Darren Endymion's Blog, page 23

The Dreaded Wait

On Saturday I submitted the short story I recently completed for an anthology call with my publisher. I feel as good about it as I can. Being the harsh inner critic I always am, I feel that it was cramped and a little rushed for the ideas I wanted to cram into 10,000 words. In the words of my beta reader, I was on my way to kicking the ending���s ass, but had to rein it in to meet the requirements. I think I did everything I could, and this is only the third short story I have ever written, so there���s still a lot of learning to do.

I like the short form; I just wish I was better at it. My publisher churns out a lot of very short fiction: lots of short stories, novelettes, several novellas, and a few novels. I have not taken a survey or a count, but it seems as though the vast majority are about 200 pages or less. I’m not going to make a case for that being difficult to build rounded characters in that time, but I am merely going to express my admiration for those who can complete�� an entire story in that span. 200 pages is a lot, depending on your aim.

30…not so much. It seems like a lot, but it’s difficult to make a lot happen in that time. I believe my problem is that I try to cram so much into a short period. When writing a short story, I think of Stephen King’s short story collections. I think of “Gray Matter”, where a bad beer turns an alcoholic father into a blob of gray, cannibalistic ooze. I think of “The Moving Finger” where there is a finger sticking out of the toilet which grows and grows and the steadily crazed man hacks it to pieces. And I think of “Suffer the Little Children” in which a severe school teacher finds that demons or aliens are taking over her school children…and what she does in response.

These stories are situational. You have a feeling for the characters, but it doesn’t matter what they like to eat or what their love life is like, or what the most disappointing point in their lives were. These stories are situational. The important things here are that one person is turning into a hungry, gelatinous blob; that there is a relentless, elongated finger with no seeming source coming out of the sewer; and that this teacher is seeing evil things behind the faces of her students…and may or may not be crazy. These aren’t King’s greatest stories by any stretch, but neither are they character driven. They are about what happens and in a secondary manner, who they happen to.

I think I would do well to remember that in my short story writing, and though characters can never be called unimportant, sometimes the story is the best part. What happens is the important part. The longer ones (“The Mist”, “Jerusalem’s Lot”, “The Body”, etc. are more about characters…but what happens to them is the most important part. It’s what we are all reading for.)

Thinking about all this helps kill the time. It helps me think about what I will do with the next short story, about how I will make the next one better and the one after that better still. It helps me not look at my e-mail 75 times a day. It helps me think that I am in control of my emotions and thoughts. It distracts me from knowing that very soon, someone will be reading my short story and judging it. It distracts me from the thought that I don’t believe that I did my absolute best. It makes me not dwell on the thought that maybe I should have removed it from contention and made it a novelette.

It makes the waiting easier.

In the meantime, what helps more than anything, is to dream of a better future, and to dream of what the next story will be like.

It helps with the dreaded wait.

Submitting a Story This Weekend

I am now finished with the revisions on the short story. It’s not everything it could be, but considering the space allotted and my inexperience writing short stories, I like what I came up with. I’m rather fond of the scene leading up to the final page or so, and it was my favorite to write. I think it has a decent chance.

That’s not the point, though. The point is that I’m nervous as all hell. I have to write the synopsis, the submission e-mail, and the worst of everything: my marketing plan. I don’t know how the hell I can help market this thing. The last time I had to do that, I failed miserably because I had a health issue (which turned out to be nothing) and did NO promotion whatsoever.

I don’t plan to do that again, but it’s not like I know what to do to get the word out there. I’ll make something up and try to stick to it. I managed the last time.

There is, of course, always a huge chance that I will be denied, that my submission is either not good enough or not what they are looking for. I’m prepared for that. If it happens, no biggie. I’ll be upset, yes, but I won’t be crushed. It’s something I have survived in the past and will get through again.

In the meantime, I am working on a novella. Since it’s light years from being ready to submit, I don’t have to worry about that yet. But there are other stirrings in my head. The wolves are calling. The super heroes I had planned to write don’t care anymore and aren’t answering my calls. I’m sure they will be around when and if I need them. The smokestacks and trains and columns of steam are calling to me from a city isolated by disease in a steampunk world.And there’s more.

All that means one thing: this short story did exactly what I needed it to.

I wanted it to be the stepping stone. I wanted it to launch me forward, to excite me to write more and more. And it has done that. So, even if the submission editor looks at this submission and laughs herself until she pees and has a profoundly debilitating stroke, I have done exactly what I need to.

