappearing into my fiction world is one of my favorite things to do. Yes, I’ve avoided it in the past because as I’ve said, I tend to focus to the point of insanity. But I can take my fictional worlds and make them any way I want. I can make everyone nice—though I’m sorry to say, in fiction, that bores everyone to tears. But I can make bad things happen then flush away the negativity and put joy and love back into that world.
So today, I didn’t write as much as I did yesterday. Yesterday, I flew through a chapter after finishing another, then today, I tanked today after about 750 words. Roughly three pages. No scratch that. I write my roughdrafts in single space, so it was close to twice that. Not so bad, but I was aiming for more. I finished up the last rewrites on Valen Greer first.
I do like this story, but after spending last night catching up on the particular targeted magazine, I’m a little concerned it isn’t dark enough. I read a story in there that was so disturbing, I had to set the magazine aside and recover a couple of minutes.
This is a good thing.
A writer’s greatest gift is to create emotion in the reader. This writer wanted to create horror, disgust, regret… he was pulling on every dark emotion a human is capable of having and I had goosebumps on my arms and a creepy sort of disturbed revulsion crawling in my guts yet the redemption came in the protagonist’s realization of his actions. Too late, but it was there.
I sometimes read the dark stuff to make my own work more raw. I spent years trying to conform to a certain “comfortable” style—a style I thought I wanted—but a style nothing like me. I reach for Kim Harrison, Dean Koontz, Linda Howard, Rachel Caine and even Laurell K Hamilton most of the time. Yet, I was trying to write the more sweet stuff. I will tell you another little something about myself. I’m really not that sweet. But I am stubborn as hell. This can be good and it can be a serious detriment. That teenager’s dream of a solid career in series romances took a long time to die. I do admire the ladies who can write them.
So, even though my hand is still hurting from something I did to it playing volleyball Sunday, I’m going back to my WIP tonight. I made a vow to complete a certain amount of work a week and I’m sticking to it no matter what.
Oh, another little personality thing. I have this thing for Dove chocolate and I love the little messages inside the wrappers. Tonight mine says It’s definitely a bubble-bath day. This is a good one since I also have a thing for bubble baths. I’ll write awhile and then go soak my arm. TTYL!