Current Reading, Writing and Events

In Stephen King's 11/22/63 One piece doesn't follow the script.

I'm strung out on caffeine and I have to quit because I've practically stopped sleeping. I've been here before. I keep going through these cycles. I guess I'm lucky that my addiction isn't anything heavier or more expensive. So, I'll be quitting in a couple days. When I get a headache I'll take just enough to relieve it, and no more.

I'm reading Stephen Kings 11/22/63. My main observation: what's interesting about the plot concept, which is time travel, is that the main character is the only one who has free will. Everyone else in the past are determined, that is, until they run into him or something he changes. Then they gain free will.

Maybe nobody else would find that interesting, but it is like playing out and notating a game of chess, then replaying the same game as notated, except it has a piece that doesn't have to follow the script.

He has free will because he's taken out of his context, which is 2011, and allowed to live in the past, 1958-1962 (and on) where he has no context and has to create one. Meanwhile, it's apparent that the past he is in doesn't want to be changed. So, the universe itself hates free will. Also, as he goes on, it seems he has less free will.

I have to finish this book in a few days because it's due back at the library where it's on hold. That means I had to stop reading Gone Girl with twenty pages left.  

I'm writing on my novel like crazy and now I need a break. For this entire weekend, I stayed in and I think only saw one person, briefly. My next door neighbor. Besides that, I have my cat.

About my novel, I realized this is probably different for horror stories in that a psychotic is actually the hero and not the antagonist or monster. In fact, it's the psychotics, personality disorders, and in general the mentally ill, who salvage the situation.

And, about my neighbor. Financially, my situation has marginally improved, so I tried to get into the basement to turn up my hot water heater. I found the padlock to the door on the basement to have been replaced. It was a combination lock with a number I didn't know.

I asked around. Apparently, a lady guest of that neighbor replaced the lock, and then she hit the road.  He said she might be back tomorrow or next month (she's somewhat transient). He doesn't know the combination. Besides my hot water heater, I've got possessions down there. Our gas meters are down there so they can't be read. This is pretty damn rude. Plus, since she's not living here, and I'd like to know what she's storing in there that requires the whole basement and her own lock. Not to mention she has no right to store anything down there. He says he has a friend up the street with bolt cutters, but then we have to replace the lock. If he doesn't get that lock off there-- well, I'd hate to bring the landlord in on this.

So, I have to buy a lock, give my neighbors the combination number and get that current lock cut off there. I know that neighbor will pay for the lock. He's good for that.  

A day that will live . . .

If you think about it, marking days on a calendar to commemorate or celebrate an event is odd. The Earth's spin is independent of its rotation around the Sun. Both are independent to the Earth's slant on its axis. A calendar is an effort to make all those line up. They don't. If God's a watchmaker, then Casio has him beat.

Meanwhile, that Sun, the Earth and all the rest of the planets are moving through at mind-boggling rates of speed. We can't find our position in space in the past much less recreate it. The idea that the month and day commemorated has anything to do with the original day is foolish.

Yes, it's weird but it's a poetic kind of weird. A human kind of weird, and therefore not really weird to us at all. It would probably weird to our pets, though, if they ever catch on enough to understand.

In human history, time and space were separate entities. Making a calendar that was season-accurate would get you worshiped, e.g. the Pharaohs. You know when river's going to flood, you brought some order to chaos. You are a God. 

I tried to keep that perspective on it today. Because it's the only calendar marked day that could bring tears to my eyes. Like the Beethoven's 7th Symphony, Second movement, I can predict the mood I would be in today. The recording is the same whenever it plays.

Nine years ago, I lost a close family member. A nephew. He committed suicide on his twenty-third birthday an January 18th, 2006.

I got up this morning with difficulty anyway, having taken Benedryl for sleep last night. Benedryl a strange drug. It won't really put you sleep as much as it keeps you asleep. 

So, I was difficult to rise this morning. Then, remembering the day, went back to bed. I thought of my nephew. Of how different things would be now if he had lived. That was the time I stopped being young and started to feel middle-aged.

2015: Ambitious Year.

I'm working on Ginger Snaps: The Feral Bond novel again after taking Christmas and New Years off. The time off got extended as I came off break sick, injured and with chores piled up. Today, my first one back on the job, has been a disappointment. I did all rewriting when today should have been final proofreading. I want to be two weeks ahead of my writers' group come Tuesday, and three weeks ahead the next week. But today I was stalled. Instead I rewrote the installment I thought was finished. What's wrong with me? OCD? I know I can finish this quickly, and not compromise the quality.

The first step in editing this novel is going to be reading through each chapter and putting a comment next to every bit of information needed so the reader can understand the story, or to keep the reader curious about the plot.

Some years I have New Year's resolutions, some years I don't. This time I have several and they're all writing related.

1) Finish this draft of the novel by March, and the edit by October.

2)  Learn about the business side of writing.

3) Get one or more short stories published.

4) Get an article, essay, or creative non-fiction published.

5) Get something published for pay.

6) Start on a new novel.

7) Learn to use yWrite5 to aid in organizing stories.

8) Make more use of autocrit.com

This is an ambitious year. I spent a lot of time in the educational experience of writing Ginger Snaps: The Feral Bond. Now it's time to make it pay off.