I have revitalized my desire to write. And write I shall.

In fact, I’m cutting this normal babble-fest a tiny bit short tonight, because I want to go write some more. Tomorrow I will write out all the submission stuff. But for now, I’m going to celebrate this achievement by continuing with the next.

Wish me luck on both!

The Old, the New, and the Purge

I am writing from an undisclosed location from deep within the Idiot Protection Program. Shhhh!

So, Mercury retrograde comes to a close on Wednesday morning, and though I usually loathe this period, and though this one was really bad, I can see the bright shining ray of light through it all. Looking back it was a very contemplative time.

First, my writing has surged in odd ways. I finished the project I was working on, sent it to a friend, and got her feedback. I have a few adjustments to make, and then I need to write the synopsis and send it off to the publisher this week. (Wish me luck!)

But, I also revived an old story idea and had a great deal of fun outlining it. I’m still doing the work and getting the other stuff under control. The new ending is just below the surface. I haven’t uncovered it yet, it will come out with the work I’m doing on the worldbuilding and the character exercises.

As for work, things are still crazy, but I have reached a plateau of insanity. It’s so bad and so busy that I really just don’t care anymore. It will get done, or it won’t. I can only do as much as I can do.

As for the old…well, that’s just a sordid and stupid tale. About a year ago I moved in to a house where my friend, who also happened to be my ex, was supposedly renting a room with a very nice man. Come to find out, “renting” was less accurate than “squatting” or “leeching”. Through a boring and fabricated series of events, the ex moved out, leaving some of his stuff behind.

Until today.

I am no longer talking to said ex, and it’s sad. He was a friend, and a guy with whom I could discuss all sorts of geek stuff. He was definitely there for me in some serious times of need, but that person…well, he’s dead. The only thing left is a series of lies wrapped in a half-shaved Wookie-looking shell. (Chewbacca himself would say, “Damn! Cut that hair. Are you trying to look like a homeless drug addict terrorist?”)

Now, he is on “vacation” and has the unmitigated gall to call up my roommate/landlord and ask for another hand out, to see if he can stay there for a few days with a “friend”. He’s dating someone, Han Solo to his Chewbacca, an attractive guy about whom I know nothing other than that hotboxing his small car was and likely remains a priority. He is likely perfect for the creature my friend has become.

Apparently, all thoughts of decency were bypassed. My friend has another place to stay, more than one, yet he decides to invade where I am. Why? More than one person suspects that he is trying to rub my face in Han’s hotboxing glory. I couldn’t care less. But I do have an opinion about it all, and I suspect that my mouth and my opinion would not be appreciated or wanted. I would gain nothing.

He’s a different person, but is still a tactless, entitled, unthinking, hairy, compulsive liar. I wish him happiness, sanity, and a sense of propriety. And I wish him to be far away. Out with the old…

But then we have the new…no, no I haven’t landed Prince Scientist yet. We�� have talked several times, we smile, we give side eye, we wave, we pretend not to see the other and then act surprised to see each other (when we were literally less than 10 feet away), we might even flirt in a restrained, polite, not at all overt and totally deniable fashion. It’s like a goddamned Jane Austen novel, and it’s both fun and is making me nauseated.

My friends don’t understand the restraints the situation is under. They say, “Just go talk to him!” or recently I was told, “Just go up to him [when he’s in a group of his scientist colleagues], ask to talk to him alone, take him to the side, and ask him out.” To paraphrase another’s words, one of these friends is shyer than I am and wouldn’t say shit if he had a mouthful, and the other would resort to public rape to get what she wanted and therefore doesn’t understand certain social niceties. I love them, and they mean the best, but this is apparently Pride and Prejudice, not Fifty Shades of Trash.

If nothing else, this whole Mercury retrograde period has taught me that aiming high and going for the new stuff isn’t a practice in hopeless wishes and sad futility, that there are some things which should be purged, and it reinforced that there are just some times when you have to let go — to let things out, and to let others in.

Character vs. Plot

I couldn���t decide between writing something about writing and something titled, ���Absence Makes the Heart Grow Pissed Off.��� Since the latter would still have an unhappy ending and might be misconstrued, I have decided to postpone it.

Last time I was mentioning that I was picking up an old project and that some of it didn���t resonate with me, that there were gaps in motivations I needed to fill in. Well, I realized what it was: I don���t like how I was going to end it.

