I have been reading some Pablo Neruda lately, getting drunk on his words. A lot of you know that I am a HUGE fan of Neruda and have been since I was introduced to him in the movie Il Postino. The poems chosen for that movie were among his best. The way he talks about love and desire is enrapturing. Just reading it drives me to writing poetry.

I haven't written any poetry in a while, at least not a lot at any given time, ever since I completed my thesis in 2005. I put out things now and again but nothing like the amount I did then. Since then, for the last decade, I have been focusing heavily on my prose. Now they are both at the same skill level. I want to be able to write both but the roll of fiction stays in the mind more than the etherialness of poetry. Capturing a moment or a feeling as purely as possible is not an easy thing.

Will I write both? I certainly hope so. I know that there are more poems that go into I Tiresias and I have been trying to get into that. Hopefully Walkabout will give me the ability to relax into both poems and other words.

Here's hoping.

The root of woes

I was able to finish up the chapter for Harry Potter and Grief's Wisdom, the fanfic I am writing. It has some good stuff for both plot and character development. That alone has been nice. Granted the final length was only over 2k words, but it is the principal of the matter.

There was a bit of a release of tension as I wrote about Harry's woes, as fiction was moving again. It was nice. I am not trying to push myself too hard as healing is a big part of this process. As my body heals, and my mind reconnects, the focus on the physical world will back off some, allowing me to get back into those different worlds. I miss it.

True, it used to be a way for me to hide, creating stories and scenarios that were far removed from the stuff that was bothering me. I have also used it as inexpensive therapy, having a character go through something plaguing me, letting me work issues out through them. I have also lost myself to the sound and feel of words, creating things that have a good sound but go nowhere. That is the nature of my writing. However, above all that, I love telling stories. Trying to shape and make clear the narratives and characters that present themselves to me is a challenge. Each story, each character I learn more and more about the craft of writing.

This crafting is the development of a sense that tells you what word fits best, what scene goes where, what events the character has to go through in order to become who they are meant to be. I love the craft of writing because I love the magic of storytelling. Just like a painter needs to learn all sorts of techniques in order to paint their best, so does a writer need to learn ways of telling before they can let their best work come forth.

As you can see, I have a real passion for this. That is the biggest reason why I hate not being able to write anything over 4-500 words unless it is non-fiction. But at least I got that working for me.

There's the rub..

As most people who know me or follow my tumblr know, I suffer from depression. Not just the temporary feel bad and mope kind but the debilitating, turn off my ability to life kind. I am happy for those whose depression leaves and never comes back. I feel more like Smeagol, who gets Gollum to leave only for him to return when things don't go very well. My vitality fades and my desire to do anything goes up in smoke. As one might imagine that is the kind I am dealing with now.

The Walkabout has been good in a number of ways but Depression simply drags me down. And one of my main ways to battle depression is to write. Alas, I have not been able to really write fiction since my surgery. And there's the rub.

If writing helps me through depression and I can't write does that mean I'm stuck? Well, I don't know. I had a major surgery and those take a good bit of energy to recover from and I am aware that things are still healing. So if it is simply a healing thing, then that will work itself out. If as the voices say, that I can no longer write, then I don't know. I will address that issue when and if that seems to be the case.

Oddly enough I can do non-fiction writing, as evidenced by my continued posting on FemHype. That seems like a suitable stopgap measure and so I am dealing with it. Writing on this and the Walkabout blog have been helpful. Creative non-fiction is a thing and I have been doing some of it. I figure, that so long as I can write something then the fear that I have lost the knack will fade. I hope.

Anyway, that's what I have been up to, fighting ghosts and struggling with uncooperative fingers.

I am sorry that I haven't written much, things got busy here. There hasn't been a lot of writing lately but that is mostly due to the fact that I have been either unconscious or out and about. The interesting thing is that I have been getting a lot of ideas for both stories and poems, which is encouraging. I want to get back to writing because I miss the rush I get from the flow of story through me. Le sigh...

I was able to get some editing done, which was nice. Not a lot going on so far, so I simply tackled Transitioning Home, to try and get more done. I may need to do more than I originally thought as there is a lot more telling than I was expecting. Given that I wrote this in 2006-7, my writing has changed just a little bit since then. Oy

Traveling is going great. I think it might help me get past this writing congestion, as I have been feeling a few things percolate. That is most certainly a good sign. I need to finish up the edits for Transitioning Home, since it is pretty much ready. A lot of that is cleaning up the prose and adding a few things, partially thanks to my experiences post transition. That should be exciting. After that, I honestly don't know.

Since I am still rather grumpy with my parents I might do more on The Cost of Blasphemy. I am certain it will hurt to write but I also know that it will be a good read and rather powerful. Amulet of Adventure also needs tinkering, especially with the way that things have changed with the story. Regardless, I have a few things I can get to if I can ever get back to them.