Happy New Year...hopefully...

Happy New Year everyone!

For the first time in the years of sending my new year wishes, I find that I couldn’t come up with anything sensible to write. I’ve been thinking about this on and off for a day or so, trying to for something fitting for the end of the roller-coaster year 2011 turned out to be and that would be equally relevant to 2012, a year that I won’t even take a gander at predicting. 2011 has taught me many things and one of them is to hold off on the resolutions.



As usual, I’m sitting at home with a glass of something nice. No mixed drinks this year though. In honor of the madness of 2011, I thought something simple was more appropriate. So I’m drinking Filanda Rose from a tall champagne flute — there’s no other way to drink it. It’s quite pretty in the crystal with the beautiful sleek etchings as tiny bubbles float to the top. Filanda Rose is by Bortolomiol and is a brut sparkling wine though it is pink and bubbly like champagne. It was a Christmas gift from a friend. It has a nice taste and the bubbles are divine. I can picture myself in a penthouse suite of a tall building lounging on a white recliner by candle light with tons of champagne flutes lined out on tables against floor to ceiling glass, a panoramic view of the city against sparkling sky and Creed playing in the background as they are on my laptop as I write. Divine. Oh and did I mention I would be wearing a yellow and white diamond right-hand ring from Tiffany’s and a splash of Chanel No. 5...a girl can only dream....

As I said, 2011 threw me for a loop. At times I thought I wouldn’t get through it sane and then as the year raced on, I begged it to slow down because my achievements were so few. I ended the year pretty much the same way I started it with none of my recycled resolutions anywhere near complete. I’ve now given up on them. After all, if I can’t get through them in three years, I might as well admit now that I never will. The only thing I’ll try to do for 2012 — and it’s not a resolution! -- is to keep in touch more regularly and better with my friends. I’ve done a poor job of that this year.

As is customary, in a few minutes, I’ll go stand on the lawn and look for fireworks on the hill. Last year was a poor showing, one little something shooting up in the sky and then that was that. It was over before it started and was such a let down. This year, I’m hoping they will rally back and attempt something better. I doubt it but I’ll go nonetheless, take a fresh glass of Filanda Rose and see what the night has to offer.

So, as we bid 2011 farewell — good riddance — and wince at the dawning of 2012, I say let us throw our shoulders back, put on a brave face and forge ahead into the unknown. Usually Auld Lang Syne is sung at the end of the old year to usher in the new, but I think I’ll start a new tradition with the words to the old favourite The Way We Were as sung by Barbara Streisand:

...Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has time re-written every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? Could we?
Mem’ries may be beautiful and yet
What’s too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget
So it’s the laughter
We will remember
...The way we were

I say choose the good from 2011 and the years before, remember them, store them.

The flute is empty so I need to pour another glass of Filanda Rose....

Walk good my friends.

I wish you good things and blessings for 2012.

Living in myself

About 15 years ago when I got my first computer at home and signed up to the Internet, I remember waking at night to use the bathroom and stopping to check my emails, hopeful that something would come in from a friend, colleague or anyone, just as long as that tiny envelope flashed on the screen, telling me that somewhere out there someone wanted to keep in touch. I had lots of Internet friends then – persons I communicated with from countries I never visited –and it was quite satisfying to share information about our homes and the things we do. Since then I’ve had this love-hate relationship with the Internet. At times I feel like I could throw everything with a cyber-space connection through the window and at other times I feel I could take the laptop to bed, snuggle down and sleep contented knowing there’s a real live connection to information that would be lost if it were not for this wonderful creation. These days though I’m thinking it a curse and an addiction I cannot seem to rid myself of....but do I want to? Do I, really? I don’t think so.

As it turns out, the Internet is perfect for anyone who is as introverted as I am. My friends laugh when I say this to them because they feel I don’t have an introverted bone in my body. But I get the last laugh because I’m wickedly so; it’s just that I’m a very good actor and over time, once I’ve gotten to know someone, I get out of my shell more and more, but only barely. And if people were as attentive as they seemed to think they were, they would see that my going for weeks or months without connection except for emails and text messages is all part of my inability to crawl outside of myself and be a proper social being.

I get into friendships quickly – I know within minutes if I’m going to like someone or not. I have to, otherwise I may spend a long time on a relationship that’s going nowhere and the disappointment of that is as bad as any betrayal. And because I make friends quickly, I also hurry on the friendship activities: hanging out, exchanging messages, chatting often. Then it dies as suddenly as it begins because I’m usually sucked dry by then. Mind you, not the friendship, but the energy required with being a friend. And after that first waning, I may or may not pick myself up and make a connection and continue as if nothing has happened. Because of this, I have few true friends. Few people who even if they don’t hear from me in a long time, can embrace me once I come around and who understand that they don’t have to hear from me daily to know that I do care and that I’m there for them. My best friends know if they phone me up in the middle of the night, out of the blue, in desperate need, I would simply come. Calm and collected, unquestioning and willing. It’s the same with family.