My original brain stormed ending didn���t correlate logically with the characters, so, the ending didn���t make a lot of sense. Story-wise, it wasn���t bad, but I had originally meant it for an anthology with a very structured theme. My ending stuck to that theme, even though the story outgrew that purpose. When I got a new thought for the story, the characters grew and, in fact, outgrew the story. I’ve never really been in a situation like this, so I wasn’t sure how to deal with it.

I’m doing the only thing I can: I’m going with it.

It’s not part of an anthology anymore and will likely be only a novella. That being said, I like the characters more than the original story thought, so I will keep the beginning and move on from there. However, I have to scrap like half of the original plot.

How I usually work is that I think of the barest bones of a plot and create characters that go with it. If things change, they change. Usually the characters will tell me what they are and are not going to do. For instance, if anyone has read my Winter’s Trial, Pearl was initially supposed to die, and that was going to be Austin’s biggest tragedy. The Pearl in my head laughed at me. She let me think I was going to kill her right up until the point where she stood up to Milton in his office. After I wrote that, the Pearl in my head looked at me and said, “So, you really think you’re brave enough to kill me?” I wasn’t. And I’m glad I didn’t. Next to Taylor, she was my favorite character and she kicked WAY too much ass. I killed someone else instead, but that character was always meant to die, no matter how much it ripped me up inside to do. (Am I the only one who mourns for a character that I had full control over?)

But this one was different. I think the characters were too individualized and too worked on to go with the plot, and I’m trying to cling to the plot as though it is a flotation device in very choppy waters. However, I’m so paralyzed and fixated that I’m not going anywhere. To make this worth my time, I have to let go, lose myself in the sea, and to go where it wants me to, not where I originally intended.

The characters are winning. And I think it’s supposed to be that way.

Writing, Wishes, and Updates

So, I finished the last short story, as I believe I mentioned last week. However, it is now with my one beta reader and I await her feedback. I thought I would take a break in the meantime, but that’s what got me into trouble last time. I wrote something during the busy time at work and then figured I would wait, rest, deal with the evil that life was tossing at my head, and pick up something later.

Instead, I planned different projects for a year and wrote almost nothing. I hope to not repeat the past.

A little more than a year to the date I was working on fleshing out a short story that I had submitted too late for the anthology call it was for. I reread that story today and liked it, but it wasn’t great. There was a lot of story there squished into a small space, and so parts of it felt like a block of narration to keep the reader up to speed. As in, “On last week’s episode, Trogloditis Crapface thwarted an assassination attempt on the King of Blubberbuggy Mountains using nothing more than water, a bit of twine, and his firm buttcheeks.”

I was invited to look it over, work on it, and resubmit it. I have never done so and had started to think that I never would.

Yesterday, on the spur of the moment, I decided to look it over again. Then I looked at the newer version and surprised myself by being impressed. Not that it was great literature or anything, but I wanted to read more and was pissed off at myself that I hadn’t kept up with it. It needs some work, but it was all first draft stuff and pretty clean for that.

Remember how I was saying a long time ago that I can pick up an old writing project and go with it as though I had never stopped? Well, I can. But I found the exception to the rule: if I don’t plan things out, I can’t go back to them with as much ease. I was still struggling with the differences between the old short story and the newness I wanted to make when I stopped. There’s enough there to pick it up and I still remember the back story, but I lost some of the motivations of one of the main characters.

So, I have a little work to do and 10 pages of written work to launch from. But it all came back, and I like it. I had become disenchanted with it before, but for some reason, I’m ready to take it on. I’m excited. It’s also nice to not have a word limit. I’m aiming for a novella, but if it gets larger, then it gets larger. I’m going to let it be what it wants to be, and that’s something I was not able to do with my recent anthology project.

Today is February 2nd, and for some people that is a significant date (don’t ask, just go with it). I remember it as a time for wishes for the year, something to strive for in the ensuing months. I was thinking about this and realized that a lot of my wishes are writing related. Consequently, I have decided to write some of them here:

To write this novella, possibly another (in addition to, or in lieu of depends on the upcoming days). To start and progress on an intimidating project, one that scares me, one that I think I’m not ready for. And to start a new novel, separate from the one mentioned above. What that is, I don’t know.

