Archive for March 2004

31st

Still no story update, but if the e-mails I've been getting are any indication, ya'll want to know what's going on. I don't usually like to get too personal on my site, even if I do disclose a lot of personal information in individual e-mails to those who ask, but it sounds like I need to give an explanation for my long absence, so here goes.

My childhood was not a happy place, and unfortunately, I have to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to deal with it (or not deal with it, as the case usually is). I have what most of you probably know as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), though it's now called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). For me, it's not like what you see in the movies or on TV, mostly because I've spent a lot of time becoming co-conscious (that's where all the people, or 'alters', know about each other, instead of when one person comes out, the rest are 'blacked out' and don't know what's going on, which creates some serious problems). I'm actually quite comfortable with having DID. It's like having a family inside, one that loves me, as opposed to my birth family. It's also what allows me to write so many different stories and switch points of view and create new characters, etc.

The downside to being co-conscious, though, is that I no longer 'switch' when something starts to freak me out (which is just about all the time). Instead, I have anxiety attacks all day and a lot of my energy goes into just maintaining. I was on medication when I was a kid, but it totally dulled me out, and I know that's not what I need. I need to feel, so I can let go of all my fear and anger and grief over what happened to me when I was a kid. Besides, I can suppress those feelings quite well on my own (except for the fear; that one always seems to get past my defenses).

Anyway, after having an endoscopy a few months ago to check that the Nexium I've been taking has been helping my acid reflux (after which I found out I have 3 gallstones, but since I'm not feeling any pain, I've postponed having surgery just yet), I decided to try medication again because the drugs they gave me for the endoscopy totally wiped out my anxiety for about four hours. I've never felt free of fear in my life. It was amazing. And it wasn't a happy high, either. I just wasn't scared. I got to enjoy the day with Corene and hold hands with her and tell her (and feel) how much I love her without freaking out from my intimacy issues, etc.

So, for the past couple months, I've been trying different medications in an attempt to lessen my anxiety, so that I can do stuff like sleep or let my girlfriend touch me without flinching (that only happens when I can't see her about to touch me, but I still don't like it). So far, I have been side effect central. For the 5 weeks I was on Paxil CR, I slept 20 hours a day and was a zombie for the few hours I was awake. I also didn't write a single word during that time, which I didn't like at all (despite being in the middle of an anxiety attack most of the time, I still write just about every day, except weekends, which I try to spend with my girlfriend and focus on her exclusively). Now, I've started Wellbutrin and have been writing up a storm (I was kind of stuck on how Paradigm Shift was going to work, but now I have a nearly complete outline that I wrote 2 days after getting off the Paxil). However, even though my anxiety level is starting to calm down, I'm starting to have stuff come up therapy-wise (probably because I'm starting to feel safe enough and calm enough to feel it now). Plus, my girlfriend is starting to have her own issues come up regarding her family and their fuck-upped-ness, so I need to be there for her as much as possible.

Anyway, with all this stuff going on, my confidence level in posting updates has been really low. I do have the next two chapters of POW basically done (I just need to finish up the last corrections I received from my BetaWolf group, but they arrived right when I was beginning the Paxil, and I just didn't have the energy to do anything with them). I also have a chapter of Lights of Life done that I haven't sent to beta yet because I haven't felt like I could handle any criticism at the moment, and I think that's vital to my writing process. I need to know where I'm fucking up or I'm never going to improve, but when I'm feeling fragile, I see no reason to subject myself to a situation I know is not going to boost my confidence. That's about all I have done enough to post, though. The rest of the stories I've been working on (mostly unposted stuff like The Trine and Paradigm Shift) are in various states of incompletion, and I really don't want to post anything else that isn't finished. That's how I got into this situation in the first place. :)

So, that's what's been going on with me. I'm sorry if this was more information than you wanted to know, but I felt like I needed to explain, instead of just saying, 'Sorry, still no story updates.' I mean the stuff I said before about being busy with the wedding and wanting my stories to be as polished as possible before posting them is still true, but there's a lot more to it than that, and I just didn't like being only half-honest.

I think since I keep getting inquiries despite what I've requested here in the past about being patient, I'm going to try to update this page more often, maybe just talk about the stories I'm working on or something. I've thought about doing something similar in the past, like creating a web journal where I could note which stories I worked on, where I'm stuck, what's working, what I need to research, etc., but I think my What's New page is good enough. Besides, if I created a 'journal' page, I'd still just end up having to post the news that I'd updated the journal page on this page anyway, so what's the difference? :)

As the first update along those lines, here's what I've been working on since I got off the Paxil:

Paradigm Shift - After finishing the sex scene in Chapter 26 of Bloodlines, I knew pretty much where I wanted to take the story, but I wasn't sure how to make it work. Two days after I got off the Paxil, my brain kicked in, and I came up with a whole new story to lead into what I wanted to do in Paradigm Shift that will hopefully bring it all together, while still leaving room for future stories. I'm calling it Blood Moon for the time being. I'm still deciding how much I want to give away about the story, so that's all I'm going to say about it right now.

The Trine - Before I started messing with my brain chemistry, I had been reading a lot of 'how to improve your writing' articles and realized that one of my characters was too perfect, while the others had very little arc to their characters in relation to the main hero of the story who had all the arc. Since I consider it an ensemble cast, I felt all the characters should have their own story arcs, something the other characters could both push them toward and hold them back from. So, I've begun rewriting the whole damn thing. It's not as bad as it sounds, though. Mostly, it's just a reformatting of scenes I've already written and a lot of the same events will take place. It's just the characters that will be different. For example, instead of being all understanding in the beginning, a character will have to learn that trait, so that we don't see it until the end of the story, after we've gotten to go along on their journey with them.

Well, that's pretty much it. The rest of my writing has been focused on my personal stuff or for the wedding site I've built so I can share stuff with my family, since they don't live near me.

I'm going to make a concerted effort to keep updating this page, even if I don't have a story update so you know what's going on. And hey, doing this may help me get through my confidence problem so I can actually post what I've got.

Well, take care.