Seeking peace...

It's hard to find. Just wanting space to let your mind wander into areas of your soul you rarely visit is close to impossible. Not completely...but almost. And that's what I want, right now. What I need.

If I had the money, I'd go to England...to parts I've never visited. Even Scotland and Wales.. I'd wander. I like to wander, sometimes. It gives me an odd sense of stability. I've already been all over Ireland and now feel satiated with her.

It seems that I'm at a crossroads and don't really know where the paths before me lead. Which one I want to follow. I'm heavily invested in MM horror, like with Blood Angel...but there is a gentleness I've found, occasionally, in my writing that I want to explore more.

I know those who claim to understand writing say that conflict is drama and drama is storytelling, but that bores me. I hate made-up conflict. That's one reason I let A Place of Safety follow brendan's path. He leads the reader through his story with as much quiet emotion as there can be. And I know some people just don't get it, that they think more has to be happening, but it's his story not theirs.

I don't have the feeling Léonidès cares if I tell his tale or not. And truth is, I'm weary of the violence and death it involves. 

I'm beginning to think maybe Dair's Window is restructuring itself to remove the fake parts of the narrative I'd started to build and take us on a different journey to reveal the story of Dair and Adam.

Maybe...

Hopefully...

Well, let's have another moment of disruption...

For some reason, even though I've set it up to be as justified as possible, I'm stuck at the point where Léonidès feeds on a young marine who participated in the rape and murder of a Korean girl. And I think Dave Rich had something to do with my change of heart.

He posted this clip on his Facebook and Instagram pages that cut into me. It's not just how lovely he is, but how joyously alive he is in it. And how callous and cold I feel I'm being in writing that scene, even though it's to be expected in a vampire story.

It just strikes me as wrong. As a waste of what I can do. Doesn't hurt that my emotions, right now, are exacerbated by the death and destruction being wrought by Russia, the US and ZAS (formerly Israel).

So I basically recoiled from writing a fictional death. I have, before. When Bobby decided to kill himself in Bobby Carapisi, I fought against that for months before giving in. And it hurt as I wrote it. I felt like I'd lost someone I actually knew.

In other books, I've skirted the issue in cute or careful ways. Even in A Place of Safety's volumes, I avoided having to deal with it. Initially, Brendan was going to execute Father Jack as a traitor at the end of Home Not Home...and he didn't want to. And I went along with it because to me the ending the book now has is much, much better in its quiet tenderness.

So I guess I'll have to step back from Blood Angel, for a while, and see how it settles. I don't know what else to do.

I just can't face it, right now.

I cannot drink...

I don't know what the fuck it is about alcohol, if my tolerance has vanished or what, but I had a Sapporo beer with dinner, this evening...and I crashed into near despondency. I'm still getting over it.

I went to P F Chang's to try their Teriyaki Beef, (which is viciously good) and had the beer instead of Dr Pepper (which they offer). Tasted good. But as I was driving home, my mood grew darker and sadder. I'd planned to hit the grocery store for a few things I needed and almost talked myself out of it. But managed to make myself do it.

And just sat in the car in the store's parking lot for ten minutes, before needing to pee made me get out and go inside to use the toilet. By that point it was raining, but I didn't care. I got my stuff and drove home, still deep into the blues, put everything away and collapsed before my laptop to do nothing.

Fortunately, a clip came up on Facebook of a guy who sings to animals and records their fascinated reactions. It was half an hour long but it helped settle me. 

I baked some Pillsbury Crescent rolls and ate 4 of them with a DPZ...and now feel a lot better. But it was spooky.

I haven't been much of a drinker since I left college. And there have been stretches over months where I haven't even thought about a beer. I've got a bottle of Shiner Bock in my fridge that's been there since my last birthday.

I guess I'll never be one of those alcoholic writer types...

Back to the joy of it all...

Writing, I mean. Building my separate worlds away from the filth that's going on in reality, right now. I'm happier working out how my favorite vampire, Léonidès, finds some American Marines who raped and killed a Korean girl (in 1871) and gets to take his anger with his sister out on them.

One he kills outright. The other two he takes back to a house (a Hanok) that he'd tracked Gabrielle to, earlier...to find her almost in mourning. She had gone to Korea to catch up to a young Naval Officer, who was another Blood Angel.

She had set up the Hanok to seduce him into agreeing to join with her as a mate, even though the Oiym Council told her not to. But she was delayed and arrived the day after he was killed in a skirmish with the Korean military. She's not used to losing.

