I have taken a hiatus from working on MAGICAL BODIES. I had been thinking about some of my old plays that have been just sitting there, gathering dust, and thought that some of them might work better as novels.
The first, HIGHWAY TO HADES, may not work as a play. I have some ideas on expanding it, but it's having a hard time morphing into a new work.
PLEASED TO MEET ME, on the other hand, has morphed like crazy. So much so that it's an entirely different novel now.
It's a wild mishmash of memories and what ifs based on things that happened to me, or almost happened to me, or that I experienced or witnessed; of people from my past who have morphed into characters in the book.
Most of all, it's about my mental illness. It's a long, deep look into my own personal abyss and writing about when it blinks.
And it's terrifying. And hard. And it's bringing a lot of emotions to the surface I wasn't expecting. I have been writing both copious amounts and nothing at all.
It's interesting, to say the least, to have my anxiety attacking my writing this way. It's not like my anxiety has never attacked my writing before--it certainly has. But now it's more personal this time.
So now I am using what my brain says to fuel this work as the main character, Ruby, hears her brain say similar things. The random string of negative thoughts I have to listen to day in and day out, at different volumes, ranging from just a murmur in the background to screaming banshees, will now be used for something better than just making me want to pull my brain out, set it on fire and bury it.
I am unsure, as usual, how this is going to go. But now I also have some art to pursue as well, collage and painting.
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