The Red Room

Turn to page 123 in your work-in-progress. (If you haven't gotten to page 123 yet, then turn to page 23. If you haven't gotten there yet, then get busy and write page 23.) Count down four sentences and then instead of just the fifth sentence, give us the whole paragraph.

I did this meme for pg. 23, and now (after two sad and pathetic years) I can do it for pg. 123.

(Yes, I know, I meant to quit. What can I say.)

*

--Oh, Marisol, you said, and I couldn't tell what you wanted to say. You looked at the chocolate box, and then picked it up to see inside, and then at the dressing table, and a shadow-dark wine bottle with a bunch of bleeding red flowers stuck inside. I'd seen them in the garden, and the public park, but I didn't know what their name was.

--Those aren't mine, Marisol said. She had smoked the cigaret into a stub, which she pressed out on the dish, and sat back down in her chair. I watched, and you watched, as her dressing gown pushed up past her knees. --I'm afraid His Lordship saves flowers for her. It's a lucky thing I don't care for them.

Yes, I'm only posting to show off this icon.

*feeling slightly ashamed at being the 1 zillionish person to do a GIP.*

It's been a long time (over a month, but I'm not keeping track) since I posted in here. And it's true that I haven't had much to write about. It's been boring. It's been cold, really cold, and fucking cold, and then back to just cold, and then warm. Snow melted, and then froze, and became ice. And by ice, I mean I should have strapped on a pair of ice skates to get around for a while there. It's not so bad now that it snowed again.

Well, this is Montana, and it only happens every year. (Although it isn't *every* year that it was so cold one morning the buses at my old, and not missed elementary school/junior high, couldn't start. And apparently they didn't really mean it when they said they wouldn't cancel school until that happened, as they still expected children to risk their lives and limbs so they could spend another day learning nothing... Oh, I'm not bitter at all.)

Anyway.

My writing, the hobby I have spent (or wasted) most of my adult life on and have a degree in, is going pretty badly, and that's an understatement. I would say it couldn't be worse, except I'm quite sure it could be. I did quit writing, and put all of its results in a box in a storage area that is childishly easy to reach across all that snow. It just reminded me of how I tried all the other arts -- and sucked at all of them. So I might write more stories, I might finish them too, but it's still true that I quit, in a certain point of view, because I won't post them or share them with other people. I have quit that, for good, and force willing, forever. I think the one unpopular, tanking thing I'm posting at tf.net is enough.

I am still looking into possible new hobbies, and ones that I do not need a community, "beta readers", or (shudders) critpeople to make it worthwhile.



*comments are disabled for this post. Regular commenting access will resume with the next post.

Sometimes it's ok to pimp yourself out. Post a list of your top five fic-favorites you've written, regardless of fandom or the reason you love them. This isn't about the BEST things you've written, but what you LOVE most. Then tag five other people to do the same. Everyone else in the world should do it...

Well, if you put it that way...

Since I'm mostly done with fan fiction (well, there are several wips I'm afraid to mention by title, and another story I'm going to write, but by the time I finish that, in 2025, we may be getting the internet downloaded straight into our brains or something), this will be a trip down to memory lane. And to prove I'm not doing this in a pathetic attempt to get readers, I'm not providing links.


1. Shock and Awe This is my most recent (and one of my last) stories, written this summer for the star wars fic fest. I'm not actually sure if I like it though; it's not that sort of story. I would say I was disappointed it didn't have more readers, except that I'm surprised anyone read it at all.

2. Into Hell I don't pretend that I have any really, truly original ideas. But I can safely say that no one else in Stars Wars and its fandom has, or ever will, write a story like this one.

3. Wrong Things When I write an original female character (oh my god!), and have her bang an obscure, usually one dimensional EU character, I do it without blinking or apologizing.

4. Decoy This story shows one thing, if nothing else: When Padmé is good, she's so very good, but when she's a bitch, she's better.

5. The Winter Queen I'm pretty much the only person who likes this one, and there's probably a good reason for that.


Also, "Aerena, with her sun eyes" receives an honorable mention, for punching me in the face for, like, fifty pages, what with the present tense and all. I won, though.

Herding cats.

Don't let anyone tell you it's easy.

Once I stop posting, it really is hard to start again.

Anyway, I've been working on a story today (which lets you know that this entry shall not contain any writing boo hooing, though if I wanted to, that would just be too bad) that I first started in 2002, and tried to finish in 2006. Hopefully this time, this time, I'll finish it. I won't say what it's about, partly because it's usually best not to, and partly because someone from my real life read the first and early pages back in 2002. I will say that I put in a bit of what I think is painfully, stupidly obvious foreshadowing.

