Overcoming Can't

So the Draft of Hello Kitty is done. Now what?

Which really isn't a what at all now, but more of a how.

For the plan after I finished Thumbs, the work before Hello Kitty, was that I would revise. Not Thumbs, which needs to ferment some more before such revision. Not Jeff of Yellowstone, which needs revision, but more of the fine-tuning kind. And certainly not yet Hello Kitty which has just been finished. Instead, I had/have my sights on the novel That Fargo Kid, which not only needs revised but in some places fixed.

In fact, I intended for Hello Kitty to be just a short story to end 2011 and act as a buffer between the long work of Th and the expected long work of revising TFK; however, HK turned out to be a fairly long work in itself. Sometimes stories are like that, making me cautious to do another buffering 'short' work before such revision, as it could easily take up another few months or more.

Yesterday towards that end I moved TFK notes, an attempted formal timeline and incomplete reverse outline to OneNote (an amazing program) along with the current draft to the Working file on my computer. Everything is set. So what now?

Well, I should probably: read all 468 pages (134,000 words) of TFK first to get my mind back into that groove; take notes of certain sequences and/or details which I will likely need to change, delete, or expand; kill darlings that don't fit; and generate copy that fixes some things.

However, all of the above are wide-scope strategies that intimidate the daily. When I'm in the midst of writing a novel, my day-to-day goal is straightforward: 1,000 words a day and I feel like I'm making progress on the story.

Here, the envisioned work ahead is more difficult for me to break up into daily chunks that will leave me feeling satisfied with that's day's output. Heck, it is downright overwhelming and the urge to drown in a sea of can't washes over me: The story is broke; it's unfixable; go on to something else, something that will get you back into the bliss of 1,000 words a day.

But in the end I don't want to just write 1,000 words a day. I want those 1,000 words to be good words; the best that I can create. So I owe it to my craft and to my story to make every effort to thwart that nagging can't.

An effort that overcomes can't and takes do all the way to done.

HK Draft Completed

Of short story cum novella:

Hello Kitty, D1, 70,113 words, 213 pages.

Not my longest, probably not my best, and who knows if it will ever see readership. I'd like for it to do so, but that's a whole separate thing from the writing itself.

I'm particularly proud for completing this as my emotional health has been under quite a lot of strain and it seems like melancholy has loomed ever larger. Even though I love to write, I'd inexplicably push off writing in the morning, filled with doubt and depression.

This morning alone I got off to a late start, doing nothing really but being caught up in the stranglehold depression can have, unable to set myself down in front of the keyboard; unable to do much of anything at all except drink coffee.

Pangs of depression and doubt about where I'm going with the story, for sure, but more just ugly inertia preventing me from getting words on the page; preventing me from even starting.

And, as a consequence, I didn't start till long after 8, after I'd imported the five CD's I'd checked out from the library, read Gary's blog, posted to Facebook, pulled in the Sunday paper from outside, had waffles, drank several cups of coffee… quite the procrastinator, all pushing me away from doing the very thing I love; inexplicably pushing me away.

I just start feeling so empty and melancholic it is sometimes hard to even do the things I love. Time and life has been so hard on us, with us selling so much of our once cherished belongings and the continual struggle for mere survival that it is hard to focus on things that are important to me like continual creation. Things that once were important have been taken away, time and time again.

But I managed to break through such depression, not all the way but enough to type, which I'm glad. Not sure if any of my words will be good enough to be up for consumption; I sure as hell hope so. But at least I'm getting it out there from my head and not letting depression fully consume me.

I'm especially proud of getting this story down as my depression has been worse of late and there have been many emotional upheavals and stressful things going on with our lives.

This is at least one bit of constant in a life that is racked with a seemingly never-ending supply of uncertainty.

Today I can say I did at least this much: put some words on a page, as I have done every day since I started work on the story, regardless of my state. And some of those words are actually pretty good; pretty good for me, that is, as pretty good to the outside world is a judgment that can only be rendered by the outside world.

An outside world to which writing, perhaps ironically, keeps me grounded.

Different Kinds of Gay Sex

Oh, I don’t mean like anal or oral or krámpack.

I mean like buying him flowers for Valentine's Day, kissing him good-night, or making him his favorite meal. OR I could mean like being excessively jealous, physically abusive, or pressuring him into doing something he doesn't want to do.

But wait, you might say, those things don't sound like kinds of sex at all, but more like relationship-type things. And you'd be right. And you'd be wrong.

For sex IS about the relationship; that is, a manifestation of it. Sex never comes detached from relationships. Even having "no relationship" sex is still having a relationship in the same vein as choosing not to decide is still making a choice (check out Freewill by Rush).

Yet time and again the opponents of marriage equality and "gayness" in general keep resorting to a bizarre genital checklist in their quasi-analysis:

Penis. Check. Vagina. Check. Ok, good. Penis Check. Ass. Che-wait a minute. Not good, not good. Danger Will Robinson, danger.

with the only quality of a good and proper marriage for them seeming to be if there is a penis-vagina connection, or potential connection going on.

When they talk of "traditional" marriages and "same-sex" marriages, I never hear considerations raised like:

Do they love one another?

Do they treat each other with respect?

Do they care about one another?

Instead it all goes back to an unwavering penis-vagina ideology where black eyes, affairs, or spousal rape are inconsequential in the consideration of the marriage's worth.

I just don’t understand that mindset at all. There is lots of sex in my stories. Writing from a gay perspective, penis-ass is frequently a given. But not all penis-ass arrangements are equal, with the dynamics of the relationship as a whole manifesting in the act.

In my eyes, there is a world of difference between love and rape; between sticking by him and just sticking it in; and between being with him and just being in him. For me, the genitals involved are just that: genitals. Far more important to me than how the sex organs matchup is how the persons attached to the sex organs matchup.

But then again, what the hell do I know about marriage?

Your penis, his ass? Sorry. Not valid. Find a vagina and you can join our club.

 Forget 17 years. Forget stormy and sunny weather. Forget sickness and health and until death do you part.

Just repeat after us: "Traditional marriage is between a [penis] and a [vagina]."

Amen (and Awomen).

Cut

I cut myself today.

On purpose.

Oh, nothing 911 worthy. Heck, pros would sneer. Even my cat would laugh, knowing I didn't do any more damage than he has done to me when he's not in the mood to have his teeth brushed or is pissy about some other cat thing.

But nevertheless I did, making thin red lines on my left arm and testing the blade on my right by hitting it against skin. Testing. That's as good a word as any. Maybe I should not call it cutting at all, the marks being so shallow. More like testing; practicing.

Keeping options open.

There are some things I have control over, such as writing. Sure, I never am able to get the words out quite the way I want; and sometimes they're probably downright crappy. But I can keep on putting words on the page and trying to make them better, and I know the only one who can make them better is me.

But life outside the self is filled with externals where sometimes even when you try the hardest you can imagine,  even when you try to conceive of every possible variable, even when you want with all your heart for things to go a certain way, it plain and simple turns to shit before your very eyes.

It's like watching the glass that's already slipped out of your hands connecting with the floor. Today I didn't have a chance to register the glass was even slipping before the crash. And now there's pieces all around, no glue, and just these all thumbs hands of mine.

But a knife is simple in its demands; it has none. Whatever you want to accomplish is all the same to it. So you can rest at ease knowing whatever you do with it will be at your sole discretion.

A discretion that tries to decide the frequently nebulous demarcation between success and failure in such matters.