Hermit-like Ambitions
Every autumn, without fail, I get into this mood. It’s had its variants over the years, but one thing has always resurfaced consistently: the urge to write an autumn-themed sappy romance with violent indulgences in fiery leaves, scarves, pumpkins, apple-pies and other things that would make anyone who knows the gist of my more serious work want to vomit. I’ve tried this in various degrees over the past three years. One was called Salamander, which inadvertently burgeoned into an epic high fantasy, Autumn Waker, which no demon of any religion or spiritual concept can get me to talk about, and then A Whispered Eulogy. Each one crashed and burned rather spectacularly in one way or another–one collapsed under it’s own weight, another was glanced at by several editor friends who promptly drowned in the hormones and were never seen again, and the last was glimpsed by some before I promptly deep-sixed it somewhere in my folders.
The root of this dreadful disease actually comes from something I experienced in 2004, days before I started the original Hellion (parts of which suffered heavily from autumnitus in its own right). Part of me has been toying with the idea of sitting down and just bloody writing what actually happened that day. Some people have even recommended that I do. But several things are holding me back. I think the biggest one is that the experience still makes me hurt, even four years down the line. Not so much because of anything anyone did, but just the raw intensity of the events. It’s good, I suppose. People have said intensity is the strongest part of my writing. But what do you do when the feelings are so uncontrolled that you can’t think of the idea, even though you love it?
This is a story that’s been trying to escape me for a while. In each of my last works–Salamander, and A Whispered Euology more-so–the story pretty much relives the experience vicariously. There are scenes in the latter that were lifted almost verbatim from what I remember in term so feeling and execution. Part of me wants to open up the document again and throw it back together. AWE isn’t terrible. It’s just written terribly and suffers from “teh sap.” Most of it was extracted from my unconscious in the midst of a writing slump so there are parts where it feels really forced. But then again, most of the good crap from AWE are in The Lantern Fly now. So I really can still write it–and I’m going to.
If I can find the bloody time! Raaaaghaghaghagh.
Another thing about this time of year is that it makes a hermit of me. When I’m in full writing mode–which usually happens in the fall for some reason–I usually shut myself away from everything. That’s difficult when you’re either making lattes or doing homework.
Onwards, upwards.