And, well, if people still can't get that, then I'm sorry. They're not tall enough to ride this ride.

*

I also worked on the novel, and finished chapter three in record time, well, a record time for me. Probably entirely because it's considerably shorter than the first two.

*

I've realized that if I were to ever adopt a white tomcat, I would probably refer to his testicles as snow balls.* (That's because I have said at times that my female white cat, who is being picked on by a more aggressive cat, needs to grow a pair of snow balls. Which caused my father to refer to her as S-no-w Balls. It's soooooo bad, I know.)

*

And since I can't top, or make up, for that one, I think I'll close here.



*Until I take him to the vet for a certain lil' operation, of course.

Untitled (yes, still and possibly forever untitled)

Word Count: 28269 words

Page no. of the typed manuscript: 79
Page no. of the handwritten one: 55

*

And that's after I compressed a scene, or at least, thought I had. But it is the bottom of pg. 55. Too bad it's also the bottom of pg. 79.

It's going to be far, far longer than I wanted, unless I manage to cut out great swaths of words later on (and besides that one sex scene). I'll just have to try to worry about that later, if I worry about it at all. It also has a stately (boring is a subjective pov, I type, with a finger wag) and rambling pace.

I'm about to start on the part I've mentioned before, though it was months ago. The play, the one that I want to be a rococco fairy tale, is about to begin. Then I have to do figure out some other stuff that I shall keep to myself, as I've discovered that writing about writing processes bores me.

*

Other than that?

I think I have lost the knack of blogging.

Either that, or run out of appropriate and allowed subject matter entirely. It would be so much easier if I could just make things up, and write from the point of view of a fictional character, instead of merely behind the mask of a pen name. It would.

As you wouldn't know, since I've not mentioned it before, I have a sister who is mtf. Yes, this would be the sibling I have probably referred to in the past as my brother. Anyway, tomorrow she is having what I call the Operation, in Trinidad, CO, which is, I understand, the sex change capital of the world, and will be called as such in an upcoming TV show.

(And notice how I'll, oh so conveniently, skip over the year and a half of drama, which included my mother blaming me because I used to dress her up as a girl when she was my brother. Yeah right, old woman. If I had that kind of power, the genderbending would be an epidemic across this land.)

I'm not sure what time it will be, only that she's going in at 9 a.m.

I just talked to her on the phone and told her that the cats all wish her good luck, even though they don't know what they're wishing good luck for.

*

If you want to, feel free to send good (and psychic) wishes of your own.

I haven't written much about the novel I must call Untitled (or anything at all, and it's all stuff that has passed its expiration date for posting, so, so) of late. But I have been working on it, slowly but hopefully surely. It's sooo much easier to keep your daily quota when that quota is only 100 words. And some days I write little more than that. It turns out that Chapter Two might have been, as I thought, the weakest chapter, but Chapter Three has problems too.

I did come up with a working title -- and had to instantly reject it, as I knew it absolutely, totally would not do, for several reasons. Ohsnap!

I did come up with a title for the ubergothic play with crossdressing maid that the characters won't be going to see in this chapter, but is mentioned in passing. But I can't title the novel itself.

I also have the bad feeling that I'm going to take out a sex scene, and of my free will, but that's a few hundred pages away. (Every time I take out a sex scene, I know my fifteen year old self would be appalled.)

--

This is the chapter where the Optional Love Interest, who I refer to as the ultimate pretty boy, will first appear, so I'm using the icon I'm going to use whenever he has a major, or well, minor part. He doesn't actually sparkle (and I'm still sure my legions of imaginary readers will say he's not good enough for the narrator) but he could probably fake it with some glitter if he had to.





*But then, imaginary sex is always, always better than real sex.

*And there's no one to not speak to again in the morning.

If I ever decide, on a whim, or under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs someone put in my brownies, to do a story based off copyrighted material for a ficathon again, I hope I run into this post. Because then, I'll remember why I shouldn't. I'll remember how, right now, I'm sitting here, with an almost empty and open file, unable to write a story for a ficathon that is due in about five days. Able to come up with plenty of ideas, but none of them fit for the story for the ficathon.

It turns out that even when a ficathon gives you over four months to write a story, a story that can be about any female character, in any text, basically ever, (so long as there is no romance involved!, which automatically makes me want to write smut, which I did know), with a prompt quote that is *optional*-- Even then, I haven't hacked it.

Oh, and I've already wasted three days now trying, and failing, to write something, that could and ought to have been spent on better, more real, writing.

I could have, but I didn't.

Every time I think, or try to think, of that writing, either the untitled and progressing novel, or a story I started recently, there's the story I agreed to write for a ficathon, and my attention span fractures into flying glass shards. Then I come up with an opening sentence -- for an original story, with new, shining, original characters. Okay.

