Resume normal operating hours
This is going to be a candid post. I’ve been wondering just how candid I should be, which comes with a whole host of existential questions when it comes to blogging, like what’s the point, who’s it for, what’s the purpose and all that delicious writing angst.
So I’ll be honest, and let honesty be the closest thing to a compass I can follow, I have been thoroughly discouraged recently. At first, I thought it was to do with all the writer’s doubts I had, about the quality of my writing, and inadequacy, and fear of the future, but it turns out I was just depressed. There isn’t really a ‘just’ when it comes to bipolar depression, but it’s oddly comforting to know I was going through a downswing rather than a complete crisis. I’ve been up and down for about a few weeks since, and I took a break from writing and many other things, on the advice of my doctor, because stress could send me spiralling. It’s the nature of living with bipolar that I’m going to have these periods. But I reckon I’m on the other side of this episode and I’m starting it off with blogging after a huge hiatus.
I was going to write in more detail about being bipolar but that’s not what this blog is about. To summarize it, being bipolar means living with the occasional bout of bad weather. Typhoons and squalls and sometimes you lose track of your life. Whether because of mental illness or doubts, I fell off the wagon and it’s time to get back up and get shit done. Everyone can identify with losing momentum, whatever the reason for it.
I believe in picking up the pieces, step by step, and starting again. Maybe I can’t go straight back to 1k words a day and 500 editing, and poems and all the rest, but I submitted to a poetry competition and I can manage 500 words a day. Work my way back up to what I was doing before the depressive bout. Remind myself that the thoughts I had whilst depressed weren’t realistic, but twisted by the way my brain was failing to function at the time. Depression leads to depressing thoughts, but I don’t have to accept them.
And hell, there is an intersection between bipolar and writing. Bipolar has taught me a few things. One of which is the art of picking up where you left off. There’s an irony here because I’m sure a massive amount of people just started committing to a bunch of New Year’s resolutions, that their momentum just got going, whereas I got stymied. I’m not making any concrete resolutions- I’m going to try and stay the course instead. Bipolar has taught me about walking the line, staying healthy, and that the consistency of productive habits leads to progress. Its taught me the importance of putting things back together after an episode. Just keep chugging, keep exercising, keep meditating, keep writing, keep on keeping on, and you’ll accomplish your goals.
I’m not an expert in any other kind of endeavour (or this one for that matter), but I can say that writing a novel is an iterative, long-term project that you have to work at for long periods of time. You can’t write it all in one day. There must be parallels in other fields. Whatever they are, the art of getting back to a healthy routine is an important one because stumbling, failing, losing momentum and motivation is a likely outcome. And it might even feel like all that loss of time is piling up somewhere, that the whole process was some kind of misguided venture, and the further away you get from it the harder it is to start back up.
But what if setbacks are inevitable? A part of the whole. In order to achieve what you set out to do you have to go through them and come out the other side without giving up entirely.
Resume normal operating hours.
So here’s the next delicious chapter of HTWACSN, which I had fun writing and damn it felt good to enjoy writing again:
Chapter 7: Living room
Oh, how to describe my living room? I can describe the door, surely; it is white, with that slopped on paint that looks frozen halfway through melting. I can describe the swish and sway of the door as it groans open like a disappointed husband. I can describe its cool metallic touch as I press my palm against it, leaning on its surface before entering my apartment after a day of constipated writing. But describing my door is relevant because my door is open, and instead there is my living room. Which is dark.
Green neon lighting from outside my one window highlights IKEA silhouettes. The simple trappings of a benedictine, borderline commercially successful novelist. Yes, my passion sustains me, but barely- one must rely on a tiny Allen wrench, Swedish instructions, and a side-gig doing freelance copywriting to make a true living. “Francesca, be wary, there is danger within,” I whisper huskily. Slowly the furniture turns from black to grey substance as my lupine pupils expand. “Wait here Francesca, I shall leave you the corpse and go investigate.” I extend out my hands, hoping to find curved claws, but alas the transformation is not yet complete and only my ink-stained fingers remain. I am unarmed but not without hope. Springing within my apartment I grab an unplugged lamp, wielding it in two hands, holding it above my head like an adept of kendo. For I have once before done research into that eastern art form for an erotic novella concerning a samurai and a ninja. They stabbed each other, first with wooden swords, then in ecstasies of kendo-masked orgies. May my knowledge protect me now. Shuffling forward, one foot at a time, I survey the apartment and find nothing askew. The living room is untouched, but I catch a scent.
It wafts in from my bedroom, the smell of raspberries ripened in summer, an olfactory presence that signifies an intruder. As I shuffle closer towards it the scent increases like a growing whisper. I reach the threshold of my room, the door wide open. There is a blind corner, which I must turn to when I slice the pie. I count to three.
On three I leap within, swinging the lamp above my head in violent arcs, resisting the urge to howl with wolffish abandon. Only to find nothing but my unmade bed, writer’s desk, laundry basket and floor discarded clothes. What the hell? I move further in, snuffling at the floor, tracking the scent of raspberries. The scent has risen and seems to permeate the air.
Then the door swings shut and I turn just in time to see a gloved hand pushing it closed at the very top of the frame. Egads! The intruder falls upon me, kicking the lamp from my unprepared hands, only to grab it with their other hand to keep it from crashing against the wall. I collapse to the floor as something presses against the small of my back, then a leather-clad hand clamps around my mouth with an iron grip. The lycan strength is upon me, but as I resist I feel tendrils creep around my pinned arms, and in several swift movements, a silk rope wraps around my wrists, and loop around my neck, and thus I am bound, hogtied, my mouth filled; I bite down on rubber, gagged with a ball, all within moments.
Lying on my heaving belly, I wrench my head around to see my executioner.
Black leather jacket, a lasso around a pert waist, breasts straining against a skin-tight Lycra costume, and a bandana holding back tussled red hair that curls like burning paper in the fireplace of her scorching gaze. A high heel presses against my tensed rear end. She hisses in an oily voice, “I bind thee in the name of the council, lycanthrope. My heels are made of silver, and I will not hesitate to perforate your kidney should you utter a sound. Thus you are commanded. Now I will unclamp my hand and your only answer shall be: Yes Mistress.” She tugs on the rope, arching my back. “Say it you little bitch,” she huskily drawls. The wolf hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “Say it!” But there is a ball gag in my mouth.
She leans over and with lithe fingers displaces the gag till drool flows down my chin and I eke out, “Yes mistress!”
“That’s mistress pain to you, bitch.”
“Yes mistress...pain.”
Her heel trails down my crack, to my taint, and presses against my secret pleasure. I moan in a mixture of pain, anticipation, and shocking excitement. And guilt, for she is not my vampire, but my fell captor.