Alchemy

Well I can see that this blog may suffer some coming right up here soon, I'm cheating on it with my book. I'm sure if something's burning me I'll have to come here, but to be honest I am consumed with the people who are emerging from this keyboard and I really can't wait to find out what they're going to do or say next. I was pretty sure I knew my characters and who was important, who was just kind of there as a supporting actor, but some of them are surprising me. What I thought was an outline was just the roughest of ideas, and as I write these people they are taking on lives of their own, and it's like watching TV in slow motion, the story unfolds at exactly the speed I can type. Thank God I can type rather fast or it would be killing me.

Like Jack, he was just going to be sort of absent and maybe works a little too much, but damn, when that guy drinks too much he's obnoxious as hell. Plus he's got a mean streak a mile wide and he's a total control freak. He's kind of a douchebag, actually. I don't like him very much, and Lila who is my strong female character is really more fragile and wounded than I ever thought. I knew they were going to have a fight at one point in order for her to leave on a trip, but damn, when she finally stood up to him yesterday it turned out it was the first time in their whole marriage that she had ever done it and I was rooting for her so hard. I wrapped up that chapter and I was like "Yeah! You go girl!" I was so proud of her. I forgot for a moment that these are just people that I am inventing, in word world they are real people and I'm just chronicling what they do. I'm concerned about Jack, I think he may have lost his job and he may be drinking the whole time Lila's gone and that house is going to go to hell, and that's too bad, because it's a nice house. I'm not sure she's coming back, but still, I feel bad for them, they've put a lot of time and money into it. It just seems like such a waste. I need a house, I wish they could give it to us if he's just going to treat it like that. Whatever, it's only words and I live in the 3D world, I couldn't go 2D and live in it anyway.

Side characters have names and personalities, and pasts and reasons for being who they are and all of that needs to be written. I know nothing about Alzheimer's (although Grandma Carol does) or New Orleans (Although Jessie does) so I have real life things I need to find out for the sake of authenticity, and I have no real idea of how long it takes to get from one place to another, especially if two people with a baby end up on the run trying to evade either law enforcement or a private detective or both. I don't even know anything about the private detective, or the actual realities of that as a job (going to have to meet and talk to one of those) and I have no idea if that character is male or female. I don't know if that character is on our side or not, or whether it turns out to be the "government guy" that used to chase me in my dreams and turned out to be Dottie when I confronted him one night.

After years of being chased by the yellow-eyed government guy with the hat pulled low and the trench coat that could find me no matter where I was hiding and keep up with me even if I did find a car to drive away in I finally turned around one night and said "Who are you and what do you want with me?" and he took off his hat and it was Dottie. She didn't have yellow eyes any more, and it was just Dottie. I stopped having that dream. After that she started showing up in my dreams as one of those inflatable clowns that have weighted bottoms that are meant to amuse children because you can punch them as many times as you want and they bounce right back up. In my dreams I would punch her, or stab her with a knife and it never damaged her, she would just laugh and laugh and bounce back up, but she no longer had feet to chase me, just that weighted bottom. I guess that's progress, right?

Everyone always asks me, so I'll clear it up here on a total side note. Dottie gave birth to me, and had me in those early developmental years when it's easiest to fuck up a kid and do the best and longest lasting damage. My grandmother overlaps with her and she got me at 7 and laid the stones for my eventual healing. She and my Big Daddy were my constant northern star for my entire life until she moved up into the real sky when I was 25 and left my Dad here to finish the job of never leaving me. My Grandmother was my real mother in my childhood and early adulthood, and my Dad married Carol when Andrew was a walking yet diapered baby. She's the mother I claim here on Facebook, and the mother I'll have for the rest of my life. I could do no better if someone had allowed me to pick a mom to finish out my life with. My Dad picked for me, and although I was beyond raising when I got her, I still need a mom and I have her now. Even a middle aged woman needs a mom. Thank you God, I have her. So, that's who Dottie is. If you ever hear me refer to her as my mother, please throw a tone of sarcasm on it, she's of a species that will eat its young if given the chance.

My word-people, or simply My People are fascinating and entertaining, surprising and dear, and the part that I know on some level is that they are all me or parts of me. Or parts of people I know. It's as if the world of personalities in my life were a large drop of mercury that I can shatter and recombine as I see fit. It's the alchemy of personality and I can be the magician as long as I'm willing to sit at the keyboard. I'm cheating on all of you with these people, but I'll try to keep up both relationships, because I love you too.