Hell and Wheels

Minister the cat has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the heart muscle. He also has a bit of valve leakage, which is what caused the heart murmur. He’s been given the human beta-blocker, Atenolol. His first dose was this morning and it prompted him to throw up for five hours. I’m now waiting for the cardiologist to call me back, because this prescription is clearly not a good match.

I didn’t know until I went to his website this morning that the doctor is the heart specialist for the animals at the National Zoo. Pretty impressive. And even with his exotic credentials, he was down-to-earth and treated Mini like he was the most important patient he’s ever seen. He was even good with me, which is rare for a lot of vets–many focus so much on the animals that their people skills tend to go south.

What kills me about all of this is Minister’s unflappability. I drove him two hours for this appointment, pinned him down for twenty minutes as he had a sonogram, and then drove him two more hours to bring him home. When I finally let him out of the carrier, he ran out, went maybe five feet, and then circled back to stand up and put his paws on my leg like he does when he’s happy to see me. The week before, he’d had an ear infection and I had to jam gunk in his ears for ten days. Still, he didn’t get mad at me. Last night I gave him a bath to wash off the residual gunk from the medication that had crusted in the fur around his ears. Not only did he tolerate that, he sprawled on the floor and let me dry him with a hair dryer. And this morning, I jammed a pill all the way down his throat, and he swallowed it and then came back to sit on my lap like nothing happened. With our old cat, Elwood, it was a fight every single day to medicate him. Then, here’s this one who could care less what I’m doing to him. He’s probably the best tempered cat I’ve ever seen, and it makes me mad that he has to deal with this the rest of his life.

Anyway, the vet seems to think we’ve caught this problem early enough that with continual medication he should live for many years. And who am I to argue with the guy who treats the Capitol’s collection of lions?

There’s still no word on the literary agent, either. I was hoping this weekend would be the magic one, the one where the caller ID displayed the New York area code, but apparently not. Now I’m wondering if she ever got the submission at all. There’s no logical reason why she wouldn’t, but paranoia is a wonderful thing. At any rate, I think I’ll start getting together a bunch of new query letters this week. If I don’t hear from her by the end of the weekend (which is the official end of the ‘one to two months’ time for a response stated on their website) I’ll start sending off multiple submissions to the next round of lucky victims.

Remember when I said I was eager to move on to this stage? I take it back.

I’m back at the beginning, sitting here with an empty Word document, a pile of half-baked ideas scribbled on notepads and index cards, and an empty mind. I thought that after having written one book it would be easy to start the next. I was wrong. The truth is, the last time I started a novel was three years ago, and it was in a very structured, guided environment. This time it’s just me, my computer, and the seeming swirling abyss that is my mind.

Plotting. It’s an exciting, yet painful process for me. Actually, it’s also painful for anyone who comes within a ten-foot radius of me while I’m doing it. I have a tendency to stop in mid-thought and say to whoever is in my line of fire, “What if…?” and then proceed to rant for up to fifteen full minutes. The What If game nearly drove The Architect to madness the last time I started a novel. This time seems as if it will be no different. I think it’s crucial for me to have a living, breathing backboard to bounce my ideas off of–even if I get only a confused stare as a response. There’s something about vocalizing ideas to prove how good–or, as is most often the case when I’m brainstorming, how utterly stupid–they are.

Since I’m so befuddled by this process, my next step should logically be to review my notes from the workshop that helped generate Resonance and see what it was we did first. The process obviously worked for me, so there’s no reason for the result to be any different, now. Maybe it will be the kick in the pants I seem to be so desperately needing.

I still find it odd that I can’t remember what we did in that class. As I said, it was three years ago, but at the time the information seemed monumental enough that I felt I’d never forget it. Then again, I once felt that way about cursive. Ask me to make a ‘Z’ in cursive now and you’ll get one of those blank looks I’m so fond of generating on the faces of others. I suppose new information has driven out the old, or at least forced it to retreat into a dusty filing cabinet somewhere deep inside my brain and thrown away the key.

Today is Lughnasadh, the harvest festival of the Celtic god, Lugh. He’s the patron god of all crafts, including poetry and writing. He’s the one to petition for advancement of one’s skills, to beseech for inspiration in one’s craft. So, despite my sluggishness of thought, I guess it makes today a pretty good day to be starting over.

I didn’t sleep well last night. Today, in the middle of a prepositional phrase check of my novel prompted by Charles’ posting about cutting fat and metaphors, I decided my head would no longer stay up on its own. I sneaked upstairs for a quick nap, and proceeded to have the weirdest dream about my manuscript.

In the dream my job is to flip through the pages of my printed manuscript, find the stick figure illustrations I let a now absentee little girl draw on carbon paper, and color them yellow. After a couple of successfully colored images, I come across a stick figure self-portrait of the girl, complete with triangle dress and swooped-up ponytails adorned with out-of-perspective bows. Above her head is scrawled some nasty message about everyone dying, including me.

As I stare at the drawing, the page begins to turn black, as if someone somewhere else is scribbling across the original carbon paper and it’s mystically transferring to my copy. After a few moments, the entire picture is covered in scrawling black strokes, except for the white outline of this child and her creepy little message. Not good. The faint sound of singing starts to come from the manuscript remaining inside the box. Even worse.

