The Next Two Weeks

This is my life for the next two weeks. With breaks for the new Star Wars film and hosting a visit with my wee and boy sisters on New Year’s Eve, the bulk of my remaining fortnight’s vacation will be spent writing. Yup, a typewriter and a coffee cup (actually a computer and a tea tumbler) are my constant companions as I devote myself to reconnecting with the Muse.

My primary project is the story of Caius and Aurelia. I won’t get it finished—there’s too much to tell—but now that I feel more like myself again, I’m eager to resume the writing of it. While I was doing the dishes the other night, the opening lines of Aurelia’s POV drifted in on the winter wind, soon followed by a third character stepping up to tell his version of the tale. I was so excited I forgot about the dishes and stood with my hands in the hot water, watching the pictures in my mind’s eye. With that much meat on the bone, I’ll be feasting well into 2017!

Reconnecting means more than with the Muse, however. I lost some serious touch with my daily practice after accidentally igniting an auto-immune reaction to a homeopathic flu preparation in November. A natural alternative to an annual flu shot, which I have never had, I decided to get back with the program after some years of going without—and I wish I had gone without it this year, too. Within 48 hours of the first dose, joints were flaring all over the place; and while there is no definitive proof that the medicine was the culprit, the timing is too suspicious to discount it. Over the five week course, my arthritis progressively worsened, started to recover, then worsened again. Three health practitioners had three different theories. None of the treatments made it better. One or two made it worse. I decided to finish the flu program rather than quit halfway through—it may or may not have been a good idea, but four weeks after my final dose and my body appears to be recalibrating. Oh, my joints still hurt like tiny star flares, but the frequency, location and intensity are diminishing and, as I say, I am beginning to look outward with more interest in things than I was through the past couple of months.

During those interminable weeks, it was all I could do to get out of bed, get to work and hang on until fatigue sent me to a premature bedtime. Christmas only happened with the help of tea fairy Treena and my angels—thanks to them, I was able to pull off the coup of Christmas prezzies for my beloved Ter, who was my stalwart rock the whole time—but anything else requiring energy or focus fell by the wayside. Weekly yoga sessions, daily meditations, attention to detail at the office (I’m sure my mistakes will show up later in January), and writing anything other than my name were sacrificed in the name of survival.

Though I did finish my annual reading of The Night Circus. And the Christmas cards got done. Priorities, you know.

So, my fiendish plan for the rest of my vacation also includes reconnecting with Ru. Gradually, gently, I mean to reinstate my twice weekly yoga sessions and practice more frequent meditations. Ter has wryly warned against “over meditating”—she has as many gurus as I have doctors, and in helping to make her point with me, she realized that she has a similar proclivity to spiritual maintenance as I have to physical. And it’s true: too much of a good thing can be as harmful as too much of a bad one. The pendulum on maintenance (physical for me, spiritual for her) swung a bit too far and messed us up in 2016. Between us, we intend on simplifying our practices as we move into the new year, aiming for balance in all things.

With love,

Idle Thoughts

One week off is not enough.

Hands up, everyone who’s surprised.

I doubted this would be news.

Truly, I am grateful to have had the time to be Ru. Though I didn’t get everything done that I wanted, everything I did I wanted to do.

I went back to Castasia. I finished the story about Lucius’s twin sister—I started it months ago, so it was good to wrap it up at last—and began another one about his youth, this one from his foster father’s POV and why he (Lucius) went into exile. Geez, this character is a goldmine; I could write Lucius stories forever and never run out of episodes. His influence is so powerful that he even owns the ones that aren’t about him!

I also embarked on a refresh of Orphan Black so I’m primed for season four (expected for my birthday)—no time for a marathon, but I got in a few episodes of season three. I remain an ardent fan of the series. It gets better and better.