I may start writing the wolves again, simply to shock those who have totally given up on them. I’ve been thinking about Taylor Lightfoot, my favorite werewolf again, wondering what he’s up to. True to form, he won’t tell me. He insists that if I want to know, I need to write him. I informed him that Quinton’s story is next. He said that he knows, but he’ll be in that one a lot, and that’s good enough for now. Stubborn shit.

And if you think that imaginary characters “talking” to their writers is totally wacko and out of the realms of sanity, then I am here to tell you two things: 1) you’re right. It’s bat shit crazy. 2) you must not know anyone who writes. The worlds you create creep up on you, sneak into your mind, seem to talk to you, to make you want to write about them. They are demanding and relentless. But I have something else to do.

And those are my wishes. Hopefully I can fulfill them this year. The fact that I’m already jumping into the next project suggests that not all hope is lost.

 

Am I Even Awake?

We all have those days at work where we feel like everything in the world has been heaped on us — we���re busier than usual, our schedules are packed, it feels like we���ve been working three hours for every one that passes, by lunch we���ve done a full week���s work, the day never ends, etc. This has been a week of those days.

It feels like I have been mule-kicked in the face for four days.

At work, I deal primarily with our web site���for launching pigs. (Yes, for those new here, that���s a fake job to mask where I actually work). Well, the geniuses in IT decided to launch a new log in system during the busiest month of the year���and they messed it up. You log in, and find that your old username is no longer acceptable. You change it and you���re good.

However, say you have forgotten your username or password. That���s when the web site essentially gets you drunk, spins you around until you���re ready to scream for baby Jesus to murder you, and then sends you for a jog through a mirror fun house, while being prompted to ever greater speeds by projectile, poison-tipped paper clips. If your e-mail address has changed, the site essentially sends thugs to your house to beat you in the head with a billy goat.

An example: you forgot your username and ask it to be e-mailed to you. But your e-mail address has changed. You have to reset your information, call, and have the person on the phone send you a code. This code expires in 10 minutes from the time it is sent to you. Your e-mail server is down or slow? You need another code. You eventually get it, read it to the person on the phone, they verify what���s been in front of them the whole time, and they confirm your e-mail address. ONLY then can the phone agent reset your password. Freekin��� stupid.

Now, I���m going to go off on a little astrological tangent here. We are at the beginning of a period of Mercury retrograde. Believe what you will, but this time is supposed to be filled with transportation, technical, and communication snafus. Each one is more difficult, harder to navigate, and can potentially explode. At work, we have two-thirds of that.

But, these genius developers didn���t stop there. If you mess up and lock your account, you get a message with a phone number and an e-mail address. Both are wrong. The phone number goes to some other place and not the web support it should. The e-mails���come directly to my team. Nobody asked or told us that this was being done. The e-mail box they come to was being phased out, you see. It sends these e-mailing customers an out of office message which tells them that this box is no longer in service and that they should register or log on to our web site���which is what the fuck they were trying to do in the first place.

People are pissed. Who wouldn���t be? The influx of e-mails is now entirely up to me to handle. There are currently 2,495 of them, each requiring research and a detailed response within 5 days. But, the directors and managers freaked out and didn���t want me to create templates for different scenarios that I can send out to these people. THEY had to do it. I have been making these templates for years. I have been e-mailing members for years. I have been traditionally published twice. Even if they don���t know this last part, I have proved myself more than enough. The higher ups asked for examples of my templates and I sent them three.

They changed one sentence in each — which only told our customers to call rather than e-mail us for web-related problems. This process took four fucking days, five conference calls, and two meetings. I���m not even exaggerating.

It leaves me thinking that I am not awake, that this red tape bullshit and Corporate America nonsense is nothing but a wicked dream where my mind vomits up a parody of my actual job. But I promise you that it is 100% real.

The only light in all this is that I am working 10-11 hours a day and therefore have many chances of running into Prince Scientist, who I now see almost every day. We���ve been making a concerted effort to talk to each other, but his department is about as busy as mine is, so this week has only been running past each other in the hall. But there have been more significant moments and they are coming more frequently. And I always get a bright smile and a hello, if nothing else.

But if the best, most Pollyanna thing in a work week is a sprinting-by hello and a beautiful smile from a cute boy you don’t have real time to talk to, you know it’s a shitty, shitty week. Here’s hoping it gets better and I at least have more time with Prince Scientist.

If not, you may see me on the news. “Man leads bloody revolt on his company’s IT teams. Hundreds maimed…and one scientist licked into submission. Investigating police invited to the wedding.”

