Why I should never read fiction when writing anything at all ...

“It can’t be like this,” I say, turning away.

“We’re only on the third page.”

“I know. But this story — this novel? — it feels too much like a book the author is reading, in tone if not in content. We can’t be allowed to exist.”

“But this isn’t that book. This was never that book. We existed before the author read that book!”

“Even so. This version of the story is starting to echo the novel he is reading. It is a matter of principle.”

“But I don’t want to die, brother.”

“We’ll exist. The story will find a new form. Some day.”

“I don’t. Want to die.”

“It is a matter of principle.”

Ah, revising novels...

It turned out I had considered re-writing Higher Ground briefly last year, to the tone of about 8 pages of notes on characters and the setting. Which apparently had involved changing the names of all the characters, a truly ridiculous amount of detail for the setting. Seriously, brain: what possibly use could notes on the education system of the Kingdom possibly have for a novel involving 2 brothers ending up on another world? And, alas, all the setting and character notes tossed out the baby with the bathwater, as it were.

I believe I was attempting a clean start to the novel by altering even the relationship between the brothers but one reader who had liked the first version intimated, half of why the novel worked was because of the idea of the younger brother rescuing the older. So I'm basically deleting all that as useless and building notes from the original idea, though I think I will not even attempt to include some things that didn't make even the original version of the story.

For example, I had notes on a 'species' called the Krisk, as follows:
"Krisk: What the coat hanger people call themselves, or perhaps the sound they make when parts of their body rub together. Their language is very hard for others to understand and since most people who meet them are more concerned with not being shredded and hung on various hangers little is known about them at all except that they’re very scary. "

... so, yeah, somehow I never did use that at all in the 2004 version. And won't in any other, for some reason.

Mental Rummagings

I am no longer a fan of epic fantasy: reading bucketloads of it in high school turned me off of them, to the point that trying to read one about 7 years ago by an author I liked proved impossible. On the other hand, most everything I've written for the past few years has been set in the modern world, or at least a recognizable facsimile thereof. I am hoping to do sci-fi for nanowrimo this year, but sci-fi is just -- at heart -- extrapolating on the present.

The crappier the present, more dystopic (or, in reacting to all that, utopic) the sci-fi settings are for that period. The novel is set in the future, but it is also a meditation of privacy and cameras and a big-brother/ID tagging society, so the core of it is set in present worries and concerns. Fair enough: a novel without relevance isn't one anyone would want to read.

And yet it feels like a long-term rut, in a lot of ways, and I find my mind straying back to fantasy worlds that never-were and considering settings and character ideas for such a story again. Part of me wants to revise an old novel from 2004 about two brothers who end up on another world and whose goal is to get home, the one brother worried about rent and his car being towed because most 'travel to another world' novels tend to ignore issues like that and it royally bugged me. On the flip side, while the novel I write now would be a lot better I am not sure I'd be saying anything new to add to the concept. The other idea involves the stereotypical 'prince sets off on quest' from the POV of the prince's manservant wondering how the hell the King and Guard and so forth are letting this happen and would lead the prince and servant to realizing how little power the throne really has and such.

I may write one of those. I may not. Hell, I could end up doing one of them for nano given my brain. It would be a fun change at least.

Words

We only have one word for sorry

But I don't think its enough.

You loved me once, perhaps as much

As I thought I loved you:

I saw the signs but can ignore

As well as I can see.

There is none so blind as the foolish ones

Who pluck out their own eyes.

I thought that love would see us through,

That faith would be enough.

Yours was weaker (or mine too deep):

You saw that it would end.

I’m jealous that you saw that truth,

I hate you for breaking us up.

Only now do I see that I always

Hated you as I loved you

In equal measure.

Love Lost

I wait now, surrounded by silence,

Looking for the pause between breaths;

Desperate to understand, in words left behind

Or half spoken: silent gestures

My only clues.

I listen for the spaces that lie between

Saying and meaning, motion and confusion.

Perhaps you thought I replaced meaning with words

When I said I loved you.

I should have seen the hints in your hesitancy,

The recalled touch, that too long stare.

You told me I knew you better than anyone:

It was because of that I didn't see as deeply as I could.

Even though it’s now too late

I'm listening to you and not to love

Or who I thought you were.

Conversations

Knives pound into the brain,

Needles stab into the heart:

You speak, and words rush out

Seeking their pound of flesh.

I reach for my own weapons --

Sarcasm, humour, wit:

Ripostes stabbing back into you,

I will your heart to bleed.

Falling Into Another

The first word I pronounced was -- your name.

So frail a thing, seemingly too simple

To bridge the gaps it does, the loneliness.

I needed you as a friend, each smile warming me;

A welcome I have done so little to deserve.

I could pull myself together and say I love you

But those words are too easy to say

And mean too much to be said so casually.

In order to be able to fall into love

You must believe you are worth being loved.

I only know that I care for you

So much that it frightens me sometimes.

If love is willing to surrender to you, I am.

If love is finding someone who needs you

As much as you need them, I can.

If love means just being friends, I will.

I only know that every moment I spend alone

I wish I could share with you.

I only know that if this is what love is

I wish I’d met you long ago.

A Love

Lips and hands meet

As we touch, bridging the gaps.

Words whisper lies, but hands speak truth.

You reach for me as I to you:

Darkness invaded by a touch, a caress.

In the shadows no one is false.

Untitled

Their hands grope within darkness
As shadows conceal;
Faces burn with quiet shame
As passions congeal.

Hands reach slowly for the light,
Bodies hide away --
Fear shatters the twinned embrace
As light brings forth day.

Walls rise between shared feelings
-- Two bitter smiles then --
Eyes saying what words dare not:
"We will meet again."

Friendship

I was digging through files and found a series of poems on love and loss written in 2000-2001. With one exception (the last) they weren't intended as a series or done in order. Presenting them without editing or comment.

---

Our friendship can survive the test of years

By only asking of it what I'll give.

Make no promises and none can be broken.

Only give what you would receive,

Ask nothing you doubt I'd give you.

If no one tries to scale or break them,

We can ignore the walls.

If you don't try to climb over them

And I guard my speech with gilded tongue,

None will trespass -- if we don’t look

For each others weaknesses and flaws

We can force ourselves to pretend.