I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Thursday, August 2, 2012

They're a dangerous animal

Been having a bunch of little droplets fall from the sky. Little snippets of story that I knew were important. Thoughts like "what if the antagonist believes the protagonist will eventually take up the hero's quest and by action force the hero out of their quest denial?" Or, when Muhammad refuses to go to the mountain, will the mountain come for tea?

Then there was a lesson in how things are hard, but they must be done in the vein of "sure, you can keep from ever having to try hard, but is that the life you want to live." As told through a lesson about something else.

And then an old piece came back to me (yes, I wrote it down both times) on how a forgotten God is a dangerous beast, akin to a wounded and cornered animal.

And then it came to me that they were all part of a longer story… for a different novel (currently a very sparse stub of one).

Sigh. Brain, why won't you work on the current WIP?

Actually I do know the answer to that. After speculating that big-D was trying a new route, it came roaring in late last night. So yeah, it's here. It might be a case of "calling Bloody Mary", but I think it had been there, lurking under all the rest of the stuff that was going on. Now that I know, I think I can deal with it a little better. Unfortunately I know it's from the stress of the day thing (both the actual work and the situation), and the advent of starting classes a year early. That means that I have no power to eliminate the source and that I'll have to go head-to-head with big-D instead of cutting off its fuel.

(Deleted whine about interstitial station in writing career. It came as too much of a fishing expedition for affirmation. The thing that will help will be to get published. That's the stumbling block.)

3 comments:

Phiala said...

Deleted whine about interstitial station in writing career. It came as too much of a fishing expedition for affirmation.

I do that too. Sometimes the affirmation helps. Sometimes it's simply that writing is a slow and arduous process. You're doing the right things as well as you can, and there's nothing else you can do.

Steve Buchheit said...

Hey Phiala, thanks. Yeah, I know it's a slow and arduous process. I guess I see people I started out with having successes. I know I haven't been able to devote as much time as they have, but sometimes the gremlins start their gibbering that if I had any talent I would be just as successful. I'm told by an editor that one of my stories will finally be published this year (was supposed to be published 5 years ago - long story, obviously).

I'm also getting a little freaked about classes. Both with just all the work involved, the level of knowledge I need to aquire, and the ever daunting fact that there goes another 2 - 3 years out of my life where I won't get much writing done. Where if I had some publishing success (novel, please) I would have an alternative to doing this.

But I have to go where the money is. I would love to say otherwise… (long boring story of life not working out the way we thought it would and how my job was never supposed to be the money and benefit supplier, but ended up that way). I don't know, maybe this is my long delayed midlife crisis.

Phiala said...

Hey, I get it. Someone from my VP class got nominated for a Nebula with his first published story.

You gotta do what pays the mortgage, I'm afraid.