The Return To Innocence

I forgot to come back here after the new year. Sorry, journal. I was busy.

Today, and yesterday, and the day before, I've been... I guess it's ill with a cold, or a cold and allergies? It seems to vary. Obviously, a fibromyalgia flare has been set off. I've been dizzy, shaky, sore, with a scratchy throat, itchy eyes, runny or stuffy nose, yada yada. If it keeps going past a few days, I'll call allergies.

At the end of December, Adam and I began talking honestly about my Neuroweird, and he figured I might do well on an ADHD drug or similar, which made me consider SNRIs, which made me recall my first attempt at Cymbalta in 2002 that went wrong, which made me decide, after talks with three doctors and my insurance, to go back on Cymbalta in place of Zoloft, to see if an SNRI would do better at poking away at my Neuroweird. In combination with the personal therapy regime that will be slowly happening for probably ever, it is working. Most of my compulsive episodes have been very controlled. It is hard work, obviously. Everything is hard work. Sometimes we who have multiple intense chronic illnesses forget to mention how hard it is to just... be. Every day, all the time. Or people who don't understand might forget how hard it is. Not having episodes of... All The Issues, it's hard.
Cough.
Anyway.
Maybe I just forget, because it's all happening to me all at once, constantly, in the background, and I'm so used to it that I wave it off and go "Meh, it's just Things, it's always been Things, whatever" even though my entire brain is screaming and full of storms. I don't listen to myself enough; I'm too used to me. That's part of an upcoming therapy session, too.

Very current parts of therapy have been literally watching comedy videos while exercising. The Nostalgia Critic videos on YouTube, for example, and Futurama on Netflix, and Cartoon Network during the day (Woo, Amazing World of Gumball, woo, and also the creator of Uncle Grandpa was in my high school class, heeyy).

I've been sleeping with plush animals again since childhood. It's fabulous. Ty makes lovely plush My Little Pony dolls.

I really must post more here.
I've been in a depressive episode, one that now includes a postitctal state.
Feeling truly alive and worthy can be difficult.
Bah.
I'll work through it and past it. I always do.
Everything hurts. Pain is concentrated in my skull, my face, and my neck. It is hard to lie still with my eyes closed.
Luckily I have many different treatments, yay.
Maybe tomorrow I can really start the second novel as more than outlines. I still need a title. The title "Glass Lotus" is still among the top choices. I still need to research paranormal contemporary nontraditional urban fantasy novels featuring LGBTQU characters with disabilities and superpowers. (Good luck, Jo.)
At least I am eating.

You guys, I amaze myself. I've been writing helter skelter all over the place: Novel, stories, novellas, blogs, facebook, notebooks with various pens, everywhere... in the middle of a postictal migraine and insanely horrific agonizing chronic pain flare-up following recovery from a panic attack. If I didn't have a computer or paper I might write on the walls. I hurt so badly I have no idea what I'm doing. I feel half fire and half water. Wild and raging, and all I want is a crackling bonfire and a rushing river.
I doctored up a photo of myself and it came out half gold light and half blue light. It looks inhuman. But part of me adores it so much. My face is two different parts. I am two entities in one. When I burn, I am cool. When I am cool, I burn. It is ying yang, dragon phoenix, up and down, left and right, I don't even know. I don't speak out loud except to my cats, I just speak through Story. So much Story inside me.
That rock. That rock that my husband gave me, the rock that he held while standing in Room 217 of the Stanley Hotel, in which Stephen King wrote "The Stand" and used as an inspiration for "The Shining". That rock is still next to my laptop. I am covered in words. I am filled up with Words. I may disappear into Story. I may not even see the world until I have to.
Is this what it is like to live in the land of the Fae and then come back to the land of humans?



Maybe it was the super moon. Maybe it is the heat from the sun now. Maybe it is anything.

So, I found this meme. And I started trying to answer the questions. And then suddenly I froze and started crying. I'm attributing that to the depressive episode borne out of that postictal state. Or something. Maybe the migraine too.
I may try again tomorrow.

***

What is the working title for your book?

Stormfall.

Where did the idea for the book come from?

During my third year in college (SUNY Purchase), I was at my best friend's house; we were sitting on her bed reading books quietly. Suddenly, very randomly, I fell asleep (I now realize this was an epileptic seizure) and had... a vision. A dream. Something. Crawling naked through the woods away from a burning building. Moving through a cave in a psychic vision. Actually being psychic and doing psychic things. When I woke up, feeling exhausted and funny, I said, "I just had this amazing dream" and my friend looked at me with this very knowing look. Because, you know, she and I had been having psychic dreams and such for a while. I described the dream And I turned it into several scenes in the first chapter. And the rest of the chapter formed around that vision. And suddenly I was writing more chapters, and then I had a novel happening.

