Posts – Page 36 – Aphotic Ink

Not wanting to turn out the light.

Let’s be clear: this is not being afraid to turn out the light. This is knowing that when you turn out the light, you will spend a moment (and moments can be very long) lying in the dark, listening to your breathing, and thinking about what you just read. And what you just read is creepy, and not relaxing, and you can’t quite stop dwelling on it.

(Awesome feeling, really. Right, where was I?)

I was browsing through my list of currently-being-read books and noting most of them don’t have that–or at least, I don’t expect them to have it. Still working through them, after all. Of the two that might, one is a brick of an anthology from ’85, and one is a limited-edition collection. (Yes, both are a pile of short stories; I find those tend to disturb much more easily than novels.) Both are hardcovers. Neither lends themselves to being read comfortably in bed.

This is probably a good thing at the moment, since I need to be up early tomorrow, and do not want to be awake thinking about how wonderfully Michael Shea handles shoggoths and limited-omniscient POV voice. But I still rather regret not having more quietly unsettling things to read.

In the meantime, however, I’ve finished Horns (yes, I know; started it yesterday and had it all-but-done the same, read the epilogue-ish moment today) and am looking around for something to relax with. I may dig out some Stuart MacBride; I’m not sure why the Logan McRae novels are always soothing, but at this point I’d just like to be able to unwind and read enough to get to sleep.

Surprise reads

Light of my life found a hardcover copy of Horns (horror novel by Joe Hill) on clear-this-out discount sale last time we were at Chapters. I woke up at 2:30 in the morning and couldn’t sleep, and thought reading for a bit before lying back down might help, so I picked it up.

(Also, honestly, I can’t find “The Library Policeman” and I knew enough about the premise of Horns that I thought it might have some decently plausible writing about a guy coping with an impossible situation.)

Anyway, I promptly got hooked. Read through the entire first section and a few pages into the second before deciding I was tired enough to be put the book down, wander out for a glass of milk, and poke the keyboard. As one does.

The first section really grabbed me. The second section, however, is a digression-back-to-childhood or prequel or something else that I can’t remember the name of right now, because it’s 3:30 a.m. and I’m going back to bed. I found it a lot less gripping; could practically feel the momentum of reading screeching to a halt. Not sure how much of that has to do with being tired again, though.

More later.

My evening.

Excuses to not write

So! I ended up hearing from my friend; we got about 1300 words written, actually. But I haven’t gotten anything else written, and it’s starting to… not worry me, exactly. Make me wonder if I’m avoiding it. Because writing with her, it’s fun and it’s engaging and I get what Stephen King (well, Paul Sheldon) calls the gotta; I gotta keep reading, I gotta keep writing, I gotta get more of this done. And this is a really good feeling, don’t get me wrong.

Just beginning to wonder if I’m paying so much attention to writing this way because it drowns out the fact that I’m not writing for myself. Or writing out my own ideas, rather. There’s the morgue story, there’s that crime one I was hacking away at (well, plinking away at, really), there’s the mushroom story, there’s the other mushroom story, and none of it is getting done.

(Heh. Came in to work an hour early. Half an hour left before I can actually start. Fiction writing done? Zilch.)

I get upset when I don’t get things done, and the light of my life occasionally reminds me that it’s okay. What’s the worst that can happen if I go out and try to write and get distracted? I don’t write and I read or play video games instead.

I think I might be forgetting that the worst is I don’t write. Okay, yes, not a tragedy. But I don’t write, and then another day’s gone by and I’m no closer to finishing anything and closer to not having any more time.

I just wish that was motivational, rather than ~~depressing~~ paralyzing.

Slipping away.

The week started with a post, actually. A post about how, when you were doing one job and learning another and trying to catch up on three days work besides, learning that you might need to tear out a wall of your home was just a cymbal-crash finale to the day.

(As I was writing that post, my bus home drove past me without stopping.)

Then I exited without saving the draft. So there was no post that day.

Rest of the week was equally packed, and delicately spiced with such highlights as “double work loads” and “four hours of sleep.” And the lack of posts continued.

Trying to pull myself back together and relax. Saw Boondock Saints II and picked at Fallout 3 a bit; I’m pretty close to finding Harold, I think.

Not getting any writing done. I keep being caught up in thinking about a co-writing project and the person I’m working with… Yeesh, just realized haven’t heard from her in a week. Trying to overcome my natural tendency to fret.

Worn to the quick.

I’m tired and angry. I can’t actually seem to stop being tired and angry, and there’s nothing in particular which I can think of that would have caused either, although there is a lot of flare-up of the angry for very little provocation. Taken all together, that’s a pretty good sign that I am having a bad day, I cannot trust my judgement at the moment, and I am probably going to crawl off to bed early and spend a lot of tomorrow muttering “I love my meds” and trying not to get prickly with my coworkers.

I hate this.

This isn’t interesting, I know. It doesn’t even interest me, and it’s unfortunately occupying a lot of my attention right now, but it’s not interesting. Like road rash, I imagine: also not interesting, also something that comes to the forefront of your mind and pushes out useful things. I know it’s not interesting, but dear god is it engrossing me at the moment, and as I am trying to get something written today, this is what it is about.

Four more days to the weekend. And I got my hands on the second Cthulhu Apocalypse books early this morning, which seems to be more in a toolkit-for-apocalypses (apocali? apocalypsos?) vein, so that might be interesting on the bus, or something.

I’ll be better tomorrow. Just need to get there from here.

Let’s talk sacrifice.

Bubbly Fizz. Mmmmm.[1]

Spoilers follow–no, honestly, serious spoilers–but it doesn’t matter unless you game. Continue reading “Let’s talk sacrifice.”

Achey and tired.

I’ve had a headache for about ten hours now. I mean, I realize I am having this headache on a day when a good friend of mine is having a migraine, and that does a lot to put it in perspective. But it’s starting to wear on me.

I got a story rejection today. I was expecting it, and it was very polite. Still… what can you do?

~~(ObAnswer: Pick up and carry on. I know, I know. Goal for tomorrow: two new pages.)~~

Watching Game of Thrones and comfortably hating Theon. I do love the Greyjoys and the Iron Islands; they make me think of King Hagrid, cold and drawn and grey, standing by the sea and watching the waves they rule. Blood and salt and iron.

And the Cthulhu shout-outs don’t hurt either.

Started two new anthologies–End of the World and Haunts: Reliquaries of the Dead–and neither one is really grabbing me yet. I’m hoping a good night’s sleep will clear things up. Whether or not the extension goes through tomorrow (and I expect it will; early next week if not), at least there’s only six work-hours left until the weekend.

I’m very sorry. I wish I could come up with something more interesting to say.

Juggling duties.

Looking forward to the long weekend. I wouldn’t say my time’s already booked, but I expect I know how most of it is going to go. Hoping I can get a couple of hours in to sit down and write, and a chance to goof off and relax so I actually feel up to same.

(Running around an alien mothership without your faithful canine companion: totally relaxing.)

I need to reorganize my office again. My London-and-Mythos shelf needs to become just a Mythos shelf; with the latest anthology, there’s no more room for them both. Even if I relocate the London stuff, there’s only about another foot of space, but it’ll last for a bit.

Have work for at least a few months, which is nice, since I just found out that Pelgrane is putting out another sourcebook in the vein of The Dead White World. Mind, I’m not sure I would ever actually get to run anything; all the gamers I know aren’t local or wouldn’t be interested. I wish gaming books were something you could get at the library; it seems like a waste to buy one and then not do anything with it. They’re not like most books; they’re not just for reading. More like recipe collections or knitting books. Buying them and not doing anything with them is sad, and rather cluttered.