A Capsule Update

I’ve been sick for a while. I’m talking about this to everyone and anyone who will listen. Ask my gf. Ask my brother. Ask last semester’s classmates. It’s a sickness that effects my brain. Where I have good days of minimal pain, and bad days of near complete forgetfulness, where I’m fighting to focus and get anything done. And those days where I have near complete forgetfulness are the ones where I’m congested, with a little cold, and my whole head seems to shut down. Just a simple, stupid cold makes me nearly incapable of basic function.

I had a great introduction laid out for my book, where I’d talk about real life complications while writing it; how, in the book, the story starts with a broken tooth and ends with a wooden one. Just like in real life, where my book began with a tooth operation (the reason for my initial tooth writing in the first chapter), and ends with the removal of the tooth and a long line of suffering. It would have been a great full-circle thing, a great anecdote to the complexities of how real life spatters into fantasy and science fiction. If my sickness had ended with the removal of that tooth, it would’ve been perfect.

It didn’t end. In fact, removing the tooth sent a whole new wave of bacteria into my system, punching forgetfulness and memory issues back to full throttle–something I had on lockdown since the beginning of November. Strange how you think you have a handle on something, in fact are nearly certain the issue is understood and workable, and then–nope. It isn’t the tooth anymore. It’s the bone, or the sinus cavity, or an abscess that isn’t draining. Or something even deeper: autoimmune, immunodeficiency, viral meningitis.

Yesterday was a nightmare. I woke up at 11:00 after having watched too much television the night before, took my diabetes medication, drank kefir and had a green drink for breakfast, checked my blood sugar: 195. Strange, given I had a salad for dinner the night before, hummus and broccoli and carrots for lunch, and a donut and coffee for breakfast. This meant I was fighting an infection. Again. Maybe the same infection.

Classes have started; day one was Tuesday, and I blankly stared at the syllabus on Wednesday, trying to understand what was expected of me for the semester. Hell, trying to understand the assignment for homework, due Thursday (today). I tried to read a short story, finished, realized I remembered nothing about it except it was by Octavia Butler (because I had been given that information when I was in a more receptive state), and that it was uploaded in an easy-to-convert-to-sound format and sometimes the fonts were shifted, the spaces between words longer than one. And the rims of my vision sometimes pulsed with my heartbeat because pus is putting pressure on your brain, on your eyes, the doctor said. Sometimes I can not see much at all, sometimes pictures move when in periphery, or seem to, because of the shifting sphere shape of my eyes. Straight up terrifying. What do I do? The low-grade migraine that flowed from the back to the front of my head, coupled by the pain in my jaw that I thought was an infected tooth now radiating from an empty socket, sending me into agony while trying to stare at a computer screen.

I readied a dose of $4,000/mo potassium powder, drank maybe .50 of product, felt better. Wanted to write. Wanted to do homework. Needed to get work done. I don’t have time for this, I thought, fell into the couch and watched some escapist scifi on Amazon Prime. Tried to have conversations with my brother online, slurred words coming from someone sober for months, my own damn mouth, wondering again what the hell is wrong with me, again, expunging that wonder in words to silence from the other side. Realizing, again, six doctors, two EarNoseThroat specialists said this is likely stress-related, and then some small-town allergist decided to give my face an x-ray to maybe see if something was going on up there. Yes, something is going on up there.

They’re calling it chronic sinusitis, or sinusitis that continues after four weeks. It’s been in my head for nearly a year now, perhaps two. My nasal cavity is clear as a whistle, always, but when I get congestion I fall to pieces. Sometimes something drains and my eyes roll in the back of my head from the sensation, like springing a leak where water shouldn’t go. Nurses tell stories of sepsis, people dying from sinusitis of late without really knowing why, “feeling” good one day, dead the next. I have a tremor in my neck, my hands that won’t go away. My ears sing like crickets some days, or cicadas the next, or a tintinning ocean tide. This is an orchestra of sick, perhaps of death, a death bloom of infection that grows and grows. I begin my third bout of antibiotics tomorrow.

Yet, this is another journey for my book to explain. Another parallel degradation of myself, burned into my main character as he trods toward the climax. This is a climax that may never happen, where my journey disrupts the flow of words by ending before the book does. Last semester I worried I won’t finish my finals if I can’t get this under control. This semester I worry I won’t see July.

What is July but a marker of time? I joked to a friend that I lived longer than Jesus, that this was my Jesus year of 33, and at least I have that accomplishment. Perhaps only just. Perhaps not. And what are accomplishments but markers of time spent?

And even this, this post, this discussion, is my strange way of pushing forward. I only realize that now, subconsciously everything planned out before I realize: one class requires short stories, and last night I worried I’d have nothing to write. Nothing at all. And I worried I’d sit for days in front of a computer screen and write nothing, all stopped up like a wine cork pushed too far in the bottleneck. This is not nothing. It’s about nothing. The fear of nothing. The fear of whole, abstract existence. The fear of not finishing. But why? But why is a good question.

Despite all the strangeness of this sickness, my conscious self and subconscious self are so in tandem I find joy in the simple understanding that still, I create.

A Little Bit Sick, a Little Bit Rock and Roll

Personal update post! I know! They’re so exciting I can hear my followers running for the hills. Haha

First, I feel that for every personal update, I need a selfie. This is me putting myself out there to those interested (and not otherwise connected to me).