The Writing Cool Down Time

They say that when you finish a writing project you should let it sit for a while and sort of ferment. You need time away from it in order to have a more detached perspective on it and to let the ideas cool down. That way you aren’t so involved and can slice the thing up as needed with less weeping and wailings of “Don’t murder my baby!”

You can see better what needs to go and have less attachment to it, making it easier (never easy, mind you) to remove what is less useful and enhance what can be bettered.

There’s always that feeling of melancholy and free floating ease when I finish a project. It’s like that act of creation is over. I’ve reached the end and all that means, and things are good. I don’t quite relax because I know there is work to be done, and part of me is looking forward to it, another part wants to get it over with, and still another is looking forward to submitting it and the possible acceptance or *gulp* rejection.

I figured with a short story, I really didn’t need that much time to go over it, send it to my beta readers, and move from there. I finished it early last week and I plan to dive in tomorrow with the editing. I cut it rather close, and normally that amount of time would be reprehensible, but there’s no use crying over it. It is what it is.

I have lost one beta reader, which is for the best. He couldn’t analyze a thing, couldn’t tell me anything other than, “Duuuh, I like it. It’s good like a fluffy…oh, look at the bunny!” *scamper away* I felt obligated to allow this person to read and comment on my stuff because of my relation to that person. Thankfully, that is not the case anymore, and I can only pull from a pool of four people. But…

One of them is potentially about to be in a very bad place very soon. Another recently had a death very close to him and I couldn’t bear to pester him. Another one…well, I simply don’t want to hear it. Not the criticism; I’ve gotten better at taking that. But because of the type of story and a particular scene within it, I just don’t want to deal with the teasing. Very dear friend, but I don’t think she realizes that writers sometimes pull from their own lives and use things that happened in them to illustrate certain points or to use them as inspiration. So, my pool of five people has dwindled down to one for the time being.

That’s what I have and that’s what I have to use. I’m asking these friends a huge favor and I can’t ask that they put their lives or sorrow or even good times aside for my benefit.

While this is going on, I have two resurrected ideas percolating in my mind. I considered going on with the steampunk thing, but that is likely going to be a novel or a novella. So, I think I may return to the realms of magic that are always in my head. But I plan to do it soon. I’m not going to let another year go by before I write and (hopefully) publish something.

I do kind of like this stuff, you know. I should do it more often.

And you know what helps me? I went back and reread an old, old, old, OLD story I wrote. It’s rough, there’s no sense of style or feeling for the world. It was before I properly understood world building (and, if I’m to be honest, it’s still a daunting process). The characters don’t speak the way I would like them to, but they have plenty of personality.

But it’s fun. And it’s funny as hell. I haven’t read it in years and I had forgotten all the giggly parts I put in there. I crack myself up. Then I went back and read something I wrote in my teens. Where did that talent go? Where did that innate sense of story go? How did I intrinsically understand world building at that time?

Dunno. But it gives me hope, guidance, and a sense of excited anticipation not only for proofreading, but for jumping into the next project.

Sailor Moon Crystal ep. 1-13 and 1-14 — Final Battle and Conclusion

Like the last two episodes of the original anime series, the final two episodes of Sailor Moon Crystal are best taken together. And this entry will very likely be my last episode by episode review/rehash fun. Sometimes it felt like an obligation, other times it felt like fun, and though there were a few reads from time to time, nobody ever really seemed to care. I did, so I continued, but I knew that the moment it started feeling like a chore that I would see it through and then stop lest my enjoyment of the series itself be compromised.

So, let’s begin my last episode-by-episode breakdown, shall we?

Episode 13 — Final Battle — Reincarnation

This is one of those episodes where very little seemed to actually happen in that typical dramatic, flowing, epic way anime has. It’s where an entire battle can be summed up in a few sentences, but it’s always a joy to watch.

Essentially, after Sailor Moon’s stabbing spree in the last episode, this one was about undoing her psychopathic cutting mania. She and Tuxedo Mask faint away and the Silver Crystal comes out of their chests. Queen Metallia grows to the size of a city, then eats the flower-shaped Silver Crystal with the chewy center of Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon inside.

Metallia takes them into her body, which really does feel like she ate them like a cherry cordial. The Sailor Scouts sacrifice themselves when they feel Sailor Moon is still alive inside Metallia, only to find out that Sailor Moon’s death was stopped by the watch Tuxedo Mask gave her a while back. Ditto Tuxedo Mask with the stone-encapsulated souls of his servants — Jadite, Nephlyte, Zoicite, and Kunzite/Malachite.

