Journal # 06.08.16

The kids were at play across the way and I wondered how to set myself loose like that, again, is my only forum in my head anymore? Summer strikes up a breeze from the delta and I know the blues and oughta sing. You keep that inside and you risk intimidating your blood. I have quarantined myself off the frolicking ocean of internet, maybe as much for you as for me. I wonder do you still have nothing to do but play with your phone all day. Is there anyone holds you anymore? I hope you have someone who loves you, sometimes I still wish it could be me. Today like most days I am trying real hard to simply love the life I have been given. There was a time I didn't have to try, I sure was a lucky kid. I have my moments but it's a lot harder to reach the beach. Please don't ever forget that I love you, maybe not as clearly or definitively like when we were in each other's arms, okay, but the memory of us warms my heart and I won't forget the terror of it all. Cause being honest keeps it real.

GWB - Video Book 1:8:3

restructuring your conditions

I made some changes in my conditions to try and maximize the possibility for continuing to write books. Don't get me wrong, I love my life and my routine. But something was off, and consequentially I've seen a frightening drop in sustained creative output the last couple of months. I can flash here and flash there, keeping up my daily blogging and youtubing, but there is a price to pay for this kinda work. You get used to bouncing around the internet! Which I find not so conducive to the long form, or the conditions necessary for writing books. Many will say (and I have told myself) it's as easy as clicking on the 'do not disturb' protocol (on your devices) and making personal space for yourself. And maybe it is. But bloggers have a responsibility to their audience that the Ralph Waldo Emersons and Henry David Thoreaus of the world have not! Anyway, I decided to make some changes. I stepped away from the internet for several days and stepped outdoors. I drove out of town and did some things differently than usual. This coincides with a vacation from my nine to fiver. I eased up on the coffee. I caught up on my sleep (a real deficit I was running) and reconnected with some people and creatures (mostly cats) I care about, on a deeper level. I stopped reading and listening to the news. I need to make a conscious push towards the lighter things of life, laughter and learning and shared, hopeful perspectives. I tend to let myself go toward darkness, I realize, it's easier to be jaded. Now I am rediscovering how it feels to wake up in the morning, make some coffee, and sit down at my desk in silence and write my book. It was only a few months back when I was doing this, but it coulda been forever ago.

restructuring your work

A couple of days ago, I found a way back into my book, maybe the new moon on the 4th of June gave me an opening. I took it. I'm still not out of the woods, but I have a lead. I never give up hope; with writing, you can always find a way. The book is written in first person, with tense varying from past to present. I have been dreaming about switching up narrators, alternating chapter to chapter, yet I really love coming from the voice and perspective of my female lead, my heroine, and a change would be risky. This is serial fiction, after all, and one should expect consistency across books. Still, a slight departure from the first two books - in voice or person - could be pulled off, I thought, so long as the plot and characters held together. I've been dreaming about this for months (and not on purpose), and I found a compromise. I started interspersing the main narrative - chapters rounding out at 2,000 words each - with slices of 3rd person narrative about 500 words each. The body is therefore still under the auspice of Ame, for protection of what I have established (in the first two books), and guidance. Yet I am letting in light of special circumstances, subchapters pertaining to Kell, describing her experience simultaneous to and interwoven with the plot. I was thrilled to have envisioned this, and I believe it's rather unusual for an author to switch back and forth from first and third person. But it seems to be working so far and it's an intuitive hit. Let's see now if i can pull it off!

GWB - Video Book 1:8:2

Journal # 06.03.16

Give me the night give me silence, a destination where i stand, so I can live here - off and on - this land. Give me an apple to stir up my blood - i will give you my all - anything and a juicy story to tell. Find me at the river at dawn - the valley drawn - straight outta my mind. Come and hold me if you can. I made a ring of water and hold no promises - i'm an honest girl - still circling round the fire burned my heart. Now I know I have no control. And when I remember it's better this way. The green glass Tanqueray and all the drunken dreams dissolved, unreal, taken by the current, back to the channel, the great wide open and changed the world. We were left behind where we found us, belly to belly and eyes upon us, down in the dust of the dusk, nine at night. Making out all right, on the bank, snuggled up against a fallen tree, you and me, summer times together, we started something never ended like the war. Fallen in your arms again some day, unexpectedly, you and me, over tea. You may throw your cap into the air - spinning like the dream - left me dead lost in my despair. Tangles in my hair, I will jump off a rock into the eddy. Wake myself up so good to share my life with you. Under the sky, dead heat in the sun. Wet. And ready...

GWB - Video Book 1:8:1