What genre does your book fall under?

Future fantasy. Or is it futuristic fantasy now? A sort of science fantasy. It takes place almost two centuries from now, close enough to have streamlined versions of current technologies, far enough to not be anywhere near now. But there is more magic than science, magic in the form of psychic powers, psionics. Lots of it. Very character driven, to the point where I barely have the world around the characters really built.

What is the synopsis or blurb for this book?

Oh gods, I hate trying to do this.
[*deep breath*] In a future world where mild psychic powers have become common, four of the most powerful psychics in the world will test the limits of their powers and the bonds of their love when a fifth powerful psionic seeks to destroy and rebuild reality - but he needs the help of one of the four to do so. When she refuses and he captures her, she finds herself fighting for her life, her friends, and for all existence.

What actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I have no clue. Since it will probably be years and years before a film gets made ... maybe Dana could be played by a red-haired Chloe Moretz or Elle Fanning or Ariana Grande or Tiffany Thornton or Sara Paxton or Alexa Vega or Bella Thorne, with hazel contact lenses? Maybe Kara could be played by Selena Gomez or Victoria Justice or Camilla Belle or Ashley Greene or Elizabeth Gillies or Ariel Winter or Jodelle Ferland, with light blue contact lenses? For Ian and Alex, since they are fraternal twins and have different coloring, perhaps Dave Franco or Jeremy Sumpter or Cody Linley or Drew Roy or Max Theriot or Sean Faris or Johnny Pacar or Nicholas Hoult, with blue-green contact lenses and brown contact lenses? Jeremy could be played by one of those guys, with dark blue contact lenses. *shrug*

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Agency, I hope. If they like me enough.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

First draft? I finished that after college, then ripped apart the whole thing. The ending has been missing for ten years while I put the rest back together. I mean, I have the ending. It's just not put in yet.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I've had such a lifelong love and obsession with psionic/psychic powers and superhumans that I'd been writing such stories since my pre-teens. I suppose that has come out of my being born disabled and wishing I could be more than I was. And also really really loving superhero/superhuman stories. I've loved Marvel's X-Men comics since childhood. Perhaps all the stories I write are allegories for being born with disabilities. Just something you live with. What you choose to do with it is your choice and yours alone. It can boost you and cripple you at the same time.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Um. Any book where the main characters have really strong psychic powers? I guess? Like, telekinesis and telepathy and all the subcategories thereof?

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Fuck, I don't know. The superpowers? The future world? The fact that all my characters are pagan, that polytheism is really really common and running neck and neck with monotheism? Psychic abilities of various levels? Character interaction? A villian who isn't truly a villian but a person who feels wronged and wants to make things right in his own way by destroying the world? A main female character who is disabled but it isn't made obvious? Three other main characters who have mental illnesses that are not made obvious?

(Also, I feel bad that I don't have many POC characters (Kara has heritage that is Navajo, Korean, Welsh. Dana's heritage is Russian, Columbian, Gaelic, Greek. Ian and Alex have heritage that is Celtic, Welsh, Greek. Jeremy has heritage that is Italian, Spanish, Scottish, Belgian)... and many POC characters are tertiary. But, you know, the main characters that came into my head were Caucasian. I don't want to alter their races just to appease social justice warrior readers.)

I put Amazon Kindle on this phone and downloaded the books from my Kindle For PC. I'm doomed. I'll need a stronger battery for this thing; I've already set all the battery power saving settings I could think of.
Oh, Samsung Galaxy, you know my weaknesses well.
Also, I got a refurbished Samsung Galaxy S 3 smartphone at the start of January. It's white. AT&T gave me an early upgrade. Did I mention I got the phone? I don't remember.
I've been saying for years that I don't want a Kindle or Nook, and mostly it was because I didn't want to cram it in my purse. But this phone is a phone too and stays in the front section of the purse, whichever purse it is at any time, and reading is fun and good, and I'm fine with that. I'll never give up actual paper books. But I'm much better about ereader tablets than I was.

Also, migraine and fibromyalgia and spastic hypertonia like crazy and Raynaud's flares and knee problems and everything still hurts and mutter grumble mutter. But I have my box of Petite Ecolier chocolate biscuits and my Brookside Dark Chocolate Acai Blueberry Pieces and it is all good. And also Charlotte came over for the afternoon and brought sandwiches and Munchos chips, and that is all good. And I have my shelled pistachios and I have my yogurt smoothies and my sea buckthorn juice and really all is well.

