Has the Muse ... Returned?

Oh, man.  What a night.

My beautiful, amazing, wondrous, brilliant wife stayed up with me until 9:30 this morning.  That's right, 9:30 a.m.  We were working together, exchanging ideas, brainstorming.  We discarded ideas, identified deal-breaking issues, found flaws, backed up, went forward ... changing directions, shifting focus, fluid, in motion.

We bantered.  We tried to defend our arguments, our notions.  We failed.  We backed up again.  Zigging, zagging, weaving, bobbing and turning.  We agreed, then tried to destroy it again.  It held up.  We searched for flaws, found them, went silent.  Then we solved them.  Things started falling into place, one after another, one discarded idea coming back into play to be the shoring factor for another idea.

As the dawn's light grew to the morning sun, we had it.  We had it, and we felt more sure of it than we did the last time this happened, only scant weeks ago.  It was exciting.  It was workable.  It was solid.

And it's something we can write.  We can write it now.

I think we finally solved our plot problem.  The best part of all is, we don't have to change a thing.

I think I can write again.  I think our Muse has returned.

Stupid late-arrival bitch.  'Bout time.

Look for more fiction from me soon.  Maybe next week soon.  Thanks for believing in me, friends.  I love you all.  And babe?  It's not my story.  It's our story.  I couldn't have done it without your help.  Thank you.  I love you.

-JDT-

Technorati Tags: writing, random thoughts

Once Again, the Traffic Whore is Humbled

I just had a personal best day of page views on my WordPress account. I can't believe how the blogosphere has come to view my stuff today, and a fair number of the views are in Ghost Hunters. Looks like someone's reading it. I sure hope you're enjoying it, whoever you are.

The outpouring of support, encouragement, and yeah, love, dammit!, for my writing here and other places in cyberspace means a tremendous amount to me, everyone. Thank you all. Thank you all so much. I mean that. You've moved me to the bottom of my black, hard and unfeeling heart. You have. I'm so grateful.

Thank you.

When I get my Pulitzer Prize, I'll forget all of you and bask in the radiance of my own splendor, but thanks for letting me stand on your shoulders to make myself feel better today. (Just kidding. I won't just bask in my own splendor, I'll boast about it too.)

God bless you all, commenter and lurker alike. I'm really, really glad for you.

-JDT-

Technorati Tags: blogging, random thoughts

Wow! A GLOWING Review!

All right, bloglodytes/blogizens/buds and supporters -- I need to share this with you because ... well, because.  Time for me to strut a li'l bit, y'all.  :)

As some of you may know, and all of you will now know, I have a page on an artists community.  The web space is called deviantART, located at, logically enough, http://deviartart.com/.  So, about three years ago (maybe a shade under), I started falling back in love with drawing.  It was a wondrous thing to behold.  I'd set my art aside for decades at a time, and whenever I reconnect with it, it's magical to me.  It's sort of like intimacy with my wife.  Doesn't happen a lot, but when it does ... fireworks, y'know?  (TMI.  Sorry.)

Anyway, all the same pieces of fiction I post here on my blog, I also post there.  (Among other places, like my Wiki spaces, one of which is here.)  And, I actually have a couple of regulars there.  Doesn't sound like a big deal, when over here on WP I've got  Sherri, and Raga, and Bryce, and my beloved one, and a bunch of people (apparently) that are lurkers, reading but not commenting.  And then there's Ian, and UnderCanopy, too.  So I love my readers here, and a tiny smattering of them over there shouldn't matter so much as the close ones I've met here, I guess, but I care.  Mostly because ... well, because I love my readers.  I do.  Anyone that reads my writing has an automatic in-road to my heart, and I'm schmaltzy like that.

Recently, I'd been cruising around on dA, looking at the pages of the folks who've visited my page.  I have a really, really low page count, though, so whenever someone stops by I try to send them a thank you note for stopping by.  The problem with dA is that it's primarily for visual artists: people who can draw, paint, take and/or manipulate photos ... things like that.  So visitors are able to stop by, see some of your gallery and decide whether they want to see more of you.  If they like your stuff a lot, they can "watch" you -- that's the dA equivalent of "friending" someone on MySpace, just so you know.  You'll be notified whenever the artists posts new art, etc.

I was visiting the visitors of my page, and I came across someone who's a writer, and by reading the comments on their work, it led me to other pages.  Pretty soon, I found one from a lady that's a pretty doggone good writer.  I've not met many on dA, sadly, but she was ... well, she's pretty doggone good.  I started reading one of her stories, which was serialized just as my Ghost Hunters story was, and I was immediately hooked.  I read the entire piece last night.  And I've never done that before with a dA writer ... ever.