I put the entirety of my manuscript back in the box. As a brilliant afterthought for protection, I scrawl runes all over it (in the dream I was actually freaking out that the box was black and that no ink would show up on it. Then, in the magical way of dreams, I found a silver paint pen in my hand). I leave the box on the floor, covered in protective charms that are presumably supposed to hold in whatever the hell has possessed my manuscript, and head for the nearest exit. In response, the room erupts into a chorus of creepy voices. In an upbeat tempo, they sing that the only other person who can save me from them is a witch, and they’ll send her to me–starting with her head.

I woke up doing that half-jolt, half-gasping thing that would’ve been embarrassing if anyone else had been in the room with me at the time.

Now fully conscious–and sitting at my desk with the real manuscript box in uncomfortably close proximity–I’m wishing I could remember the song. It was reminiscent of that old Halloween cartoon where the deep-voiced ghosts are celebrating the fact they’re ghosts in a sing/chant manner. And the words of my song rhymed, which is weird because I’m terrible at thinking of rhyming words.

I can’t complain about being haunted in the dream, though. It seems deserved retribution for hiring a kid to illustrate a dark fantasy novel with mature themes–even though she didn’t do a very good job.

So, did this phantasmagoria stem from anxiety about not yet hearing back from the agent? Could it have been nerves about having to change part of the story at the last minute? Or, was it clearly Charles’ fault?

You decide.

What would a writer do if he or she found out a scene in their completed, yet unpublished story closely paralleled a scene in a recently released, immensely popular work of fiction? Should the unknown, untried writer run right to the keyboard and change it? Or wait and see what the professionals have to say about it all?

Part of me would want this writer to stick to his or her guns, to insist that sometimes coincidences happen in writing and that no fault can be laid with them. Shit happens. The other part (the larger, louder part) thinks that this writer is backed against a wall with no hopes of coming out looking good. After all, we’re talking about a novel by an author who’s fairly well off and reasonably well-loved. When it comes down to accusation time by critics and readers (and it will, of that I have no doubt), no one will believe that this unknown writer had the idea first (or, at the very least the same time). No, the literary masses will think the unknown writer read this novel and snatched up a touching scene (involving a character they’re already sensitive about) and bastardized it for profit, hoping to get away with a rip-off.

And why shouldn’t they?

They don’t know the unknown writer. No one does. And no one’s read the story except a veteran author, a pair of novice writers and one civilian. It’s newbie’s word against a drove of hardcore fans. It’s not going to look so good.

So, what for this writer? Defeat? Wave the white flag while running pell-mell in the opposite direction, screaming, “Sorry! Sorry!” all the way?

I suppose my sparse, untried advice is for the unknown to suck it up for now, see which way the wind blows, and then take it from there. After all, while the entire theme is eerily correlative, the resoundingly similar parts can be (if the unknown writer stops huffing, swallows a big throatful of pride and reads this with equanimity) changed with little effort. And maybe the Big Guns won’t see it as such a big deal, anyway. Maybe.

I suppose this is a first step for the unknown writer; a freshman dip into the skin-toughening baptismal font. That the unwelcome initiation came from nowhere, sneaking up in the guise of a long-anticipated read, well, I suppose that, too, can be a lesson of sorts for the unknown writer.

I finally got to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night. Instead of delving into a detailed critique of the entire movie–a topic which I am sure has been beaten to death over the internet already–I’m going to say three short things, and leave it at that.

1) I still hate the way they’ve characterized/cast Dumbledore. He snapped at the students. Dumbledore! What’s up with that? And the actor–can that man do any expression other than angry? Where’s the constant smile? The unflappability?

2) Harry’s, “I feel sorry for him,” scene. Ick. Cheesy.

3) No matter what unfocused, tiny corner of the screen they shoved Helena Bonham Carter into, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Lucius Malfoy might as well have not even been there.

That’s it. Three things.

Now, I’m waiting for my book. I ordered it from Amazon and chose the free shipping, so I’ll be getting my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows a couple days later than the rest of the world’s population. Yes. I’m cheap when it comes to paying for shipping. At least my weekend is booked, so I wouldn’t be able to read it if i had it, anyway. And being somewhere else, knowing it’s sitting on my desk, waiting for me, is probably worse than not having it at all. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

I’m having a lot of geek-outs this week, aren’t I?

For a total geek-out. I haven’t been this excited since Alias.

Christina adorably felt I had eight things interesting enough about myself to share with the rest of you and tagged me for this:

The Rules

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts. 2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves. 3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules. 4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. 5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

If you’ve not already moved on to a more interesting blog (what’s wrong with you?), here are my eight random facts:

1) I took four years of French and never understood any of it.

2) Whenever I go to a zoo, I’m torn between interest and guilt.

3) I can’t stand people I don’t know being in my personal space. It’s torture for me to have to sit next to a stranger. That’s part of the reason I don’t fly, and all of the reason why I won’t go see a movie until its been out for two weeks and its a ten o’clock showing.

4) I have a collection of Ouija boards. The cheapest is the 1970’s Parker Brothers one everybody is familiar with. The most expensive is a 1917 William Fuld board. The rarest is a pre-WWII J.M. Simmons board that has a swastika (a symbol of luck before Hitler commandeered it) on one corner. I own many others that are neither rare nor particularly pricey. I have no desire to mess around with any of them.

5) My imagination and my tendency to obsess are pretty much evenly distributed, and I let them both run away with me more often than is probably healthy.

6) I’m the worst video game player you’d ever have the misfortune to see.

7) I’d eat sushi every day of the week, and damn the mercury poisoning.

8) I spent years waiting for something to happen with my life before figuring out that I needed to make it happen.

That’s it. More than you ever needed to know about Avery. Now, go find something better to do.