The radio inside my head was tuned to Culture Club this morning. I stood in front of Horace de Brassiere humming and wondering if Boy George ever introduced himself as, “George, Boy George,” when ordering a martini.
My brain is a wonderland. An exceedingly weird one.
I’m six chapters away from uploading the end of the werelion book. I have to say, it’s absurdly freeing to know it’s semi-hidden, and not expecting anyone to find it. It’s an homage to VC Andrews and Cat People, and I expected there to be more erotica. But the book takes the shape it wants, not the shape I think I want, and apparently I was more interested in purple prose poetry and some of the underlying plot features of Andrews’s work. It annoys me to a certain degree, I longed to test my smut-writing.
Ah well. I still have the pseudonym, and once the book rests a bit I might do a “director’s edition” with all the stuff I didn’t put into this iteration. That’s the freedom of choosing another name. One pays for it by having to start all over with building an audience, but sometimes that price is acceptable. And I can view this as just one more lesson in letting the work take the contours it, in its infinite wisdom, desires. The story knows what it needs better than I do in some cases, and part of this career is knowing when those times are.
We’re in the last days of the April sale; Damage is no longer on sale but Rose & Thunder still is until the 30th. I should decide what I want next month’s sale to be, or even if I want to run one. I’m tired right now, from the end of a zero draft as well as the revision to get it into serial format, so I probably shouldn’t be making any decisions until the damn thing is done and I have a few minutes to breathe.
And we have an insurance adjustor coming today to view the storm damage. I am unhappy about this, since the insurance company has never done right by us, but I’m waiting to see if this will be the moment that bucks the trend. I know adjustors are just people trying to do their job and the real problem is the institutionalized nastiness of giant corporations, especially those which profit off human misery and fear (what else is insurance, really?) so it’s no trouble to be polite…and at the same time, I am nervous and so stressed the dogs can sense it, and are tetchy as well.
So today will be a great deal of fun, for a certain value of the word. At least there’s the prospect of one giant project finishing today, so as soon as the adjustor is gone upon their merry way and I upload the last chapter I can heave a sigh of relief and wander out of my office like the shell-shocked survivor of some great disaster. I might even be able to go to bed early, or at least collapse on the couch and groan with feeling while the dogs lobby hard to clamber up and use me as a cushion.
It will be a relief to get back to paying projects, especially if the insurance company tries to weasel out of their contractually obligated replacing and repairing. And I’m taking a week off the other serial before it starts Season Two, so at least there’s that. Maybe I’ll even get some real rest in.
It’s doubtful, but the hope keeps one going. I can feel the coffee soaking in and the dogs are eager for their toast-crust, so I should be about my business. I’ll be calmer, not to mention far more gracious, after we finish with walkies and I get my weary corpse prodded through a run. Exercise works wonders, and while I’m running I won’t have to chew over Great Life Problems, being entirely occupied with dragging in enough oxygen to fuel my shamble and untangling plot snarls in whatever story decides to torment me while I’m out of the house.
…I did have more to say, especially about that silly oligarch attempting to buy Twitter just so he can ban people who mock his silly oligarch self and invite an orange shitgibbon back in to stink up the joint, but I’m not in the mood for that. I do think it’s interesting there was a giant purge of bots along with a mass exodus from hellsite as the news began to filter out, and I have some (probably inaccurate, but I don’t think so since I’ve learned never to underestimate the greed of rich white men) thoughts on what that means. But why ruin my day (and yours) further by unpacking that?
Honestly, I’d rather finish my coffee and get started. Those final six chapters aren’t gonna revise themselves, more’s the pity.
See you around, my beloveds.