And I finally watched the documentary about the late Amy Winehouse that won an Oscar last spring. I could have been a fan if she had been allowed to follow her bliss rather than her path—I had not known she started as a jazz singer before her career went supernova and she went the tragic way of many a broken child whose solace became her undoing. Her story, unfortunately, was the same as too many others—Billie Holliday, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain to name a few—but in a way it was worse for her because of the relentless media exposure. She wasn’t free to conquer her demons in private. She was forced to do it publicly, because that’s what the public demanded though her battle was deeply personal. As in “none of our business”, yet it became big business for the media. And how quickly the applause turned to derision! Get famous enough in this world and you’re doomed no matter how talented you are.

Her version of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” is sublime.

Enjoy.

The Singing Sword

Three novels ago, I wrote a scene wherein Lucius is test driving a new sword. I’m no expert, but you needn’t be one to know that a soldier will have specific preferences when it comes to weaponry, and that he’ll likely own more than one example of his favourite make/model. Being an outlaw, however, my hero left most of his gear behind when he escaped Imperial justice in Treason. One broadsword returned with him to Castasia, and though this part is not recorded anywhere in the story, he immediately proceeded to drive the local craftsmen crazy with his quest to replicate its equal. By the time the aforementioned scene was written, he had resorted to the black market to obtain the rare crucible steel, and recruited a foreign smith familiar with the material to forge him a new sword. His requirements were, in his mind, simple, but even as I wrote the scene, I questioned whether such an elite weapon was believable given the technology of his time.

A decade later, I have the answer: a resounding YES!

Lucius’s sword of choice is my fantasy equivalent of the Ulfberht—a high-end broadsword that was forged in northern Europe between the ninth and eleventh centuries. The Vikings didn’t make them, but more than a few Scandinavian warriors managed to get their hands on one during the lifetime of the Volga trade route. It was the Rolls Royce of weapons, and also appears to be a fine example of medieval branding: if it wasn’t marked “Ulfberht”, it wasn’t the real deal. Production spanned two centuries, so it a single smith wasn’t responsible for the line; it seems that a Frankish monastery owned the copyright. There were even knockoffs, easily identified nowadays by a misspelled name and a blade of inferior steel, though they must have sold for as much as the genuine article. The high carbon content made the blade both strong and flexible, and a groove known as the fuller enabled the larger weapon to retain the lighter weight of a smaller sword. It’s the perfect sword for Lucius, and now I know I wasn’t dreaming when I wrote it.

Phew. I write fantasy because I want to rule my world, but some details demand a basis in this reality, else the reader—and I have done it myself—will hitch up and go, Huh? It’s especially gratifying to know that something as vital as the brand of sword my hero wields in battle actually did exist … though I do wonder how I “knew” about it beforehand!

FF Spinoffs

Rather than quit, I have set aside the novel for the nonce. I actually did return to the story of Margaret and King Charles for a time, managing to write a couple of new scenes and get a better idea of the plot before I was called back to Castasia, but not for Reijo’s romance.

This one is about Rikka.

The beauty of a series is one’s ability to write back and forth in time. Treason was the starting point for Fixed Fire, the legend of Lucius Aurelius told in a series of nine volumes. Side projects have sprung from main storyline, usually about the history of Castasia and the characters other than Lucius who figure in the present tale. Over the years I’ve written a few short stories and novellas about some who were either directly or indirectly affected by him in his youth.

Rikka is his twin sister, who probably suffered more from his absence than anyone else did. She’s alluded to it throughout the series, and one day I got curious enough to consider what her life must have been like after he left home.

In a word, yikes.

On the plus side, I am more interested in writing her story than I am in blogging or F***book, so what spare time I have these days is taken up with actual writing instead of writing about writing. It’s a relief to be obsessed again, and my revelation from a few weeks ago still holds true. This may be his sister’s story, but—you guessed it—it’s about Lucius.