So here’s my question: If Sailor Moon didn’t really kill herself and Tuxedo Mask, what the hell were they doing? Playing possum? Pretending? Taking a nap? We’ll just say that they were, like The Princess Bride taught us, MOSTLY dead.

They come to life inside Metallia as she envelops the world in a purple cloud of zombie-making stank. They escape using the Silver Crystal and Sailor Moon gets a new upgrade for the Crescent Moon Wand, sticks the Silver Crystal in the top, and shoots Queen Metallia in the giant X on her forehead. Somehow we were supposed to be surprised that this was her weak spot? It seemed at least worth a try before this, right?

Whatever. I loved in. Moving on.

Episode 14 — Conclusion and Commencement

Sailor Moon blasts the hell out of Queen Metallia with the help of all the Scouts’ spirits and Luna’s prayer (the latter of whom takes on a human form briefly). Metallia gets excited at the energy that kills her, in some weird masochistic pleasures I’d rather not get into, thanks all the same. Metallia dies after an epic battle and Sailor Moon’s transformation brooch shatters.

Luna and Artemis’ prayers revive the Moon Kingdom. Are you kidding me? I would be a selfish praying mofo. Hottie boyfriend! *pray* Beautiful house! *pray* Super powers! *pray* The ability to tase someone long distance! *pray* And so on.

When the dust settles, Tuxedo Mask shows his connection with the Earth and finds the lost spirits of the Sailor Scouts, showing that he can actually do something pretty awesome. I have to say, he was much more effective in this series than he was in the original anime.

Sailor Moon…or Serena/Usagi, I suppose…goes to the Moon, gets a new brooch, transforms (changing from Moon Prism Power to Moon Crystal Power), decides to live her life as a human girl instead of Queen of the Moon, and heals the Earth. In that healing, she learns a revive spell and the Sailor Scouts come back to life. Sailor Moon and the Sailor Scouts reunite in a very sweet scene that may or may not have had me a little bit emotional. It’s also possible that the ghastly Santa Ana winds will return in two days and it was my allergies. (Unfortunately, this latter is a fact. Uuuuuugh. F-ing Southern California!)

Happiness ensues. Everyone is happy and alive. Things are peaceful for a while.

However, what I think my favorite non-mushy part of this episode was was the end — the appearance of Rini/Chibiusa. As she falls on Serena’s head. “I broke my neck!” *cackle* Not only does it mean that the series will continue, it means that we will be treated to the Black Moon storyline. I figured the series would continue, but I thought there might be a delay. Seeing that confirmation makes me happy. Though I will miss Anne and Allen and the Doom Tree, which I loved in the original anime, I realize it was a fabrication for the anime and will not be making an appearance here. I always felt like the Black Moon story got truncated, so I won’t mind too much. I’m looking forward to it.

Thus ends my saga of Sailor Moon reviews. I may pop in and talk about the new series from time to time, and I may not. I will be watching it, though. In the meantime, I have the entire re-dub of the original anime to watch. By the time I get through the first half, the second half will be out. That’s 46 total episodes that I will NOT be blogging about in depth. I will be hogging my fun and love and enjoyment to myself. And, it just occurred to me that I don’t think I have ever watched all of Super S in Japanese, only the dub. Plus, I have the live action Sailor Moon which I have never watched.

So, don’t you worry about me. I am taken care of when it comes to Sailor Moon goodness. I just won’t inflict that on my few lovely readers.

 

Out of Words

Damn it!

So, I���ve been working on the mythology short story for the anthology, as I mentioned a week ago. I had a plan of action, a series of events, and thought I was on my way there. The characterization was seeming a little too shallow, but they are fleshed out to me, so I could beef them up with details and histories in a few minutes of editing. The parts with the gods and goddesses flowed like it was nothing, so that was never a problem. I had a maximum of 10,000 words for this anthology call and I thought I could make it all fit.

I���ve come down to the last act and realized that I am totally out of room. I have a thousand words left and there is almost no way I can fit in the third person/last minute appearance I wanted. I would have to make the characters totally flimsy and shallow and cut out some of the good parts — the gods and goddesses. But���I was going to make one of the lesser known goddesses kick ass! And who she was going to team up with was awesome. And the reason was even better. Now���it may never be.