So I left her a comment.  Before I knew it, she was commenting back to me, telling me thanks for reading, glad you like it, blah blah.  Well, if you're familiar at all with those situations, you know it's generally considered common courtesy to read someone's work if they've read yours.  She picked Witch Hunt instead of Ghost Hunters, probably because it was only three parts (so far) instead of the whopping 95K word, 47-segment ordeal of the latter.  At any rate, I didn't know she was reading it, and I generally don't want folks to feel compelled to read my work just because I've read theirs.  That's the wrong reason for doing it anyway, and I won't take it personally.  Reading is a major investment of time and thought.  It's not easily undertaken, especially with a big project.  Right, Sherri?  :)

Well, this afternoon, I had a comment from this nice lady.  We'd exchanged a couple of them today, about various things, random thoughts, and when I read it I nearly did a spit-take on my screen with my coffee from shock.  Here it is, verbatim, copied and pasted from my dA page:

Okay, I reread this hoping to provide some helpful criticism. Here goes: This is great. No kidding. I couldn't find a single s[c]rew up, or typo, or grammatical error -- or even something I just plain didn't like. My opinion cou[n]ts too, because I taught creative writing for three years, composition for three more, and have been writing professionally for ad agencies, magazines and a newspaper for over 24 more! If I received this piece as sample pages to consider for publication, I would demand more immediately. Don't you wish I was an agent? Yeah, me too. Anyway, I'm off to part two.

BADDA-BING, PEOPLE!!  Okay, Sherri-berry, say it with me now; ready?

WOOOOO!!!

That ... that left me absolutely speechless.  Oh, and a little teary.  I tried to find some fumbling words of gratitude to express, but I just kept gushing.  So I gave up.  But I was blown away.

That's not the end of it, either.  She commented on all the other parts of "Witch Hunt" too, and she picked up a typo I missed along the way.

Needless to say, I'm on a euphoric, endorphin-driven high from which I sha'n't come down ... until someone says they don't like it, of course.  Then I'll slide into a dark, brooding depression, bubbling like the swamps of Dagoba, grunting like Yoda, and I won't emerge from that for a while.  Back and forth I'll go.

Right now, though, I'm high.

If you're in the mood for a gritty, kinky sorta mature-reader oriented story with a lot of punch, suspense, tension and professional-quality prose, check out this wonderful author's dA page at http://denlm.deviantart.com.  The story is called "Jon.com", but she's got others, too.  You have to sign up for dA to comment, I believe, but you might find an email address for her there somewhere.  Drop her a line and give her your feedback, if you want.  She enjoys quality critiques.

I'm going to bask now.  Thanks.

:)

-JDT-

wordpress Tags: writing, random thoughts, reviews, critiques

Technorati Tags: writing, random thoughts, reviews, critiques

A Busy Day on the Blogosphere

Well ... I can tell by my hit count the holidays are over and you're all back to your routines of reading and being read, sharing thoughts and catching up with fellow blogophiles.  (Blogizens?  Bloglodytes?)  It's nice to see you all again, and I hope your holiday season was happy, healthy, fun and safe, but most of all, richly blessed.

Those of you who never left already know I sure appreciated your company through the time.  It was fun to be so close and intimate with a few of you, and to spend quiet winter evenings, muffled by the snow, with you.  Sipping eggnog and brandy, Irish coffee and hot cocoa by the fireside in our comfy leather wingbacks, talking quietly in the deep stillness of the winter chill ... I can't think of any time more well-spent.

For those of you who are resolution-makers, what are they?  Have you written them down yet?  You should, you know; they become more real and less easily forgotten -- or forsaken -- when you do.  ;)

I just had my second-best day ever, in terms of page views, according my handy li'l stat counter here on WP's dashboard.  Thanks for stopping by, and for those of you indulging in the serial fiction -- I sure hope you like it.  It was a lot of fun to write, and I promise -- by all that is holy, I promise!! -- I'm going to continue working on a new one.  Maybe not the one I've started (because I've not been happy with its plot so far), but on something new, I promise.  Bear with me; the muse will return eventually.  She'd better ... the bitch.

Ahem.  Sorry.

