December 11 - In my defense, I've been busy with the day job.  At one point I was completely emotionally overwhelmed and this is not a good time for writing. At least not for me. So, what did I do ALL DAY MONDAY when I was home?  I wrote. A little.  I slept, a lot. And I unfriended (really, that's not a word yet?) all my coworkers on Facebook.  Why? Because I don't anyone to hold against me what I post. There are a couple of others I'd like to ditch too, but then it would be obvious.

So I wrote a little more and I found the harmonica I lost a hundred years ago and I haven't learned how to play Fur Elise, Swanee River or Love Me Do.
Even after I  realized that I spent too much time messing with the fool harmonica (Does anyone know which is the top?) I didn't go to writing the story.  Instead I came here to write a blog entry about not writing my novel.
We're getting somewhere with the story, though. I mean the shit has finally hit the fan.  I'm on page - I don't know and an interested reader, provided they've made it this far, could honestly say, "Oh, THIS is what the book is about".
I gotta say when I started writing the book I didn't know it was going to go here, but there is a line Jessica will say to Shane that I thought up a long time ago and now I've just been writing and writing to set up a situation where she can say it.  I can't say what it is here, total spoiler, but I can tell you, that if I stick to the script in my head Shane will say, "I know, Jess.  I love you."
EWW! Not all "love" is romantic. Shane loves Jessica because he knows that no matter how you shake up the big old planet and let all the billions of people fall wherever like pieces of snow in a globe, he has to land next to her. Hearts connected.

Alright, enough.  I'm going to write now.  For like an hour.

12/02 getting into it

8:32 and I've done nothing tonight.  It was nice to open up the novel and see "Do you want to start where you left off yesterday."
The thing is that (oh, and its 8:45 now)that writing isn't just a "let's make something up" kind of deal because there is no "making things up".  When you are in a dream and it's scary, or worse it's wonderful, you really feel those things. Damn, when you read a book, especially a thriller or a love story, you have to turn the page and you feel all the emotions that these make believe people are feeling.  Well, it's like that when you're writing, only it's ten times worse.  And even though you are all sorts of anti-anxiety and anti-depression pills the damn characters aren't.  So, as the writer you feel right through all your medications exactly what the characters are feeling. And you know what's even worse? You know what they don't.  So you feel it when you think it, and then you feel it the whole time you're setting them up.
And then you know - at least HOPE(?) - that what you've written will come true for many different people. Think about Lord of the Flies (SPOILER ALERT) William Golding knew before everyone what would happen to Piggy. In fact, he made it happen.  He pushed that rock off the cliff.  He made sure it hit Piggy hard enough to knock him down, 40 feet to the beach so the ocean can wash him out.

Not only that.  William Golding knew that each one of us reading that book would kill Piggy over and over again.  Think about it. If you stop reading the book before it happens, then the rest of the story doesn't take place. But each time someone reads the damn book, the same thing happens, and poor Piggy, the only voice of civility on that crooked island, dies.  There is no version of the book where he lives. 

So as I'm writing the Climax of this story I know that once it's written (9:12 now) it is going to stick forever.  The shit these people are going to go through is not going to happen just the one time I'm reporting it, but it's going to happen again and again and again ad infinitum.

Here's a great song by Ted Allen

 Don't Touch My Heart