I have decided that I am never doing a ficathon on livejournal, or anywhere else, again. Never, never again.

---

Yes, I almost never post, and then this is all I have to offer.

I'm certain I'll make it up in the next one.

(2005)


Cinnamon
April 2, 1994 -- September 2, 2008

Yesterday, I took my cat Cinnamon (who I've written about here a few times) back to the vet, after I noticed she had a broken tooth, and that several other teeth weren't looking so good. It turns out it's cancer, the boney cancer, that can't be fixed. Her immune system held it off as long as it could, but the cancer has overwhelmed it, and is spreading quickly. She has perhaps a month, give or take, to live.

I did find out, a month or so ago, that she had a mass in her mouth, which the vet thought was a benign tumor. It was the cause of everything -- the abscessed tooth, and then the terrible, terrible sinus infection.

It was also just the external manifestation of the cancer.

Sadly, I wasn't surprised, as I have realized for a (short) while now that Cinnamon isn't going to get better. The night before that, after I noticed the teeth, was terrible. The vet only told me what, deep down, I already knew.

*

Right now, Cinnamon is resting on a clothes bin next to this desk. I've got a humidifier going, since it seems to help her breathing a bit. I've got soft canned food, and she ate a can today like a good girl. I pet her, (even though she's so scrawny, her coat is still in excellent condition) and I try not to be a neurotic wreck, because we only have a month or so left, and there isn't time for that.

*

Also, that night, the terrible night, when I suspected the worst but didn't know it yet, I wound up watching Rosencratz and Guildenstern are Dead, mostly because it was the movie I had on hand from Netflix at the time. It might have been a good idea to watch something with... a little less death in it.

*

So, yes, I don't expect to be around and posting and what not much for a while.

(Though I'm sure one could reasonably wonder how they could tell, considering how often I lurk on mine own journal.)

That does mean that, though I try not to be neurotic, I mostly fail. And that I'm not doing well, or feeling well. In fact, I feel as though if I lifted my shirt, there would be a gauged wound in my chest spurting blood. I know that sounds stupid, but I'm not really feeling very poetical right now. Better luck next time.

Well, I managed to write that first paragraph of Chapter Three of the novel that is still known only as "Untitled." I also managed to then write a second paragraph. The file is currently open on this computer, and I might just finish the first page, that's right, first page today. What can I say. The handwritten version really sucked at this point. So it looks as though I've gotten back to work on it; it just took over six months.

Usually, I try to avoid counting words, since I tend to go obsessive about that (yes, I can check the word count at least several times a minute), but-- This is a revision, sortof, kindof, so fuck it. It's now 23420 words.

It would be nice to finish typing it by my birthday, but since that's in twenty-three days, that is not going to happen. I just have to do it. I just have to convince myself to not care about how unpublishable, unreadable, and unworthy of my time and failed career it is long enough to finish it. Just to finish it. Oh, and a title would be nice too.

*

I just typed up another sentence!

It's probably a terrible sentence, but let's pretend it's not.

Another wordle.




This one is for a long story (or novella, or novellette, depending) I wrote in 2001, and typed up... last year.

It should appeal to people who think life after the end of the world and the music of Edward Elgar go well together -- which means it doesn't have much appeal at all.

And: I had no idea I use the word "didn't" that much.

--

And a video to go with it:

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing Nimrod from "The Enigma Variations" by Edward Elgar.

In wordle form.





*When I did a wordle of only the first chapter, the largest, and most used word, was "didn't," which surprised me. I'd no idea I used it that much.

*Maybe this will enable me to at least write one paragraph of Chapter Three?

*(crickets)

Or: I have just learnt a new meaning of pain.

Via Cinnamon's claws.

Ow.

(Actually, she just hopped up onto my lap a few minutes ago, and used her foreclaws for traction. I wasn't even hurt, but it did take me by surprise.)

As you may or may not have known, the Montana primary was several days ago. It was the last primary, along with South Dakota, so you can imagine that it doesn't happen very often. But this year, Montana was slightly less unimportant than it normally is, since Hilary Clinton (I suppose if everyone just called her Clinton, they would get her confused with Bill, but that's the excuse) and Obama were going after Montana's eight delegates.

At least a few of whom are of the super variety.

So I voted, and I embarrassed myself when it turned out that I don't know if I live on the east or west side of the highway, as that was how they were having everyone sign in. I'm terrible at directions, and this time, it just had to matter. Then once I knew (for future reference, and for November, I live on the east side) they couldn't find my name straight away. Well.

