can’t get motivated

it has been a while since my last blog. between mom taking a turn for the worse and then her passing, I haven’t had the gumption to want to blog. or do much of anything. true, she only passed on the 26th of last month…so it has only been 12 days…but the days have passed by so fast that on one hand it seems like much longer. yet I have not given myself a chance to really grieve for her. I have had to be strong for everyone else and take care of all lot of the after-details…and both of my brothers and their families have been here with dad and I, that I have not let myself sit down long enough to let myself let it sit in. Add to the fact that I had been preparing myself for it for a long time…and being able to commune with spirits to an extent, that I can see and talk with her nightly and “go” places with her astrally…in a lot of ways, she is still here…but she isn’t. and when I have bouts like today (one brother and sister-in-law just went home for the week) I am at a loss to do anything, then I don’t know what to do. I have several projects to work on…I am working on piecing together Ancient Greek timelines form about 5 different sources to make one extensive (or more extensive than any of them alone…) timeline. I have some jokes to go over for Hades and Ares to be cracking together…some may say they are morbid, and they are, but given who the gods are, they need to be morbid…they are dead baby jokes. come on! it is Hades and Ares! you were expecting fluffy bunny and horsey jokes? LOL. nope. not quite. though…they will be cracking some of those. gotta get them at some odd moments *wink wink* but, do you think I can get motivated to do any of that? not really. I can do a little here or there, but my heart isn’t really in it. What I need to do is to dive into some battle scenes in The Prank and get some of this emotion out of me so I can function better. perhaps I will try that here in a few. maybe that will work. hopefully. I know mom would not want me to be this way. I do know that some people do not understand why I am not showing much sad emotion, and why I am laughing so soon (even just a couple days after)…but that is how I deal with sadness and grief. I put a happy face on and never ever…except when it slips…let others see how much I really am hurting. I do my grieving alone. except in writing. I can express it in writing. say out here. or in my books. but in person? nope. crying? hardly never. this may sound bad, but I trained myself to *not* cry. I used to cry. a lot. but I trained myself not to. not because I am ashamed of it. not anything like that. but with all of the aches and pains that I go through on a daily basis, crying physically hurts me, so I refuse to let myself cry, I refuse to let myself add to that pain. so I express my sadness, my pain, my grief in other ways. like my writing. like my words. I am reading Dracula right now, and Stoker expressed it exactly through Van Helsing exactly what I go through when Van Helsing was talking to Seward as they boarded the train… let me find the passage again…hmmm where was it. my fault for not marking it… ah! here it is!

“Ah, you don’t comprehend, friend John. DO not think that I am not sad, though I laugh. See, I have cried even when the laugh did choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry., for with you that laughter who knock at your doo and say ‘may I come in?’ is not the true laughter. No! he is a king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person: he choose no time of suitability. he say, ‘I am here.”

…

“…And yet I can laugh at her very grave—laugh when the clay form the spade of the sexton drop upon her coffin and say. ‘Thud! thud!’ to my heart…”

…

“…Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of mysteries, and woes, and troubles; and yet when King Laugh come he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall—all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. And friend John, that he is good to come, and kind. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. They brace us up, until perhaps the strain becomes to great, and we break. But King Laugh, he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again; and we bear  to go on with our labour, what it may be.”

…

“Friend John, forgive me if I pain. I showed not my feeling to others when it would wound, but only to you, my old friend, whom I can trust. If you could have looked into my very heart then when I want to laugh; if you could have done so when the laugh arrived; if you could do so now, when King Laugh have pack up his crown and all that is to him—for he go far, far away from me, and for a long, long time—maybe you would perhaps pity me the most of all.”

This pretty much describes what goes through my mind, heart and soul when I am sad. when I grieve. a lot of people don’t understand it, and I have never been able to express it. I have never even seen it expressed half-so-well as this. Believe me. Most everyone that I know has made it pretty well known without saying it full-out that I am not welcome at funerals because I do laugh. I do joke. I do tell stories of how the deceased was. I don’t outwardly cry. I don’t outwardly mourn. and it makes people very uncomfortable. And mom was the same way to a certain extent. the only difference was, she was a crier. but not because of the deceased. she was a crier over everything. LOL. she cried at everything. literally. this is why she made certain that we would not have a funeral, or even a viewing for her. She wanted a wake at a later point when the grief for her wasn’t as strong. she wanted happy and memories. not sadness. and our family is more than willing to give it to her.

the only problem is…I thought I would be able to immerse myself in my many sundried projects. it is not turning out that way. of course, we have had lots of company…I am not complaining about that, mind you. I love seeing my brothers and family…but it doesn’t help with my concentration LOL.

after I finish this, we will see if I can get into one of my projects, or into the actual writing. I need it. especially a battle scene. I can even see a funny scene…laughter is good. but I somehow don’t see me working on any love scenes. those are tricky for me at any given moment as is. it is a new territory for me, so still very tricky. not something to attempt when in a darker place. I don’t think…

I think the hardest part of not knowing what to start with…of having so much to do, that I can’t get motivated…beyond the grief factor, is the fact that mom used to help past these hurdles…just by being here to talk to. I would have so much to do, my to-do list would be so long that I would get overwhelmed and we would talk and the talking would get me past the panic and anxiety (which is the underlying factor) and then I would be able to chose something to work on. And my partner is not here now. not physically. and while she is here in spirit…it is not quite the same. I can still talk to her, and I can still hear and feel her answers…but it is not the same. I can’t go hug her when it gets really bad.