The fact that I was so easily able to pick out what needed to be cut probably shows that it wasn���t all that necessary anyway. I had to do the same with The Snow Queen — there was an entire subplot where Gavyn was going to meet up with Isi���s people. Instead, I had to cut it out totally and do more with what was already there, and while I liked what I came up with, it was really sort of a 11th hour creative splurge that worked in my favor. (Yeah, that last paragraph was for any of the roughly three people who might have read the thing).

But that���s all showing my lack of expertise. I���ve never been good at reining my words in, though I���m getting better all the time. In fact, my version of The Snow Queen, which was published in the Torqued Tales anthology (also available separately, if anyone cares), was literally the second short story I have ever managed to finish, and the first that was worth anything. That it was published says something. (What it says, I don���t know. That it was good? That it filled a spot? That my publisher had no other decent entries? That I actually made this deadline, unlike with the only other short story I have ever finished? I have no idea.)

So, this is all new ground for me. My last short story was published and has all of one review that I have found online, and all of two ratings (not reviews) the last time I checked Goodreads. That���s not much feedback. The first short story I did wasn���t very good AND was turned in after the deadline for the anthology (because I apparently didn���t own a calendar or a way to tell time then. Novice, infantile mistake.), yet I was invited to spruce it up and resubmit it as a stand-alone short story or flesh it out and resubmit as a novella. I never did. I might, though.

So, I have been blindly plucking along with this one, trying to listen to my inner compass, hoping that it guided me right in the past and will continue to do so. And now at the end of it, I find that I don���t have enough room to do what I wanted. Do I try for the anthology? Do I spruce it up and turn it into a novella? Do I let it sit and see how I feel about it in a few days?

I���m hoping it turns out okay, or that I can pull it together in the end, because I���m nearly out of words, and not in the way one might suspect.

Ooooouch, damn it!

Health nuts generally piss me off…but I’m beginning to think that they have something.

This morning I showered, got ready, and came back to my room to wait for my friend and ride to work to get closer so I could hobble downstairs and meet her. I was reading the articles on my IMDB app when I realized that I couldn’t see the faces that well. Every time I tried to focus on a point — whether it be text, face, or icon — it looked like there was a spot of light in front of it. Freaked out, I decided that I was being dramatic and went downstairs a little early, thinking the cold morning air would shut my dramatic mind up.

That’s when I realized that my peripheral vision was the same way. It looked like I had stared at a light bulb or the sun for too long. I am at work before the sun decides to make an appearance, so that certainly wasn’t it.

I decided to do the worst thing ever — Google my symptoms. Why do we as a people still do this? It’s never accurate and it’s never good for anything other than a panic attack.

Speaking of which, I read “detached retinas” and promptly began munching on my own little slice of panic. It was about 50 degrees outside and I was wearing a very thin jacket, but I started to sweat. My vision got worse. I started to feel sick to my stomach. I managed to calm myself down by the time my friend arrived. She told me that I needed to calm down…and then it hit her.

I was about to have a migraine. And I had nothing for it.

She gave me some Excedrin and we started to work. That’s when the pounding started. An hour later, I had a pretty bad headache, but the Excedrin stopped the majority of it. I went home at noon and slept most of it off.

I’ve only ever had one headache like that, and the flickering lights happened just as I went home and started to fall asleep. When I woke up, they were gone, so they didn’t really stick out. Apparently this scary-ass strobe light effect happens frequently just before a migraine hits. Who knew? I joked with my coworker that I thought women were the ones who got these things and told her I wondered if maybe my real problem wasn’t estrogen. We cackled, my head hurt more, and went back to our desks.

Given a moment of consideration, I realized what the problem was: caffeine. I have been trying to cut out aspartame from my diet, which means less sweeteners and more sugar. I didn’t like that, but I gave into it. I started drinking more and more sugary soda. Finally, I decided that I wanted to cut that out, too and stopped drinking it. Cold turkey.

My last caffeine (save for one cup of green tea in the mornings) was two days ago. I was literally suffering withdrawals.

It made me think: if this is what this shit does to my body when I go off of it, what the hell is it doing to me when I’m ingesting it?

So, I could stand to eat and drink better foods and exercise more, even with my ongoing leg/back/sciatica issue. I’m not sure how far into this I’m going to go, but hopefully in a week I won’t be eating kale and quinoa and swearing off salt *gasp!* or something like that. But if I do become one of THOSE people, maybe I won’t be annoying about it.

Because today was bullshit.