Thursday, October 21, 2010

That's interesting.

I've always loved the quote "Writing is the socially acceptable form of schizophrenia" from E.L. Doctorow. Considering I have several voices in my head at any one time telling me their stories, that quote fits quite nicely.

Tonight I've been informed that I also have CDD. I was wrong in my first assumption of what "CDD" meant, to which my daughter was quick to clarify. I apparently have "Character Divergence Disorder."

Okay, that certainly fits too. But I didn't earn this label until said daughter poked her head above my screen as I typed saying "oh no you didn't.... Nooooo..." and proceeded to tell me how bad I was for writing the beginning few paragraphs of a story that has been growing in my head for weeks while I've been trying to write Retribution - the seventh book of my Disillusionment Series.

Trust me, no one wants that seventh book written more than I do. But Aliski and Egan keep butting in to the point where ignoring them is nearly painful. My dilemma was made worse - ironically - by my daughter who took it upon herself days ago to describe a cartoon scene with me sitting at a desk, all the characters (seven of them and possibly one old half-blind dragon) from Retribution huddled together in a far corner, and Aliski with her vicious pet fisher standing in front of the desk giving them the evil eye. Nothing like giving bad-attitude antagonistic Aliski even more power. (A character whose name may continue to change considering she started out "Kaliska.") So this problem I have was reinforced by my wonderful daughter who has now labeled me CDD.

That's how it goes for me. To be honest, I'm surprised I've gotten through the first six books of the series before anyone else poked their head up from the mass of ideas always whirling through my mind. When Aliski did, it was to show me she had a very different kind of story than my usual. One that is looking to be an interesting one to do.

So which book will I work on tonight - that is to be determined by which characters yell the loudest.




Saturday, October 09, 2010

When a Writer Gets Bored

My house is a funny place on weekend evenings. It's usually full of teenagers and a friend or two. My girls aren't typically aching to run out anywhere but are happy to stay home. For years, Friday and Saturday nights were good writing nights for me too - with one exception. The muse isn't all that thrilled to come out and play when I'm trying to force it to stick to something it doesn't want to do.

So here I am, the most entertaining thing on television being my girls playing Resident Evil 5 on the XBox (I mean that sincerely - they are entertaining to watch) - this after we cleaned and took care of some typical household things. When I watched my eleven-year-old dust happily away on the entertainment stand this morning, it felt good to know she actually enjoys shining up glass candle holders and polishing wood. We work as a good team in this house. A good thing or I wouldn't be able to accomplish half of what I do. But anyway, back to the subject...

I sit down with the intention of getting to work on my book. My muse is not happy with me though. It has taken off to create a book that was suppose to stay in the background until Retribution: Disillusionment Book Seven is complete, finishing the series. But my muse is telling me it's bored with the series and doesn't care that readers would be very unhappy if I don't finish it quickly.

So as I sit here Saturday night trying to occupy myself, my mind is at war. I have Retribution open, but there is no enthusiasm driving me to write it. I feel sad about that because I do love the characters. I'm just ready to move on to a different kind of story, one that doesn't appear to be quite so light and the plot looks to be a much more complicated weaving of character threads than Retribution.

Only time will tell which story will win out this evening or if I'll give up and go find something else to do...