Echoes in a Hollow Space

This morning one of my finished novels, the one that had some of the best writing and worldbuilding I’d done but was structurally flawed, starting talking to me, giving me new ideas and ways to fix the broken bits. Basically, after I finished this novel I realized that I’d tried to write a trilogy within the skin of a single novel (one of the curses of being an organic writer) and it would take a mountain of work to make things right. I’d slogged away at this thing for a year and a half and didn’t have the heart to do a massive restructure and start over, at least not at that juncture. So I shelved it and went on to another novel. I needed the break.

Well, today, as I said, that old novel started talking, doing a full court press, the new structure unfolding before me. It will still need more thinking, but I begin to see how to fix things. And, of course, it has absolutely nothing to do with the novel I am currently working on. But having finished six novels, I’m familiar with this syndrome. It is yet another elaborate attempt at sabotage by my subconscious—because the novel you’re not working on is always more attractive than the novel you are currently working on.

So, I took some notes and politely told the old novel to hold its peace. I would get to it in due time—but first I am going to finish what I’m currently working on. Like I said, I’ve been through this process enough to know that distractions are not my friend. Finish what’s on your plate before planning the next meal.

I actually take this as a positive sign. If the old habits of distraction are trying this hard, maybe it’s a sign that the Wonder Machine really is back online.

I’m so afraid to be hopeful because I’ve been disappointed so often in recent years. This time feels different from all the other abortive attempts, but who the hell knows?

I should probably stop talking about it, so if I go silent it isn’t necessarily a bad sign. Just conservation of resources.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“The danger of civilization, of course, is that you will piss away your life on nonsense.”

—Jim Harrison, The Beast God Forgot to Invent

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

In my mind all week, Louis Armstrong has been singing:

Do you know what it means
to miss New Orleans
and miss it each day of the year?

During the day I alternate between anger and keeping myself distracted and functioning. Anger can anesthetize as surely as drugs and alcohol; distraction is a form of fight-or-flight behavior, I think. It's such a helpless feeling to see so much and not be able to do a damned thing about it.

In the evenings, I try more distraction--run, run, run away--and have to turn off the news at a certain point because my spirit keeps sinking lower. I try to bury myself in books and writing and stupid TV shows, but I'm restless.

At night, though, in sleep--the levee breaks. All the things I haven't been able to take in during the day come flooding in on me: Katrina and its aftermath, the faces of the people on the news, their voices crying out, and--over and over again--that dog stuck on that roof of a flooded house all by himself.

I woke up around midnight because I heard the front windows shatter, people trying to get in to my apartment. Everything was quiet once I opened my eyes. Two hours later it was an angry, animalistic shriek that woke me. But there wasn't anyone shrieking except in my dreams. A couple hours after that someone calling frantically for help brought me awake, and I forget what woke me that last time. It was time to get up, anyway. To go to work and get back to the routine of my life.

Now, my pissant dreams aren't anything compared to the genuine suffering that's happening on the Gulf Coast. I'm not suggesting that. They're not even very important. But I know I'm not alone in this. I've spoken to a couple of other people whose nightmares are heavily influenced by Katrina. It was good to know I wasn't alone in this.

You're not alone, either, if it's happening to you.