Sounds like me...

I read a story on Instagram about a philosopher in Ancient China who was so impressed with his intelligence and awareness, he wrote a long, pretentious poem about how enlightened he was. How he was rooted in honesty and reality, and that not even the eight winds can move me.

He sent a copy to a friend, across a lake. And the friend responded with a single word. Fart (in Chinese, of course). Elegant Cantonese, I'm sure, with finely etched images to accompany the words.

Well, that infuriated the philosopher, so he got himself a boat and traveled across that lake to chew his friend out. But when he arrived, his friend just laughed and said, "The eight winds cannot move you, but one fart sent you across a lake."

I'm both of those guys. Pompous and bit full of myself over my writing, characters and stories. But also willing to stick a pin in my hot air balloon before I float off into the stratosphere. With mood swings as extreme as someone deep into schizophrenia.

I know I wonder if I'm cowardly about my writing, at times, but I continue to do it and publish it under my name. No hiding.

That should count for something in my view of myself.

Hmmmmmmm...

 I should write a song about myself. Something like:

This mean-assed former redhead

Will treat you rough, and when you're dead,

He'll never let it once be said

He wrote you as if you're ill-bred.

Or some such shit. I dunno. I'm a total nutcase, right now. This kind of crap probably means something only to me. But I'm finding ways to keep going forward, at least. Haven't retreated into my library of DVDs, yet.

I think I'm going to have Léonidès...no, not going to have; I'll follow his lead and watch as he travels to Alexandria to climb up the wall to a window of the room where Gabrielle is taking Franz to her bed. At which point he does a very Peeping Tom kind of thing.

Maybe Dmitriy and one or two of the Oiym join him. Have a little kaffeeklatsch around the window. All cloaking themselves from Gabrielle's awareness.

Or...maybe they think they are hidden but she's stronger than that and knows and is enjoying showing off her seductive abilities. And Franz's prowess.

Hits the kink register, it does. And since Léon is the one telling the story, we get his irritation and jealousy and sadness at seeing what Franz has to offer that is not available to him...except through force. Something he's perfectly willing and able to do.

Maybe he decides to join them and makes Franz the meat in their sandwich, giving witness to Gabrielle turning him into another Blood Angel.

Anne Rice, eat your heart out...

I did it...

I returned to Blood Angel-4 A Long Journey and rewrote Léon's rape and murder of a young American marine in 1871. Made it as horrifying as I could. Painful. Deserving, because that marine had participated in the rape and murder of a peasant Korean girl and her father. And I let it be as satisfying as possible to Léon.

I also think I made the guy's death difficult for anyone who has any form of empathy. And added a level of horror to it in that Léon made sure another marine who was involved in the girl's death is watching him do it...knowing he will be next. 

Just not right away.

I won't say it was easy to do, but now that I have it worked out I can make it read better and add more depth to it to make it as conflicting as possible. That's me loving what Hitchcock would do by making the audience sympathize with the villain. Identify with the villain.

That's not to say Léon is a villain in this book. He's the lead character and he has his moral code, but that makes him judge and jury to whoever it is he chooses to feed upon. And there are plenty of people out there who would fit well into his requirements for his sustenance.

All of this has been true since the dawn of civilization. Men and women crushing others for their own gain. Wars used to wipe out towns and genocide committed over and over and over. The vampire community is not the evil in the world; they merely feed upon it. Use it to survive. 

Maybe that's what BA is all about -- monsters are the way of the world, not angels.

Am I a wimp or a writer?

That was the subject of a little back and forth I had in my head, this evening, as I did the dishes. Two days worth of dishes. Left to pile up. I've got way too much dinnerware for a single man and...anyway...

I read a post on facebook by a fellow writer and she discussed how her own traumas led her to write books that were dark as night. And how hard that was to reconcile in herself. 

Which apparently pissed off part of me and some hard questions were asked of myself by myself. Which I know sounds crazy and may well be, but that's what happened.

Blood Angel is about a gay vampire making his way through existence. He's a nice guy. His unlife is good. He's a royal prince and his pack is a group of courtiers who, while not of the same level as he, are fun to be around. Still he never feels completely part of them. He thought he found someone to share his world...but realized he was fooling himself.

So now he's pissed and hurt and angry at his own stupidity and...and he's a fucking vampire! Why am I trying to make him act like a teenaged boy?! He drinks human blood! Kills people while doing it! And I'm all touchy-feely about how awful that is, even though I make sure to note he only goes after bad people? And then I whimper and whine and wonder do I really want to continue writing such a mean story?

Well...first questions to hit me from within were, Why did you choose to write it in the first place? Why start something you don't want to finish?

And that's what the argument was about. You chose a vampire as the main character of your story, Kyle. And you minimized what he was as much as you could. Why? If you're going to be such a coward about being honest to the story and character, why start it? Are you a writer who faces the truth of your characters? Or are you a wimp? And if the latter, why should any character trust you to deal honestly with them if things become too difficult for you?

And my response? I'm afraid to touch the darkness in me. Which is answered by, Vampires are vampires. Deal with it or hide in your shadows and take up macrame, for crying out loud.

No. I can't. I won't. I'm not that weak...and macrame's boring.

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.