The Return of the Leppard King

I thought I’d fallen out of love with them. Last December, I heard that the former producer of the Q Morning Show had died in a car crash on snowy roads and I was looking up further info on the station’s website. I was so intent my mission that notice of the Leps’ concert date on the coming events list gleaned naught but a huh? Then my wee sister IM’d me: “Def Leppard is coming to town. Are you guys going?”

“I dunno,” I wrote back, feeling uncomfortably lukewarm about what had once sent my temperature to thermonuclear heights. Joe and the boys had fallen off my radar. The world he had inspired was in a holding pattern while my passion for vampires raged anew. Neither Ter nor I listened to their albums anymore; we didn’t follow them on F***book and hadn’t visited their website in years. In fact, we were living in fear of the band turning up to play the River Rock Casino or, worse, on PBS as part of the “Rock of 80s” nostalgia pledge drive package that you just know is coming down the road.

My email pinged. The Q Crew newsletter arrived in my inbox, letting me know that the Leps were coming and tix were going on sale that Friday. I flipped it to Ter with a feeble: “What do you think?”

My phone immediately rang. “Of course!” she practically yelled when I picked up. I hadn’t heard her so pumped about anything in a long while.

“Really? I didn’t think you’d want to go.”

“Why not?” she demanded. “He’s coming to me!” Which, roughly translated, means that she’s done with traveling to see the Leppard King, but if Victoria is on their itinerary, us going is a no-brainer.

Of the Joes we know, Elliott is to Ter what Perry is to me—that mysterious memory of a previous life where he played a role so important that the effect has lingered through dimensions. Crazy, yes. Improbable, maybe. Possible, definitely. Why not? No matter what you believe, something about his current incarnation sparked the birth of our mutual hero, Lucius Aurelius, and the world of Fixed Fire. For that, I am eternally grateful to him, to Ter, and to the band who played the soundtrack for Treason.

So, yeah, she’s right. Of course we must go to the gig. Of course we must pay homage. Of course he’s come for a particular reason at a particular time, and isn’t it funny that I’ve gone back to Castasia once more? His Royal Leppardness has no idea, but it truly is a homecoming for him.

Four of us are going—Ter, my wee sister, my boy sister, and me. The kids are fans for a different reason; they just like to rock, and if you wanna get rocked, then the Leps are DEFinitely the band for the job.

More to come …

Working Holiday

Spring in the pagan days was the beginning of a new year. Same applies to the workplace fiscal year, which starts on April Fool’s Day and don’t let the irony of that escape you. Perhaps because April begins the first annual quarter at work, it heralds a beginning for me. By the end of March, my creativity has been suppressed for almost three months and I’m dyin’. Fortunately (is it?), I have accumulated enough years of service to enable a full five day week of vacation without making a big dent in my annual allocation.

I’m taking such a break next week. I like to have a project in mind before I book vacation, usually something I can finish, like a short story that’s been in progress for months or something new, like The King’s Man, which was written on the fly over four days straight. This time out, I’m admitting defeat before I begin. I will not get this holiday’s project done before I have to go back to work … but I intend on getting my teeth into it nonetheless.

It’s the novel, also known as Reijo’s romance. Having committed to finishing the first draft before tackling something newer and shinier, I’ve been tapping away at it of late and have discovered some wondrous things about my mysterious heroine. I knew very little of her when I started. Four years later, she was still baffling. It’s true what they say – creativity feeds on itself. Only by focusing intently on Jannika’s part of the story have I discovered who she truly is. A general idea has evolved into a complex but very real young woman who is struggling to understand …

No spoilers allowed, especially as the series preceding this volume remains unpublished. Learning what I’ve learned about Nika, however, has given my writing holiday a greater purpose than simply not going to work. Now I have something to accomplish and I’m excited about it. Yup, rewriting a bunch of already written stuff has never looked so inviting. So, first thing on Monday morning, I’ll be camped at the Moka House with an Asian Mist and my scribbly journal, making helter-skelter notes to help with my mission of tightening up weaker scenes and revisiting the ones that work to ensure continuity. Once I’ve cleaned up the preliminaries, I should be able to write nonstop to a happy ending.