That's part of the reason she's open to taking Franz off Léon's hands on a trial basis...but refuses to release Dmitriy to him till she's tested him out. Léon is fairly certain she's going to betray him and keep both Blood Angel males, which would make her a very powerful vampire. At least he continues to hew to his moral code of only feeding on men who deserve death, but it still gets pretty brutal and cruel.

It's funny, but I just remembered the first guy I ever had a crush on was Leon Smith. We were both at Connell Jr. High in San Antonio, a block from my grandmother's home. We lived with her, off and on, throughout most of my life.

I knew Leon in 7th and 9th grades, there (I did 8th grade in a hell-hole of a school in El Paso). He was a jokester kind of guy and I was very quiet, and he'd tease me. But I did a sketch of him, once. In History? And he liked it. Took it home to his mom, if I remember right.

We were also in gym, together, and I saw him naked in the showers. Trim body. Some hair but not a lot. Circumcised. I hated being naked in the showers, but I liked looking at him.

He died in a car wreck while I was in Honolulu. Didn't learn about it till I'd graduated from high school, in SA. I felt a bit hollow after hearing of it. What's funny is, I can still picture him in the showers after gym. Not at all the kind of guy I go for, now...but still...

Memories sometimes matter more than thoughts you have, today.

Too damned ridiculous...

I've been sick as a dog, all afternoon. Began to feel better about 7:30 and now I'm almost back to normal. And what do I think caused it? Banana bread. One of the people I work with made a loaf and I had a slice...and just over an hour later my stomach was not acting right.

I still made myself go out to my CPA to pick up my taxes. I'd gotten an email saying they were ready...but it turns out they weren't. I got an email meant for someone else. 

So I drove home in rush hour traffic which wasn't all that bad, really, except I was really feeling like hell. Once I was done in the bathroom, I had some apple cider vinegar in sparkling water and that began to settle things, at least.

When I feel like this, I can't concentrate. So I've been watching Midsomer Murders mysteries all evening.. Which are pretty innocuous...usually. But thanks to my mood I was cranky about the stories and picking them apart. Even Jason Hughes, who is kind of cute as DS Jones, was getting on my nerves.

Meaning no writing done, today. Just a foul mood from being messed with by something I ate.

Tomorrow my car gets inspected. This adult shit needs to stop.

Ah, the joys of...something or other...

I realized long ago that I never had the push it takes to make it in film. You need to be something of an egotistical asshole in order to get past the gatekeepers, or have the kind of mind that knows how to work without them. And that just never was me.

I aligned myself with people who didn't have it, either, but seemed better purposed to the industry. And caught on too late how wrong-headed I'd been. From the beginning.

If I'd really wanted to make it in film as a director, I should have just moved out to LA and worked in the industry, once I'd graduated high school. I could have joined with Roger Corman and learned more about making movies than any school could teach me. But I was too unfocused to see that.

Instead, I toodled along, hoping everything would come together...with minimal effort on my part. Which of course it wouldn't have. But I still fucked myself over...and fucked some friends over, too...and achieved very little. Some mention on IMDb. Woo-hoo!

Now I'm off to myself, writing stories that fit a niche market and sell okay. Not as well as I'd like, but well enough. And despite my ranting and raving and exclamations of turmoil and pain, I'd found a lot more peace doing this. A lot more understanding of myself.

Building my gay erotica helped me build the complexity of APoS. Writing BA is helping me prepare to dive into DW, again. They've brought me my voice, and shown me I can do damned good work, no matter what. I now see every project is like an onion needing to be peeled back, layer by layer, and that is my way of making the story as good as it can be.

So I bitch and moan and weep and wail...and keep digging and digging and getting better at it, with every book. As an extra bonus, it helps me face my own demons...and maybe that's reason enough to keep going.

Positive-ity...

Today started off grumpy and blank, but I was able to get my lack of focus adjusted into a way of working on Blood Angel-A Long Journey. I simply read through what I've redone, so far, and honed parts of it to make better sense. I also rearranged two bits and worked up a reason for Gabrielle to be in New York City.

She's a capitalist to the core, of the vulturous nature. Ulysses S Grant is president and, until the current administration, was considered the most corrupt one. So she and Dmitriy were there to scope out potential business opportunities. 

America was in the process of joining the industrial revolution, having just ended a vicious civil war, and Gabrielle's got wealth enough to buy into it. But then she senses a young Naval officer is another Blood Angel and she changes focus, completely.

She goes after the guy even though the Oiym specifically demands she not. She refuses to be ordered about by them, which causes problems. The only reason she doesn't get him was due to unspecified circumstances before his ship departed for Korea.

