Actual writing!

[julian_griffith]

 This is a damned good thing, because I haven't gotten a thing done since January. Well, outlining, and just the past day or two some preparatory notes with mswyrr , but it meant I whiffed the deadline on the Carina Christmas call (though I learned a LOT about women who followed the army in the Peninsular War), and I'm highly unlikely to make the deadline for Riptide's Regency-lesbians call, unless I can bang out 25K in four days. But Storm Moon also has a Regency-lesbians call, for June, and I can probably manage that.

I have to keep repeating to myself that bipolar disorder really is a chronic illness, and that having a flareup isn't a sign of moral deficiency, even though the result looks like sheer laziness. And, besides the depression, one of the symptoms has been a marked loss of appetite, which deprives my brain of blood sugar and other nutrients it needs to function, which obviously doesn't help my writing. I've just gotten a new antidepressant prescription to add to my existing mood stabilizers -- Wellbutrin. Which was kind of a trainwreck when I took it before without stabilizers (and I did tell the prescriber this, I'm not that stupid), but she seems to think that with the mood stabilizers already there, it won't be as dramatically scary.

But ANYWAY. I broke the drought today! Naturally, not on the story with a close deadline. But it s on something with a target market -- the Vampire Byron story. I'd been wondering whether I had to address "mad, bad, and dangerous to know." So I did. I'm still not certain about it -- it's essentially a reveal -- but it does acknowledge that Noel isn't acting as selfishly as Byron did in his twenties, and anyway, I can always cut it, if I decide it shouldn't be there.

Since I rather like the 300 words themselves, have a look:

***

“Mad, bad, and dangerous to know?” I teased. Noel’s response surprised me: he flinched. “Did I say something wrong?” 

 

“I loathe that phrase. I’ve loathed it since it was coined,” he said.

 

“Really?”

 

“You do know it was first said by an ex-lover of his, in a novel she wrote for revenge on him?”

 

I tried to remember my few English Literature classes. None of them had covered the Romantic poets all that thoroughly, but that sounded vaguely familiar. “I think I heard about that. I never learned all the details.”

 

He made a sound that wasn’t really a laugh. “But, two hundred years later, you know that phrase.”

 

“It’s catchy,” I said.

 

“Exactly. It’s defined his reputation forever since. Did you ever have a relationship that ended badly?”

 

I thought back to the summer after high school. Those weren’t memories I liked to revisit. “Who hasn’t?”

 

“I won’t ask if your ex said horrible things about you, but suppose he -- or she, I shouldn’t assume, should I? Suppose that one of those things became an Internet meme, and everyone, even people you’d never met, knew that it was about you?”

 

I winced. “That would be pretty terrible.”

 

“So you see my point.”

 

I looked at him intently. “You take it awfully personally, don’t you?”

 

That humorless laugh again. “It brings back bad memories.”

 

Well. I was used to the way he avoided talking about his past. And he was good at shutting down discussions if I pressed. I decided to leave it there. He’d never treated me badly. Doesn’t everyone deserve a fresh start? [Physical gesture? Not sure if they’re in bed or out] “I won’t say it again,” I promised.

 

I could see the tension leave Noel’s shoulders, and his frown smoothed out. “Thank you.”

 

Comments

[clare_dragonfly]

Yay, writing! I like this :D

[julian_griffith]

I'm glad! I usually feel pretty charmed with my own words, so it's good to hear it from OUTSIDE, so I can feel they're not kill-your-darlings candidates.

[redsixwing]

*tiny fansquee* I quite like those 300 words too.

[julian_griffith]

It feels so terribly self-indulgent, so I'm glad you like it!