Wild World Of Jefferson

Okay, the title for that one was supposed to be a spin off of Wild World of Sports and I am probably showing my age by spinning off that title as I am not even sure that particular show still is on the air. I don't watch sports, so really, I have no clue. But the purpose of using that title is that the past two days, other than being ill and off work, I should have gotten major writing done.

But life got in the way.

Sometimes it works out that way. I have read enough other writers bloggies to know this. Life kept jumping up, hitting me in the face with drama after drama, each bigger wave climatic enough (and interesting enough to my little writer/watcher brain) that I had to sit back, help others in some cases, and just try to keep my head above the crests.

Life is funny like that.

I am left assuming there is some purpose to all of this. Perhaps Siren's Song is not meant to be completed in a week (a harried, misshapen boob of a work thrown together because its Frankenstein like author just wanted it done with because its first edition sister is finally marketable). Perhaps it is just that I am a workaholic and God himself decided that while I am sick and unable to work, I was, ahem, not going to work at all, darn it all.

Perhaps, I, a mere mortal, if all-knowing being on paper, am not to know the reasons behind everything.

But needless to say, other than blogging, Siren's Song and Blood and Bones sat unwritten. They got polished a little (what, you thought I wrote NOTHING for two whole days??? I carried FiFi (pet name for my laptop... the desktop was Pheonix, and a laptop is like a lapdog so when I renamed it PheonixII, it got shortened to FiFi) with me everywhere... I just wrote no ORIGINAL work. Chapter Five, my new favorite chapter of all time in any book anywhere (aka, pivotal scene that got taken over by character that was not invited to the party... but he is so flipping cool and did some major metaphysical stuff that worked out way better than I planned... um, never mind) got polished and I get all giddy everytime I reread it. And Blood is now all shiny up to Chapter Three. Sadly, when I say shiny, I mean first draft shiny. I am sure, when I do my finished and then walk away and then come back, this version of shiny will still not be shiny. But these are some of the shiniest firsts that I have ever had.

Then again, I have never been writing two books so clearly at once before.

It is strange enough to have your regular home life, where you have your family and friends. You are one person there. You are say, wife, mother, daughter. Then you have your work life and perhaps you are a slightly different person at work. Depending on what you do for a living, you may be more dramatically a different person, so perhaps the shift from work to home life is somewhat more staggering depending...

For me, just now I have both those lives. Then, in addition, I have the Odd Stuff world with Siren's Song. All my Odd Stuff friends trot around, telling me what is happening in their world, arguing for page time, and only probably other writers know what I am referring to when I write that. My characters from this series have been with me for awhile, so they feel free to invade my dreams and tell me at 3am that I am getting their story all wrong.

And then, while I am now writing two books, I have the Blood characters in there too. They are a somewhat quieter lot, as this is their first book, and we are all just getting to know one another. This does not stop them from invading, midscene of a Siren chapter, to insert, "Did you know that she is going to lose her memories in chapter seven?"

"What?!" I the author ask, and frantically pull up my outline. I don't think that is going to happen just then.

I glance at the outline and that was not where it was supposed to happen at all. I look it over and realize that it would flow much better that way and begin plugging away.

No, they are not actual voices, before you call for meds. It was euphimistic. It was just an example, in an illiterative sort of way, of how muddled it can be to try to walk in two imaginary worlds in your head and try to keep everyone organized at once... No one wants to stay in their own story. I think this is why Laurell K. Hamilton, one of my favorite authors, and longtime writer heroes, writes one at a time. To keep the worlds from bumping. Otherwise your characters get fussy and greedy about face time.

Speaking of, perhaps instead of blogging about writing, now that I have the juices flowing, so to speak, perhaps instead of writing about writing, I should write.
Ciao.