So, what has brought on this examination of my strange friendship ways (Hey! I think I’ve found the name of my next story!)? It’s the end of the year and time for a reckoning to prepare myself for the new year and another birthday. Oh Lord!

I got an email from Oprah – you know the ones she sends out to anyone who will opt into her mail out – and as I read it, I starting thinking it was a mail from a friend. Then it occurred to me that the only mail I get these days are junk, from work and a few friends. And I do look forward to the junk – or rather store subscriptions – because without them I realise I would get very little mail on a daily basis and that should make me feel alone but it doesn’t, not really. Except it had me thinking that I’ve been extremely bad with communicating this year.

Three years ago I had a newsletter I sent out once per month that kept me in touch with friends here and abroad and kept everyone up to date with happenings at home and with me. I stopped that for school and never started back. Instead I would send occasional emails about my thoughts and what was going on with me. I stopped that too due to work and that’s when everything sort of ended. Communication became a hurried birthday message with a graphic and the exchange of jokes – never threatening spiritual passages – and a brief Hello, What’s up? Then I became hooked on watching movies on the Internet, voraciously reading books on Kindle on my BlackBerry. Every moment I had to myself was spent reading or watching; hiding from everyone and everything. I would climb out to do the honours or talking on the phone when I was called or responding to an email or going out with friends then once that was over, I was back in my world of work, watching and reading. Reading Oprah’s email today, it occurred to me that for the past two years, I have finally achieved total alienation. I no longer wanted to socialize unless I had to. Driving in the car alone with my new discovery of alternative rock was a blessing, so much so that I would resent having to pick up someone on the way to work because it meant I had to speak and I cherished down to the last second because I needed it to interact with people who I had no choice but to. Depressed? I don’t think so. Maybe.

I’m an introvert and the Internet was made for people like me and in that breath it’s a curse. Don’t get me wrong. There are times when I crave human connection. When I feel I must go out or go mad but those times are few and when they occur I’m careful where I choose because I know that being around too many people for too long would send me back into myself in a heartbeat. At those times, when I’m among people putting on my act for long periods, I literally feel like I’m bottled up and about to burst. I long for a quiet space and not being able to find any then would turn to a screen or a monitor and close off. Anyone who knows me very well, can see in my eyes that I’m like a caged animal, desperate to get out, anxiously shaking my leg or tapping my finger in need of release. Turning to a monitor has become my escape. My own little room in which I direct my attention where I want and I don’t have to be concerned with what is going on around me. Only then am I able to relax and breathe properly.

At times, being alone is euphoric. I have maybe an hour some evenings when I’m by myself at home and I feel so free that I’m actually frighteningly happy and have to think hard about how I’m gong to put it to use. Not that I don’t love my family – I do and know I wouldn’t do well without them – but I also like being with me and am not afraid. After a long tiring day the first moment to myself is greeted with a sigh of relief. I do this thing where I stretch my neck from side to side and I breathe...just breathe – inhale and exhale and then I smile. Bliss.

I like crowds best when I’m a stranger and there’s some distance between myself and everyone else. I don’t like to be touched – not unless I know you, and even then, only so much. I like being a spectator but people see me and continuously think I need company and I have little choice but to be polite. It’s a joke we have in our family that we attract crowds, and we do, especially me and particularly when I don’t want to.

For now I'll admit I'm an introvert and because of it a terrible friend. I would want nothing better than a place I could escape everyone for about three months of the year (with Internet and cable) and be able to recover. But I don’t have that and so must make due with snatching moments of alone time, like now in my office with everyone else asleep or in their own little corner of the house.

For 2012 the only promise I’m going to make is to re-open some friend connections and send more emails. I will try to remember birthdays and make an effort to send proper messages, maybe even mail a letter...nah, not the latter but better messages...yeah. And of course, I will write.

It’s a start. Isn’t it?

Charmaine's Flavors

This is where my 'net' comes together:
Charmaine Morris

Vampire Dawn is alive!

I was working on Vampire Dawn (name change pending) but was having a bit of trouble with the prologue. It kept nagging at me like Jehovah’s witnesses on a Sunday afternoon. No matter how much work I did on the other pages and how far I’d gone, I would hear it’s call and be forced to guide the cursor up to the beginning and re-read the prologue. I read it so many times that I could recite it in my sleep.

The feeling begun to set in that the pages needed drastic editing. But I didn’t know what to do. I just knew something was wrong with those five pages of prologue and that they screwed up the first half of the book.

