I have not come to peace with what’s happening, but if the worst is coming, and I suspect it is, what’s helping me arrive at a kind of grief-based acceptance is knowing that we are reaping what we sowed. I think of children in Gaza, how much worse they had it than even we will, and the fact that we didn’t rise up enough then (the ‘we’ here is general). We didn’t rise up enough for anything, because at least we were comfortable when it was happening elsewhere; we didn’t want to be inconvenienced. And now it’s here, and maybe we deserve that, even those who never actively chose it, because we passively accepted it. It’s the imperial boomerang: what they do to others, they will absolutely do to you. If you think you’re in the safe group, think again.

I’m continuing to fight in the only way I know how, and it is so small and nominal and discouraging. But I’m not convinced that justice, kindness, and reason will prevail over cruelty, bluster, and bigotry, at least not for a long while.

News:

None

Works in progress:

I finished the second round of edits for the Dracula reimagining, bringing the total word count from around 94K to 92K. I’m very pleased with it. However, I don’t think anything’s going to come of it for a long time. I can’t get excited by publication if I’m not sure the publication is going to stick. By the time I’m ready, if I’m able, I’ll probably have to retool it as a period piece or bring it into what will then be the modern world. But the bucket-list novel has been finished, so I guess that’s something.

I’m working on cutting down the synopsis. Who would have thought that a reasonably sized novel would yield such a long synopsis? I usually write the synopsis during my second edit, because I don’t like writing synopses and it helps to cut it down into manageable parts as I work through the novel, and I forgot to this time, so maybe that’s part of the problem. Once I have the synopsis, though, I have the essence of the story, which helps me then put together the pitch.

Once I’m finished with the Dracula reimagining, I’ll start editing Tattered & Torn (Meridian 6); I have a contract to continue working on the series as able. After that, I’ll probably go ahead and edit Tooth & Claw (Meridian 7) to finish out the series, even though I had an inkling of an idea for an eighth novel.

I might not even edit Masque for a second time, because like I said, I’m feeling no joy toward publication at the moment. The last three weeks have felt like three years; I’m unable to look away. I don’t know what the next few months hold, but until my joy returns, I may not be in the best position to write. I am, at heart, a Romantic. Wordsworth described the Romantic approach thus: “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” The relevant part here is, of course, ‘recollected in tranquility.’

That’s what I mean when I say my future is gone. Recall Emmy Rossum’s character in The Day After Tomorrow: “How am I supposed to adjust, Sam? Everything I’ve ever cared about, everything I’ve worked for… has all been preparation for a future that no longer exists.” My whole life has been about writing, but if speech and expression become no longer free (and there are many bills in the works on the state and federal level that will make that so, and a judiciary branch that we can’t depend upon to stop them), what has it all been for?

I prepared for the possibility that a stroke or traumatic brain injury might steal writing from me. I didn’t see this coming. Not really.

But I can try and make similar adjustments that I was planning if those things ever happened. Should I survive. The usual entertainment comfort food isn’t working, because most of it was shot and set in what seems like another world, and in most of them, wrongs are righted and monsters can be defeated. It’ll be interesting to see how art, high and low, treats the world we’re in now.

Books I’m Reading:

The Fisherman by John Langan
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Alien Secrets by Annette Curtis Klause

Things I’m Listening To:

Agnes Obel
Fleurie
Joy Oladokun
Lily Kershaw
Odessa
Patty Griffin
Ruelle
Sarah McLachlan
Sea Stars
Soren Bryce

Things I’m Watching:

Hannibal series
Will Trent series
Celebrity Jeopardy series
Grey’s Anatomy series
The Equalizer series
S.W.A.T. series
Found series
The Irrational series
Abbott Elementary series
Home Town series
White Collar series
NCIS series
Columbo series