So many books to read, still. Piles. Physical and digital. And to write. All these Stories. Stories galloping across my writerbrain until I grab a few bits here and there, and some of those bits get transferred to the Novel because they fit well.

I'm so tired and wrung out, but thank Apollo and Gaia that it doesn't go as deeply as it could. Argh, disabilities, etc.

Last night I dreamed of a library, my Library, the one that exists in multiple story worlds in the Storyland Multiverse. I was many librarians at once, I was so full of magic and power and Knowledge that I was brimming with light and energy. And today, I had a fantastic FB discussion that made the dream feel real in some ways...
I am the most disorganized, disorderly, random, crazy, wild home librarian you might meet; but that is part of my charm and my irritation. I have ways and secrets and methods that will make you exhausted and thrilled simultaneously.

Holy Gaia's Eyes, you guys, I finally figured out how to move the novel along more quickly. I finally wrote that one sentence - just one sentence - that broke through that blank wall of "Well, fuck, now what happens?" that many writers struggle with.
And now I'm several paragraphs past that. This is the first time I've managed to do that since summer. This is such an insanely massive personal breakthrough that I want to celebrate. But we already have cake and ice cream, so I'll just mark the day and I'll just keep on writing until fatigue begs me to stop.

And to think, all it took was for me to make the antagonist notice the main female protagonist's purple tourmaline engagement ring, which should have helped psychically protect her but didn't, because they're all powerful psychics there and can do what they want. Now to make her fiance suffer that broken neck a little more.

Seriously, though, I want to hug myself and cry a little.

Funny thing? I am in a violent amount of pain today, so severe that I really cannot to much other than type and type and pour my frustration and mood out into documents. Well, then.

To writing! *whiskey shot*

Adam is home. At least until Saturday, when he may be off to Chicago for another job. Ahh, the life of a field computer technician and IT/AVproject manager. On Friday, we go back to his Kaiser Permanente doctors for follow-up appointments, and then... who knows. A couple of days off is lovely, though. Now that I'm on Disability, there might be more opportunities for me to come with him on jobs in the future. That would be sweet. Charlotte would happily look after the cats, which will always be my concern when we're away.

Exhaustion levels are still very high. Appetite is still poor. I did eat three small pieces of Adam's pizza made completely from scratch, and they were delicious, but my stomach is now crying over how full it is. Maybe it shrank. At least I am eating something, right? At least the anorexia scars haven't opened, right?

So many books that still need reading. I got distracted from John Scalzi's "Redshirts" when Charlotte insisted I read the newest Sookie Stackhouse book that she'd bought. I hadn't realized how little of "Redshirts" I had read. I am still trying to finish "Trance" by Kelly Medig and the long-awaited "Ashes Of Honor" by the awesome Seanan McGuire. And then there is the "Shadow Falls" series by CC Hunter, "Endlessly" by Kiersten White, "Bloodlines" by Richelle Mead, a few HP Lovecraft books, "The Folded World" by the wonderful Catherynne M. Valente, and the "Clarity" series by Kim Harrington. Not to mention "Sex, Drugs, Einstein, & Elves" by Cliff Pickover and "The Untethered Soul" by Michael A. Singer. And the Kindle For PC books, like "Team Human" by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan.
Oh, my beloved books. So many of them. And my own speculative futuristic paranormal fantasy novel, which is almost finished, if I could just get past the lesser scenes to the larger scenes. The lesser scenes are always important to provide just enough information, since this is such a big book and I am not writing any direct sequels.

Ah, the Baclofen is working. My left arm has blissfully stopped spasming. And I'm not even tired, not even as a side effect. I love you, Baclofen, almost as much as Soma the great pain killing muscle relaxer.

Adam is downstairs in the living room, on the awesome couch, playing Playstation 3, and it's all good. As long as we are in this little townhouse together, as long as I can limp downstairs and see him and touch him, it is all right.

So, I have been a fan of Tangerine Dream since I was very young. I don't remember when I first started listening to their music, but I remember being pleasantly surprised to hear them during the film "Firestarter" (I loved the book and was amused by the movie). I watched it as a preteen and then as a teenager, and I was convinced that Drew Barrymore would go on to do great things (I was right, yay) and that shooting fire with your brain while also moving everything with your brain was one of the best superpowers ever. In fact, the book and movie helped awaken my love for the idea of paranormal powers in humans.

When I was 18, in 1997, I found a cassette tape (you remember those, right?) of The Dream Mixes One. This instantly became my favorite album out of the one hundred plus albums that the group had put out throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s (they started in 1967 and they're still at it, with at least a thousand songs). I instantly fell in love with the songs "Little Blond In The Park Of Attractions" and "Change Of The Gods" because of the fantastic danceability and the way both songs blew my writerbrain wide open so words would spill out and my levels of serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and endorphins would skyrocket and go dancing and it was marvelous.