Me, write a happy ending? Hey, everything is possible.

Thunder-struck

I’ve not been writing much of late. It’s typical at this time of year, when fiscal-year-end eclipses life outside the office. I’ve been reading instead, seeking inspiration to keep from freaking out that I’ve lost my gift. Honestly, it happens every spring, and every spring I must remind myself that this ain’t my first rodeo. After Easter, I’ll have time that I presently don’t have to create. In the meantime, read, read, read. I’m almost finished with Lestat and have borrowed Station Eleven from a friend after reading kudos for it from GRRM and Erin Morgenstern.

I’ve also scored a copy of She’s Got Soul—a compilation CD from the Starbucks collection that features Nina Simone, Amy Winehouse, Etta James, and a host of other soul sistahs. It’s squaring off against Diana Krall’s Wallflower for air time on my stereo. I’ve played around with opening scenes and story ideas on Tuesday nights, but have been totally disinclined to boot the writing rig on my days off. I did discover that I can stream whole episodes of X Company from cbc.ca, however, and I’ve baked a lot of muffins in that downtime. Ter and I were also supposed to travel to Vancouver for the Flyers/Canucks game on the 17^th, but the energy required to get there, plus the inconvenience of losing two workdays at this critical juncture, convinced us to stay home and watch the game on TV.

It’s the worst time to wrestle with my muse. I am easily frustrated by alluring fragments for new works and reminders of those that have stalled. I realize that I haven’t finished anything since January, when the speed picked up at work, and have recently (irrationally) wondered if I will ever finish anything that isn’t about vampires. This prompted me to consider, for the nth time, unraveling the novel to the first eight chapters and writing it in another direction though the only thing wrong with what I’ve written so far is me.

Ter and I saw Celtic Thunder perform on March 11. The lads came to Victoria on their “Best Of” tour, and with Damian McGinty returned to the fold, I was taken back in time to the early days of my Fixed Fire series. The first few volumes were driven by Def Leppard and Sarah McLachlan, but a good chunk of the next generation was fuelled by the Celtic boys and “Celtic Woman” before them. Hearing the songs that sparked so vibrantly in my imagining a handful of years ago was a welcome jolt to the system last week. At this point, I’m either winding down at work or completely desperate to escape it, because seeing the show brought back all the passion I felt for my Castasian characters and their wild green mountainous magical world. This past weekend, I dragged out the novel again, reconnected with the story, and have committed to finishing the f***er or die trying.

This is volume 7. I’ve got material for one more after this, and part of my motivation to finish Reijo’s story is so I can get to Aurelia’s. Make no mistake; I adore Reijo. He’s my white knight in dented armour and he deserves a happy ending. I’m just not very good at happy endings, so doing right by him has been a struggle. I need him now, though, to prove to myself that vampires are not my sole strength, to get me through year-end and give me a project for a much-needed writing holiday planned for some time in April.

“Love Scene”

The last thing Rikka did while preparing for bed was let down her hair. It neither tumbled nor cascaded, but dropped like weighted silk to unfurl at her waist. She had just removed the last pin when she heard crockery rattle behind her.

Osmo stood in the doorway with a tray in his hands. “I’ve brought tea, my dear.”

Rikka smiled so rarely that folk remembered specific occasions. Her twin brother could count on one hand how often she had done more than scowl at him. Her six children fared little better, but for Osmo, she smiled.

He set the tray on the table by the fire and raised his bushy brows at her.

“May I?”

She sat and presented her back to him. After a moment, she felt his hands in her hair, combing it through his fingers until it cloaked her shoulders in dark honey splendour. Then he wove a plait from it, and secured it with a ribbon pulled from the pocket of his robe. By the time he was finished, she had relaxed so much that she was almost leaning against him.

