Musings on a Windy Day

I am afraid of myself.  When I set my books free, I exposed my soul.  I am naked for the world to judge.  I am tough, but I am not sure how tough.  I have not had any critics yet, but there is always someone eager to dissect, analyze, and berate everything ever written.  I must not crumble if my thoughts are ripped apart.  I must see any harsh words as suggestions for improvement and not.  My writing may be fiction, but it is undeniably me -- my thoughts, my imaginary friends and adversaries brought to life, my demons splattered upon a pristine page.  A writer must wear plate armor so her inner demons do not injure her as they rush into the world with claws aloft.

No matter what, I will always be able to call myself a writer.  I am not aspiring, I have written.  I set forth on an uncertain journey, and although I am far from its conclusion, I have completed the quests I laid on my own head.  At some point I had to stop editing and say to myself, "That was the last word I am changing.  This task is complete."  I am now working toward completion for the fifth time.  Then I must move on to the sixth, which is a 2/3 complete first draft with some brutal demons of its own to overcome.  Then what next?  A fork in the road.  I can see it.  With Absolution I finally reach the end of the Malora quest line and must choose to go left or right into the next world of my creation.

I revisit my old inspirations as I rewrite The Crystal Lattice.  Some creatures were inspired by food that rotted in my refrigerator during a multi-day power outage during the summer of 2003, the summer I started writing my first book.  There are characters inspired by people who I loathed so much that just hearing their names made me angry.  And in the middle of everything is a narrator inspired by a narcoleptic daydream I had while hiking in the Ozarks alone.  These are snapshots of my life as a twenty-one year old.  I matured with my character and found he was a different person at the end than he was at the beginning, the way all good characters should be.  I am rewriting his words but keeping the heart of who he is -- an innocent and naive creature who must find his own path in his world or always be left aspiring and doing nothing of interest.

Synesthesia

To a lot of people, I am some sort of freak.

I feel sound.  Sometimes I taste it, but mostly feel it.  I hear it as well, but my senses are both crossed and parallel.  I have no idea why my senses are like this, but it might be a result of childhood epilepsy.  Auditory-tactile synesthesia.

Music can be physical ecstasy or intense pain.  I have near perfect pitch because it hurts me when a note is out of tune.  That is why I would rather be in the band than listen to it most of the time.  Trumpets and piccolos stab at my nerves.   Marimbas are as close as I can get to a massage without being touched.

I have a hard time with names and words.  I won't go into names because the names I loathe are often the ones others love.  Some words are horrendous, like cheese graters being raked along my face.  Many are a slap, a punch, or just a creeping feeling along my spine.  I avoid many words in my speech, and they are fine when written, but hearing them spoken is a different manner.  I have to deal with it and ignore it, but if I pay attention at all, the feeling is still there.  I am still having sand paper rubbed over my hands and needles shoved into my jaw.  I taste what drain cleaner smells like, taste astringent, chemical, disgusting.

These are some of the words I hate.  The meanings are irrelevant.  Maybe I hate them, maybe they hate me.  Perhaps it is mutual loathing.  My love for the written language does not extend to verbalization, and I find it occasionally distressing.

purse, ma'am, panties, slacks, spew, reticulate, regurgitate, plethora, placid, flaccid, squid, squire, square, squander, squawk, smack, fidget, swab, hubby, pew, caulk, junior, scrumptious, squabble, sixth, bifurcate, slap, appetite, spray, colloid, spleen, flake, flub, perpetuate, squabble

Synesthesia can be entertaining and isn't always unpleasant.  On the opposite side of the spectrum, I have lovely words like miasma, solace, crystalline, gravity, adiabatic, attrition, cinder, beryllium, electric, sonnet, and stellar.  Those trigger more favorable tactile responses.  Silky strokes and soft, cottony dabs.  Minuscule massages along my temples.  Sometimes I'll taste something sweet, not overly, just a small grain of sugar on my tongue or a hint of maple.


Sigh...  This is why we are going to have such a hard time naming our next child.