After all the CDs came out, I bought as many as I could from secondhand shops, because when I was in my late teens and very early twenties, there weren't very many internet stores; Ebay, Amazon, and SSL encryption were just babies. I personally had Hotmail and AIM and that was all (which helped me keep my long distance with Adam as close as possible beyond phone calls). Yahoo had only been out for a scant few years, and I only used for backup email. Google barely existed and and Wikipedia didn't happen until after I graduated college. We even did all our studying with, like, real books and floppy disks video tapes and stuff. Ah, the late 1990s, how little we had.

Anyway. "The Dream Mixes One" was one of the dozens of CDs I bought and listened to while writing my short stories for my college writing courses, since my major was Creative Writing and I had to be Creative. The songs on that album helped me craft what would become the dark futuristic supernatural fantasy novel that I'm still working on.
So, guess what I found on YouTube after looking up Tangerine Dream's gorgeous rendition of the William Blake's "Tyger Tyger" poem?



This is ALL THE SONGS.

I. Am. So. Ecstatically. Happy. I just listened to the whole album and I want to fly. Those neurotransmitters are now spinning and dancing and raving like dancing ravers at a dance rave. I think I can kill this migraine I'm having just by laughing at it, I swear. I'm going to go WRITE. Because I am made of WORDS.

Granted, I am still in pain all over, but it's okay. Because music will help soothe it all.

Music really can heal. It just has to be the right music for you, the music you love, the music that you personally cherish. This is mine.

fan·tas·tic   [fan-tas-tik]
adjective
1. conceived or appearing as if conceived by an unrestrained imagination; odd and remarkable; bizarre; grotesque.
2. fanciful or capricious, as persons or their ideas or actions.
3. imaginary or groundless in not being based on reality; foolish or irrational.
4. extravagantly fanciful; marvelous.
5. incredibly great or extreme; exorbitant.

So, my favorite Young Adult series is Kiersten White's Paranormalcy trilogy. The third book, 'Endlessly' will be out soon, and eventually there will be at least one movie. I've been reading Kiersten White's blog, and she is one of the most awesome people in the world - she's also my height, heh.

Recently, Kiersten wrote a post about how hard writing is, how it makes you bleed and sob and lose your mind some days. And I commented because I was so touched that she put it so well:

"Kiersten, thank you so, so, so so so so much for this post. It's what I needed. See, I've been working on this futuristic urban fantasy pagan polytheistic supernatural psychic power novel since I was 20 (I just turned 33) and I've almost finished it, but many, many things have derailed me. Illness and disability, mostly (I have a disability hearing in July and I'm so nervous I can't brain straight), and also growing up, because when you write, you always grow with your characters. And my characters have had over twelve years to grow, and dear gods, that feels like forever, doesn't it? Why can't I just finish it? Whhyyyyy? *cough*
There were many, many people who told me that I was writing a great book and that it would sell very well (lots of pagan readers out there, people getting tired of sexy vampires, whatever). But I have this shatteringly fragile sense of self that often rears up (especially after an epileptic seizure or a fibromyalgia flare) and points and laughs, "Ha, ha, you suck, your brain sucks, your book sucks, you will never be published, mwa ha ha..." And it takes me a while to do battle. I have a very pretty and deadly mental sword, though. I call her Phoenix.
So. Erm. Yes, well. I think I've said more than I'd expected to. Anyway.
Erm. Thank you. Yes! That's what I wanted to say. Also, that I pre-ordered Endlessly and am now clawing the couch the way my cat Luna does when she gets excited (get off the couch, Luna)."

The characters in this book are finally starting to yell again, so loudly that I can actually hear them, and I've been writing as hard as I can before the blocks rise again. Pulling myself away to work on the short stories has been also fantastic.

Augh, fatigue. Oh, fatigue, Oh. I would rather have the pain.
Wait. No. Maybe. I don't know.
A secret: I am terrified. I have been writing short stories. I plan to submit them to online magazines. I have finished Chapter Twenty in the book, and now I'm struggling to make the words come out the way they need to. I want to beg every writer I know to tell me how they do it, how they make the imaginary people in their heads talk enough. Asking for help feels strange. It always feels strange.

Adam is going to be home Saturday morning, so my mind is consumed by that. Perhaps I can twist and transform that into something between Dana and Ian. It's just the words, the words. I see everything like a film in my head, but I've never written a screenplay, and novels are about words. That sounds too easy. Dear writers: Help?

I am just so tired right now.