His hands rested on her shoulders. “Tea?”

“I’ll pour.”

“Nonsense.” He held her in place, gently. “You’re already seated.”

She stood up to look down at him. “Osmo, sit. I shall pour.”

Osmo never relented. He obliged, this time by claiming his customary chair. The ghost of his autumn cold rattled vaguely in his chest, and Rikka wondered how long it would be until his winter cold manifested. She was a fool to be afraid—no one ever died of a simple cold—but Osmo was prone to them and fear had been Rikka’s most constant friend throughout her life.

“Honey?”

“I think not.”

Reassured, she passed him a cup of their mutual favourite and poured one for herself. “How was your day?”

“The usual,” he replied, as usual. They did not speak of his work except when it took him from home, and that wouldn’t happen for a while now. Their middle son would accompany him on his next venture; Rikka had protested at first, convinced that their eldest was better suited to apprentice in his father’s field … and she had laughed when Osmo frankly observed that their eldest was likelier to get himself killed in that field.

Occasions when Rikka laughed were even less frequent than her smiles, yet Osmo could name more of them than everyone else combined.

She recounted, when he asked, the individual progress of their collective brood, during which Osmo nodded and sipped his tea, and bade her pause while he refilled their cups. Then he allayed each concern with a mild, “She’s young,” or “He’ll outgrow it,” or “I was much the same at that age.” Most amusing was a hapless, “Ye gods, he’s like your brother,” that should have vexed her, but instead ignited a reluctant pride.

“And you, my love?” he inquired at last. “How is it with my lioness?”

He never failed to reach the wounded part of her; the fragile, vulnerable heart of her. His tenderness mystified her, but it had also won the most elusive facet of what most folk considered a brittle and domineering character.

She trusted him.

“You know how it is with me,” she said.

“So I do. Tell me something I don’t know.”

It was a game they played. Osmo had learned to see what was on her mind, and to coax it from her when no one else cared to try. She was consulted daily on practical matters but very little else; even the children were more likely to confide in their father than in her, and while it stung, she did not blame them for it. They were only following her example.

He waited patiently for her answer. When it came, she directed it to the fireplace for fear of his face; his odd, owlish face with its bulbous eyes and beaky nose. It was a comfortable face, familiar in a way that defied her long ago wish for the envy of other girls. She had never lied to Osmo, but she had not always told him the truth. Tonight, the time had come, and she could not bear to watch while the weight of it struck. So she spoke to the flames instead.

“I was thinking this morning how you were not the man I would have wed …” the next words emerged in a frantic rush, “… but I am ever so glad that I did.”

Osmo was silent for so long that she finally risked a furtive glance and sat up straight at what she saw.

He was smiling. Round eyes and hooked nose aside, Osmo had a lovely smile. Rikka warmed in spite of herself; had he wished to retaliate and crush her, he would have met no resistance. But he smiled and shook his head, his wispy hair floating like feathers above his ears, and gave a little sigh that incited her to shame.

“Our marriage was arranged. Of course I was not the man you wanted.”

She was about to protest that she had not wanted any man, but that would have been a lie. She would have asked if he had wanted another woman, but that would have been an insult. She was the woman, if not the wife, Osmo had always wanted. Knowing so had made her own guilt more burdensome over the years.

“Can you forgive me?”

“Can you forgive yourself?”

“I hoped you would say there is nothing to forgive.”

“There isn’t, in my eyes. Why is there in yours? Have you been unfaithful to me?”

“Osmo!”

He chuckled and caught her hand to calm her. After a token hesitation, she let him. His humour was as odd as his face; she often missed the jest completely and she disliked being teased. He knew better, and she let him see it in the stern set of her jaw.

“Forgive me,” he requested mildly.

She melted like a honey loll in the rain. “How can I not?”

“Well then,” he said, setting aside his empty cup while keeping hold of her hand, “shall we to bed?”