It is to the point that I am tempted to go pull out everything in my closet and go climb in it. I have not needed the comfort of my closet for quite some time…and it is getting almost to that point again. *sigh*

Things will be quiet for a few

I am not going to be totally away, but I may not be around a lot for a bit. for how long? I am not sure. My mom is not going to be around much longer. she is dying. we have been expecting this for a while now. we have known for 8 years(?) that we were going to lose her. our family is plagued with a very destructive disease called Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency that attacks the liver and/or the lungs and is passed down through the genes…and almost every one of my grandpa’s family on my mom’s side of the family has it, and is dead or dying from it…not every one, but a good number of them…more so than is not. And I am a carrier of it, as are my brothers. It can be cured with a liver/lung transplant…however, mom cannot have one. she is allergic to almost every medicine on the market, which disqualifies her from one. we have known this almost from the beginning of finding out about the disease. It was just a matter of time. We were hoping that we would have at least another year, or two, with her. we knew time was closing in. but, things escalated at Halloween, she took a turn for the worse. then this past month, things *really* got bad…really bad. the past few days we have been running back and forth to the doctors/hospital. she is now on morphine with end-stage liver failure. the doctors can’t give us a time-frame, but if she follows true to her dad and brother and the rest of the family members…it is only a matter of weeks. Right now, I have numbed myself and am holding myself together with mental duct tape so that I can be strong for my dad and the rest of the family…For the most part, mom knows what is going on, and she has told us, all along, how she wants her body to be treated…she wants a very brief viewing and then cremation to have her ashes brought home. no funeral, no big drama. just brief and simple. which suits us fine. we are, for the most part, very private, very simple people. I have been preparing myself for this for a long time. It does not make it any easier, but it is helping me from breaking down when I am most needed right now. Needless to say, I am not going to be around much…the blog’s, the tweet’s, the Facebook accounts and the writing are all going to be neglected for the most part as I help take care of mom…as the end draws closer…but I will be around…somewhat. I will do what I can, manage how I can, and take things as they come…but most of all…be with mom as much as possible. It would help if we knew exactly how much time we had…but we don’t, and so we take each day as it comes. we muddle through and we love her with all our hearts. She is a fantastic lady who has given lots of love through her life, she deserves no less then to get as much love as we can give her…as I can give her…

Ideas

I have had several people ask me where my story ideas come from, both for new books, and for while I am writing my current stories, to keep them going…and that answer if very easy for me.

Dreams. They come from my dreams. Both sleeping and awake, but mostly sleeping.

this is the usual process…

I dream. Unless the dream is in color (which is a rarity for me that it is not in color), I do not take note of it. At least for a story. But I usually don’t take too close of note of the dream for potential story use if it occurs just once. oh no. there has to be a lot more to it than this. No, the first time I dream, it is purely for entertainment (and informational purposes from my subconscious).

If I dream the dream again, regardless if it is the same exact dream or not, no matter what form it is in, this is where I really start paying closer attention for potential use. Even if it is in black and white and shades of grey. If it has the same theme, I take note.

Why would I take note even if it is not in color? Because it is building on the original dream. Sometimes it is the same exact dream repeating itself, letting me know that I need to pay attention, that more information will be coming. Sometimes it jumps right into continuing the dream, or going into a new segment of the same theme. This is when I start becoming aware that there is more to it.

then comes the part that is even more fun than "”watching” the dreams unfold” (which I don’t take any action with the dreams to creating anything from them yet). there is still one more test to go through before I know these dreams are leading to a idea that will bear the test from just being entertaining dreams to becoming short stories (that will probably never see the light of day *snicker*) to actual books.

I start creating “mind movies” with them. I put the potential characters through potential scenes in my head (usually while I am lying in bed waiting for sleep to come and the house is quiet around me).

If the characters play in the scenes without any problems, or they actually take off in the scenes with little direction from me, I know that the idea is going to be one that I will be able to complete…regardless how much time it takes.

However, if the characters are stiff, if it takes everything in me to get them to do what I want, then it has failed the final test and I know, that while the dreams were fun, the idea won’t fly, and I stop playing with them to make way for another dream, another idea, to come to me.

For a story idea (other than the odd short story, which I admit I don’t write too many of…I have issues with short writing LOL) to come from the dream stages to a workable idea for me, it can sometimes take several months. that is not counting actually building the actual story from the information I gathered in the dream/mind movie stage. It has been a rare story idea that has been born spontaneously.

This *is* a valid way to get ideas, there is a lot of psychological meaning behind it, the symbols that come out in it alone would let a dreamologist have a heyday. And I *do* interpret the dreams along with using them as story ideas, but man, I love the ideas they create…and no, don’t bother trying to figure out my dreams from the stories, LOL, they change so much from the original dream as the characters take on a life of their own that the original dream gets lost in the mix ;)