Projects Post Update

I don’t do this often, but I’ve decided to post an update on the writing projects I’m currently working on. I’ll post it as a list, where the name of the MC is identifier of series.

Soren-

Of Salt and Wine finally finished. While I think this novel is now editor-worthy, I’ve spent a lot of time in the past few days thinking about how I want to move forward with this. The ending is, honestly, weak. A lot of people, I’m sure, after reading some of the ups and downs, will come to the climax and go, “Oh. What?” I don’t like that feeling. It’s a solid book, with a solid story, but the ending becomes a little too cardboard and expected. So, after serious consideration, I’ve decided it’s still not finished. It will end in the graveyard, with Soren alone, at the unmarked grave. Demons will be held at bay. Church will continue as planned, only churchgoers will observe the physical side of the battle from the windows.

Of Earth and Blood is now in the move to be the next book proofread/rewritten. I currently have it, as a second in a series, with a plot devoid of the first novel’s characters. As is true with Soren’s life, every person he  gets close to ends up taking a step back. This is true for the previous novel’s characters. I’m not sure if it’s the best idea: I reinforced Soren’s second-in-command by forcing her to experience everything beside Soren. This had a twofold benefit by lending credibility that Soren wasn’t just crazy/hallucinating, and by creating a character development/bonding between the two. The second book, Soren does the loner/emo man act of telling Wren (his second) she can’t come along with him. She’s upset, so she protects him from a distance, all she can. She saves his life, at the end, in a second climax. Perhaps she should be beside him the whole time. He’s the kind of guy that doesn’t regret his decisions, so why should he regret Wren’s decision to stay around after book one?

Shane –

RedWingBlack has somewhat died. I wrote a chapter on it two days (or so) ago, and it turned into a paragraphed list of stuff he did. I could argue he’s in shock, or his humor’s unimportant in times of crisis, but the whole point of the novel was his rolling wit pushing the story forward. If not, I don’t see the point of it being first person narrative. Also, his figment has turned into a cutout. He’s gotta go through the wringer, or else I’ll be putting him to bed wet. Still undecided where I want the second half of the book to go: sociopolitical commentary or sex/survivalism a la wanted outlaws? I don’t know. I had a momentum I’ve since lost. I’ll continue to search for it while further pondering possibilities.

Nautilu –

I’ve been ramping this high fantasy back up in the past few days, mostly due to my interest in reading (or trying to read) Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I’m four chapters into book one, and I’m enjoying it. It’s moving me forward, mentally. Plus the wife continues to respond favorably toward this writing style/choice. I need a high fantasy in my life, I think. I haven’t pursued one since the original Acorn King, and it had too little magic to really get my thoughts flowing. Worldbuilding is both cathartic and mentally expansive. The idea of having a battle of religious beliefs frankly makes my skin tingle with anticipation. At what cost, we create our gods? At what cost, when we find them real?

Isabella –

Prisn is at a standstill. While it flew in on the wings of loneliness, Mitchell’s Erotikon, and a well-placed poem by Jane Hirshfield (The Present), said inspiration has left for less gloomy climates. American Gothic works best for those lonely souls haunted by decisions made or not, and unfortunately I’m become too busy with my job and a loving wife to linger too deeply in such a place. I also must heavily research electricity, quantum physics, metaphysics, and historical facts of the early 20th century in order to make this flow. The good news is I wrote the entire outline. Perhaps, that is the bad news as well: now that the story’s written, at least in part, I no longer have an interest in making it beautiful. I don’t know. Time will tell.

Lotus –

My time travel project is at a standstill. Chocolate Spiderbite will have to wait for a different time. Perhaps Christmas. Or when I’m poor again.

David –

David and His Shade has also stopped. It’s finished and halfway through first rewrite. I don’t have to do much with the thing. It practically wrote itself. But I also believe it won’t be published anytime soon due to the inundation and oversaturation of Harry Potter-esque writing. Nobody wants to read something moderately deeper than HP, and I understand why.  I’m in danger of being to Rowling as Terry Goodkind was to Tolkien. Not happening. Perhaps this novel will never see the light of day. Perhaps it will be self-published. I only need the funds and the decision to move forward. I’ll soon have the former. I’ll be waiting on the latter until, oh, two years down the road I think…

Gives me time to pay off cars, debt, get some savings, and get settled into my new job.

Haley –

Project 1 might be dead for a real long time. Until I get my inspiration back (read: my wife quits work and is allowed to pursue her own incredibly dynamic research), I’ll be looking at this little piece of literature as a moment in time. I need mystical inspiration, not literary or cinematic, and growing up in the Midwest… there are so few truly believable mystics around, it’s sad.

The real reason for this post is I have a new computer, I’m sitting and staring at five more hours of transfer time before my old computer is emptied and the new one is full. I can’t write because my works are in limbo, and I can’t shut this bad boy down until it’s finished.

Next steps, for everything, is getting queries out for Of Salt and Wine and David and His Shade, and for me to keep pushing RedWingBlack. It’s the most marketable, but then, it’s also the least fantastic. And the most hollow.

Happy fourth, everyone. May freedom continue to ring.