She rose with him, standing almost a head taller with a good view of his shiny pink pate. They were a strange match, but an amiable one. He had loved her from the start, and she …

The past made no matter.

She loved him now.

Love Scene (Preface)

Tomorrow’s writing exercise is my take on the phrase “love scene”. Love comes in so many varieties that if it was entered in a flower show, it would have a category all its own.

The most torrid examples come to mind: budding romance, blooming passion, deflowering the virgin. They take place in burnished candlelight or sultry shadow, in a grand sleigh bed or on a carpet of moss in the forest. I can’t get into love on the beach, though. Too practical. Sand in delicate places? Please.

That said, must a love scene feature lovers? The expectation is certainly there, aided and abetted by my tendency to write about, er, romance in as airbrushed-yet-intense detail as I can conjure. There’s magic in the moment when he finally kisses her, the music soars and the next time we see them, the sheets are trashed and the clothes are strewn across the floor. Now, that’s a love scene.

Imagine my surprise when, in considering my approach to the theme, a familiar character stepped up to have her say. I have worked with her for years, though never in a POV capacity. She may be the least romantic character in my vast collection of characters, but I have a special fondness for her, as I do for all the difficult ones, and so I have given her the moment.

Enjoy.

The Other Golden Savage

Sav (with Joe) on stage in Victoria 2007

Today is Rick Savage’s 53^rd birthday. He’s the bass player for Def Leppard, and while many people might think that the band is Joe Elliott’s, they’re wrong. Originally, it belonged to Sav. Turned out that Atomic Mass was looking for a singer, Joe was looking for a band – he brought the name as well as the voice – and the Leps were (re)born. Sav is the lone original Leppard. 

He was deadly cute when he was younger, and there’s a lingering sweetness to him as he’s aged. I don’t know a lot about him except that he loves to restore old houses, he does a fair bit of charity work for the local children’s hospital, and back in 2002, his look inspired me to write a Castasian character called Jarkko’s Antero. Tero is Analise’s brother, Lucius’s foster brother, a devoted family man, a good neighbour, a better friend … and a dangerous enemy. Turns out the prettiest ones have the darkest secrets and over the years I have learned a great deal about Irfeu’s devil-with-the-angel’s-face. He’s lovable, all right, and he just might be scarier than the Golden Savage himself. 

I’m confident that Sav does not share Tero’s duplicitous nature … but you can never know for sure, can you?

"Silver From Gold (Preface)"

The story starting on Saturday isn’t a Christmas story. It isn’t even a winter story since it takes place at the turn of spring, but the protagonist has survived the hardest winter of her life and is about to face her greatest challenge yet. I consider it a story for the holiday season because I was inspired to write it based on two Christmas songs that struck me particularly hard.

For years, every year, a Christmas song called Breathof Heaven, recorded by Amy Grant in 1992, brought to mind the dilemma of the girl who my Castasian hero, the indomitable Lucius Aurelius, left behind. The lyric is a plea from the Virgin Mary to the heavens, but it easily fit the situation that young Analise faced when her beloved went into exile. It was a story I wanted to write, but somehow never did … until December 2008.

That year, Ter and I were testing twinkle lights prior to putting up the tree. Enya’s then-new Christmas album, And Winter Came …, was playing for the first time. She sings the most haunting version of OCome O Come Emmanuel that I have ever heard, and when that track began, a voice whispered to me that Reijo was born at night. Reijo is one of my favourite characters, my princely white knight in dented armour, the eldest son of Luko and Analise, but who he is and how he got there really isn’t relevant at this point.

“Silver From Gold” is his mother's story about the night when he was born.

Enjoy.

Writer's Conundrum

A Scribe’s Skirmish

writer’s conflict

the impossibility

of writing with

magnificence

contrasted with

the impossibility

 

of

 

abandoning

the challenge

writer’s conundrum

            © Nicole D. Myers 2013

What do you do when neither version is working? You dump the whole project. Except that there is something in a writer’s makeup that refuses to quit.