She follows...but he gets killed there before she arrives. So she's all but forced to shift interest to Franz.

It's funny how I'm working so hard at writing this series of books. Polishing and pruning and adjusting my sentences and structure to make them as solid as possible. I keep at it, rewriting over and over and over until I get the the point where I'm doing such unimportant things as changing the to a.

That's when I know I'm done...usually...but I'm not at that point with BA-4 yet. Soon...but not yet.

Adulting is not fun...

This evening I had a lovely, long conversation with a person who wanted me to do a Zoom interview with the host of a YouTube channel to discuss my book. They didn't know the name of the book, at first, but the host loved it. Gave copious praise about it.

Turned out they were talking about A Place of Safety, Derry. And seemed to think it was my only book. I had to point out it was part of a three volume work. And I made sure to let them know I'd also written other stories, including gay erotica, which was a bit of a surprise to them but not a dealbreaker.

But through the whole process it sounded like they're reading a sales prompt. Saying my name every five words to keep me focused or something. And I'm thinking, You want me to pay for this.

Sure enough...it would only cost me $1,500.00. To get what looks like a decent video posted on their YouTube channel. For just under 3,000 subscribers.

Unfortunately for them...or fortunately, if you prefer...paying for my brother's burial and staying in San Antonio for weeks while he was dying hit me hard, financially. So I said no thanks. Can't. Left it at that.

But I wonder...what if I could have managed it? Is there the possibility APoS-Derry could be seen and read by more people? Not enough to make a profit, sure, but if I'd been in the business of writing to make a living I'd have starved long ago.

Thing is, I've done this before. Paid people to publicize APoS...and gotten nothing from it. Guess it's like playing the lottery. Lots of hopes and dreams for very little return on your investment.

And having something like this happen just reinforces my belief that I never will get any return.

How?

I know I'm not alone in wondering how the hell I get to where I am, today. What was it that set my course to wind up in solitude...and happily so...working on books no one really wants to read. I haven't sold a single book, so far this month, and damn few last month...and for some reason I don't care.

I think once I publish BA-4 in ebook that will perk up some sales, but it doesn't matter to me all that much. Which makes no sense. But even if I sell only one copy of a book, my reaction is At least it's being read.

When I don't know it is, for a fact. Some readers download free copies of books like crazy during Smashwords' sales and never look at them, again. At the same time, the few books I offer at half-price get pretty much ignored. And I don't get any reviews from any of them. 

Hell, I once held a competition on GoodReads for people to tell me why they would be happy to review my book in exchange for a free copy. Gave away three. Not one person posted a review. Not one. 

I wouldn't have cared if it was negative. Not everyone will like my writing, I know that. And I can take it, now. Learn from it...so long as it's honestly meant. If it's just a deliberate attack, I shrug those off. 

Of course, they used to bug me till I realized there are people out there who will do everything they can to tear down others, just to make themselves feel better. I've had a couple of those.

I do get messages of support off GayDemon, but not real discussions on what is and isn't working in the story. 

I dunno. Maybe I just like the process of building my own little worlds and while I'd like others to share in them, I'm not going to beg.

Returned to my abode...

Job went well. Drove straight home from there, with a nap along the way. The nice thing about the 90 NY Thruway is the service areas with lots of parking so you can pull away from everyone, put your seat back and doze. Though I think I actually fell asleep, because I was there for half an hour, at least.

One of the bad things is, they got rid of all the McDonald's and put in fucking Chik-fil-A. I both hate them and cannot eat them, while McDonald's is always good as a last resort. I made do with Shake Shake, which was tasty...but $20 for a cheeseburger and fries? Not counting the $4 I paid for a bottle of DPZ? I'll starve, next time.

I'm beat, just from driving. And I was unable to really do any thinking on the trip home. Nothing but moment to moment stuff like...lovely hills. The Mohawk is up to its shoreline. I'm going 72 mph (in a 65 zone) and this idiot wants to pass me going 73??? Love how the Berkshires look with a light covering of snow and naked trees. Oh, I'm getting 44.7 mpg according to the car's display.

Swear to god, I did not have one coherent thought beyond that in the whole 7.5 hours. What's odd is it made the drive seem longer. Even though I was in a nice Toyota Camry Hybrid. Time crawled.

I wish I could have taken the train or a bus. That would have been so much more relaxing.

Another idea on a project popped back up, as I was doing the packing. The beginning of Darian's Point, which tells the story of the forming of the harpies and the curse that followed. Write that as a ballad, like Beowulf.

That might actually turn out nice...