*

Also, I spent the day of the primary re-reading, possibly by coincidence, Lydia Millet's novel George Bush, Dark Prince of Love. Yeah, I think the title sets it up. It's a satire, and a very broad one, that only the most liberal of liberals could or would write, about an overweight ex-con of extremely dubious morality who becomes obsessed with Daddy Bush. Needless to say, Rosemary, the narrator, is-- Shall we say, unreliable, while claiming to be perfectly honest. She also has a very distinct narrative style, which is slightly formal and totally deluded.

Aside from the titular obsession, I had forgotten how much she gets banged around. She is robbed twice, raped once (and indicates that she is, and I quote, a "seasoned veteran" of sexual assault), and is beaten up once and forced to eat a pack of cigarettes. She then, inspired by Bush, tries to get back at the people responsible for that beating -- and fails miserably. That's not even including all the minor, everyday humiliations, and the several arrests.

It's all just so fucked up that, when she later gets it on with the man who, pages earlier, raped her, you just shrug. It's not like you can expect any healthy behavior from anyone here. (It's telling that she says that once you've had a mercenary -- of your own free will, that is! -- you'll be spoiled for other men.)

Then there's the cover. It's a picture of Bush set against a pink heart, striding forward with a big bouquet of flowers. I remember when I bought it, the clerk couldn't help but take a second look, and mentioned that she had never thought of him that way. I think I can say that few have.

Yesterday, Cinnamon went back to the vet. This time, it was to have a swab taken of the pus in her cheek, which has been sent to a lab, where they're going to use it to find out just exactly what kind of bacteria is causing the infection. Which would help the vet decide on a more specific course of treatment, especially the right and proper antibiotic to use. I should find out about that next week. Oh, and the new meds might have to come in pill form.

I'll learn to live with that.

It will just hurt. A lot.

But I do know, for certain now, that it is only an infection, and not a cancer in the bone (which the vet told me a few months ago that, considering Cinnamon's age, might be a possibility, if an unlikely one), since those act and kill quickly. I haven't mentioned it before because I never thought it was the case, but it is nice to know.

*

It's sun-flushed and warm outside.

There is still snow in dirty, melting heaps, but then, this is Montana.

Cinnamon wanted to go outside, but when I opened the door, Boo Boo, her mortal enemy, the cat she used to terrorize, and who is kicking her now that she's down, was right there, and Cinnamon slunk back into the house.

*

Then, I tried to get an extension for a story I'm doing for a ficathon this month. It just isn't becoming anything more than an idea right now, but the story that is due two days later is. So this way, I could work on it, and figure out the other story later, when it's done, without having to work on both stories at once. But I haven't actually gotten the extension yet. It's petty, and it doesn't matter, but that's why I hate having to wait for it.

It looks like I should just work on the first story, the story that is still due first. Maybe if I play around with it stylistically that will help. Or I can work on the other story anyway, and feel guilty. Or try to multi-task, when I know I can't do that, and watch my brain smash. It's so hard to decide.

While I'm waiting for the vet to call me back, I might as well write an entry. And yes, this does mean that Cinnamon still has a sinus infection. Still has the infection, and still is not better. Her eye is still swollen (my parents thought it looked better a week or so ago, but I'm afraid I never saw it myself). There has been pus, which I have to draw out through constant warm compresses. I have been wounded. There has been -- More snot.

Ohmygod, tiger snot.

Better run for it.

I should have called the vet a while ago, since things are well, sooo not improving, but I didn't want to. I'm tired of calling her, and hearing my voice go on about the same things I always call about. Sometimes, I wish someone else would handle all this, if only for a few minutes, but that is not going to happen. I would actually like to have the vet see Cinnamon in person, but I'll have to see. She might not think it's necessary.

--

Oh, and I noticed during Cinnamon's last, and third visit to the vet, about a month ago, that while I wouldn't go so far as to say she's gotten used to riding in the car, it was several miles before the first throaty howl.

--

She has also been washing her face a great deal, because of stuff going into her eye (and note that I didn't describe it even though I could) and her runny nose. My brother thinks this might be making her eye, or something else, worse. It might. And the only way we can think of to stop that if it is a problem is the infamous, and dreaded, Elizabethan collar. Now, I don't think the vet will actually think this is necessary, but. They just look so funny (and pissed off) in them. It's mean, but then, I've been caring for a cat with an infection and razer blade claws for six months. I might have gone a bit loopy.

I just found a picture on wikipedia of a cat who looks somewhat like Cinnamon, wearing an Elizabethan collar. I'm thinking it's a warning.

--

This month, the picture on my calender (I usually have a calender with pictures of big cats, put out by the World Wildlife Fund) is a Bengal tiger, striding majestically across a field. Yes, I said majestically. Perhaps he can serve as an inspiration to Cinnamon. She does need that right now.

Emily, after Degas.