My personal poet laureate, the exceptional Nicole D. Myers, wrote this poem a few weeks—yes, weeks—ago, and has kindly given her consent for me to share it here. I asked because dang if she didn’t nail the universal quandary square on the coconut. I loved the poem from the get-go (it’s posted on my office bulletin board) and came face to face with an example of “the conundrum” last weekend.

The angel story isn’t working. Shifting perspective temporarily fooled me into believing otherwise, but as Ter observed following my latest grouchy rant, I have emerged from my room unhappy and dissatisfied each time I’ve tangled with it. She recommended that I bag it for the nonce, adding that I can always go back to it when the time is right. The story is good. It’s just not meant to happen right now. So I skulked back to my room, opened chapter 18 of my stalled Castasian novel, and actually finished it (the chapter, not the novel). At least I worked on something, even if it evolved from admitting defeat on another count.

Only admitting defeat does not come easily to this writer. While I was distracted with the tale of Reijo and Jannika that afternoon, the other part of my brain was pondering the problem with Cristal and Shade. It is a good story. Why the %^$#*&^ isn’t it effing working????

The answer came, as usual, at bedtime.

It’s not one story. It’s actually two. Two different freaking stories about angels. This explains why Cristal and Shade in her version are completely different from Cristal and Shade in his version. I mean it. The characters in one POV (point of view) are polar opposites of the characters in the other, hence my garment-rending angst over getting anywhere. Clearly I have four characters using two names. I’ll fix that forthwith, but the relief I felt at discovering the potential for a whole new pair of stories set in this angelic realm was akin to the relief of discovering that the headache you’ve endured for weeks is finally gone.

The impossibility of writing either with magnificence remains. Okay, so does the challenge of crafting two separate stories when I’d anticipated a single piece. If there’s any good news here, it’s that I have a whole new world in which to play ... assuming I can relax enough to accept what comes when it comes and quit forcing it when it won’t.

Writer’s conundrum indeed.

Live From the Ocean Room ...

… it’s Friday morning! And a gorgeous one it is, too, given that I spent most of Wednesday night and yesterday laid flat with the worst migraine I’ve endured since May the 8^th. There is nothing like 24 hours of pounding, nauseous darkness to make you grateful for a new day. Ironically, the headache struck just as “Glutenous Maximus” went up and the day after I’d been happily telling the gang at work how they’ve pretty well ceased since I went gluten-free. Less is truly more, however; rare as they’ve become, the severity has been shocking in its intensity. Ter had to type my email to the office yesterday because I couldn’t even sit up without wanting to barf – I lay curled on the sofa with my eyes closed while she wrote on my behalf. She’s the best friend in the world.

But enough of that. The headache is pretty much gone, I’m on a legitimate day off and I have plans to write. I intended to tackle the angels once more because I’ve been struggling with them; the story is coming so slowly that I have fallen into the trap of second-guessing every scene and have therefore rewritten the most recent one at least three times. I don’t know what the problem is. Could be that it’s a new world and I have no idea what I’m doing with it, but I suspect it’s more (or less) than that. I’ve simply been unable to immerse myself in the story. Starting something new takes real commitment and I’ve just not been there. I watched a cool documentary about Agatha Christie a few weeks back. She`s a great source for writerly quotes and this one stayed with me:

“All a writer needs is chair, a table, a typewriter and some peace.”

Without complaining, the peace part is missing. I live in a world full of distractions that prove particularly tempting when I’m embarking on a brand new project. So, when contemplating what I would attack today, Ter suggested that I let go of the struggle and write whatever the heck I want. I thought I wanted to write the angels, but what I really want is a cup of Persian apple tea and that was my first hint. The hopeless knot in the novel has managed to unravel itself and the story has regained traction, so back to Castasia go I. And today I’m happy to be there.

And here.