So, anyway ... yes, I'm still sorely lacking in inspiration.  I've been trying to re-examine what I've plotted in my new story, and at the same time ask myself if that's the story I want to write now.  In the meanwhile, I've come to grips with the idea that I have something pressing on me now, something urgent, something I need to resolve really quickly.  It's urgent, it's critical and it's not going away.  It's not going well, either.  I have to take care of that issue first, before I move easily into fiction.  If I can get some things happening there, I can focus more fully on writing.  You know, relax ... create ... let the imaginative bowels move, if you will.  (Okay, that was yucky.  Sorry.)

Whatever turns out in these areas, I'm happy to see you all back.  For those who felt my last post was a little moody ... you're right.  It was.  I'm fighting depression along with a lot of pressure from life in general, but hey -- who's not?  I apologize, I wasn't trying to be a downer.  I hope you liked the prose, though.  It was as close as I may have ever come to capturing my emotional state in words.

Have fun going back to work, and we'll talk again soon.  I promise.

:)

-JDT-

Technorati Tags: life, blogging, random thoughts, writing

The End of Things

The heavy, slate-gray sky is wet and low, pregnant with rain. The water rushes with suicidal abandon at the moist sandy beach, the frothy foam-fringed waves casting like doily-draped seals onto the minuscule particles of silica. They are opaque against the crisp snap of the winter air as they explode into shards that roll and scatter up toward the land before collapsing in on themselves to retreat, regroup and surge the shore again, breaching upon the land in an unending dance made more dramatic by the gloom.

I watch the sunlight dying behind the sodden blanket of overcast that stretches to the horizon and beyond, feeling the sting of the mist on my face and the tears pressed from my eyes by the steady wind. It is never fully aggressive and yet unyielding, tossing my hair away from my face as I stare at the growing, gathering storm. I feel the pressure against the fullness of my body, pushing against me, a constant drag away, back, inland. The fading light retreats to dimness slowly enough for me to garner my thoughts and try to marshal my self control.

This is the last day of 2007. It's a time for many to take survey of what they've done, achieved, gained, lost, how they've grown, changed, regressed, stagnated. It's a time of taking stock, of inventorying things, personally and relationally, and a time for assessment. In that vein, I am no different than anyone else. At this time of year, starting around my birthday, I generally begin to look at my life with a critical eye and see what was done right, what wasn't; what needs to change and what I'd like to change.

So much. So little. Not enough. Too much. Abundance, want, plenty, need. A constant, spinning dance that never seems fully in step, in rhythm, in concert. There is hope. There is despair. There is longing, there is joy. There is laughter, ever tempered by the stream of tears. There is the constant questioning, wondering, pondering. Prayer and action, paralysis and frenzy, faith and worry and weakness and strength. So much. So little. Not enough. Too much.

There is change. There is stagnation. There is wonder, there is bewilderment. There is elation, there is sorrow. Friends lost, friends gained, life cut short and life anew. There is so much agony, so much ecstasy, so much to embrace and so much to reject, to eject, discard, amputate.

The wind gusts harder for a moment, trying to stagger me back, making me shift my weight on my legs to steady myself in the growing, impending darkness. I hear and feel the waves rise and fall, crashing and dashing against the shoreline again and again, rumbling in their frustration. The wearing will constantly nick away, chip away, erode away at the shoreline. The sound is so beautiful, like the most exquisite music, its major lifts and minor falls harmonizing in the rhythmic pulse of the sea. Eventually the shore is breached, a bit of it lost forever to the constant, relentless, inexorable sea, gnashing and clawing gently and persistently.

So much to do. So little time. So much languishing, so little rejuvenating. Aging, shrinking, the world growing dim. Faculties lost; memories forgotten, retreating into the recesses of the unknown. How much longer? How many more grains of sand, like this beach, left in the hourglass? I can feel the significance through my feet, my legs, thrumming through my body like the heartbeat that is fading in me. Each drumming tattoo taking me closer to the edge, farther from the beginning. The road is long and treacherous. We've no guide, no map, no navigator, no sextant, no stars. Only the clouds, swirling and threatening overhead, low but out of reach, ominous and beyond attack or retaliation. Mockingly near, tauntingly heavy, looming, beyond grasp and without mercy or malice.

I smell the salt air sharply, tipping my head to fill my lungs with the air, full of the sea. I hear the wind riffling through my ears, blotting out every other sound. My eyes drift closed, my mind emptied by the rush of the sinister storm filling my very being with the ocean it carries.

The end of the year. The end of things. I feel the mist on my face again, knowing something is there, in the dark, hurling the sea at me in tiny, invisible droplets that will try to leave me sopping and dripping. When the rain comes at last, my tears will be lost forever in it.

The storm is growing. The year is dying. The light is receding.

-JDT-