Sunday morning I was in the kitchen fixing tea when suddenly it came to me – five pages of prologue had to be condensed to one and the deleted parts scattered throughout the first half of the book. I got right to it and edited the shit out of that baby. When I was done, I read it through and thought, good stuff.

Thing is, now that I’ve done it I realize that all along I knew what had to be done but just didn’t have the guts to do it. I’m flying on a hope and a prayer writing this novel. Sometimes I don’t have a clue but press on regardless. Other times, I’m too caught up and like a mother, refuse to admit the child is bad and must be punished...or in this case, done away with. The effort to redo is daunting. I procrastinate, I bitch and I groan, but eventually, I get to it. The creative process can truly be hell.

The prologue was condensed and I’ve begun placing things where they should have been in the first place. Truth be told, I’ve known I needed to do this from the moment I finished this version of the draft in May. As a matter of fact, if I were completely honest, I would say I knew it from the moment I expanded what was originally a one page prologue into five. Ridiculous, huh? But I had to do it, to know that it really should be one page.

Writing the novel is like writing the story of my life – not the tale but the process. I am a terrible procrastinator and then again I can be dangerously spontaneous; so dangerous that I suppress that part of my instinct in favour of the other. I have to. I’ve seen the results of my spontaneity and let me tell you, it often isn’t pretty, despite the pleasure of the moment. But no matter how I suppress this ‘wild’ side, somehow a bit of it always stabs through, like in my writing.

The best short stories I’ve written – at least I think so – are those done on a Sunday morning when inspiration usually strikes in the middle of making tea when the house is deadly quiet and I’m standing by the kitchen window peering out at the little view I have of the distant mountains. I would rush to the computer and start writing. One hour later, I would have the first draft of something special. The same thing has happen for novel ideas or the name of a novel. Funny, isn’t it, that the thing I suppress the most, can produce something good in one aspect of my life and dread in another. I’m a walking conundrum. The medical journals must have a name for this.

But, back to Vampire Dawn. There are aspects in the middle – the hated middle – that I need to tie up and others that must be clear. I have to go through the first half and make sure the story builds properly and is explained in preparation for the second half – the story’s sort of complicated and to get everything, certain key points must be explained. That’s the thing with science fiction, you have to make sure the ground rules are laid and then play by them and in my case it has to be done in the first part if the second is to be accepted.

The novel is divided into three books: Book I: Spark of Life, Book II: The Dawning and Book III: Awake!

Book III is actually the epilogue – of course it’s one page and I’m not about to change it (lol!) – and will eventually be the beginning of the next book in the series. It will be the real third book because I plan to write the prequel to Vampire Dawn entitled The Cauldron. (Hey! I just thought of that. I think I’ll keep it.) Vampire Dawn fittingly has 13 chapters spread across the three books.

Told you it was complicated.

I use a verse or quote at the beginning of each book and I just thought of the one I’ll use for Awake!

I see the sun
Rise up before me
And I think,
God of man
You,
Are a magnificent
One!

I just created it and wrote it on a piece of paper I have beside the computer – truly, I did. (There’s a hidden gem and if you can figure it out, drop me a line.)

If you ever get to read my novel, you’ll understand why this would be quite appropriate for the protagonist to say, even though he is a vampire.

To summarize, the plan is, when I’m done with all three books I’ll have: The Cauldron, Vampire Dawn (to be renamed) and Vampire Awake! Neat, right? Yeah. I think so too.

My juices are flowing and I feel energized like I could write for the entire day. But as it is with the world, I have to stop to go earn a living.

So until next time, I bid you adieu, adieu.

I'm back!!

The song The Shining by Badly Drawn Boy has a verse in it that says:

But now I’m dry of thoughts
Wait for the rain
Then it’s replaced
Sun setting
And suddenly you’re in love with everything

These five lines sum up the way I’ve been feeling these past three months since I’ve blogged. I could say that I was working on some grand project or taking a break to fuel creativity but it wouldn’t be true. I’ve been in a fog this past year and have had to push myself extremely hard to get by. It’s been particularly difficult his summer. I wrote and read nothing of substance because I felt it important to let my mind run free, otherwise I would be in serious trouble. I did spend the time watching a lot of movies – and I mean a lot! In watching movies I had the opportunity to observe other people’s lives without having to be involved or responsible. It took away some of the pressure.

“My rain has come and my sun has set and suddenly, I’m in love with everything.” What a beautiful thought.

For me, this translated to what I felt was best to get me through the dark time. I needed to be immersed in my troubles and in my self so I could once again see the true me. I know my strengths and my short-comings and while some may be shameful, I am aware and honest, if only to myself.

“But now I’m dry of thoughts.”

I went to a dark place, and probably still am there, but at least now it feels less dreadful and there’s a lightness around me that’s quite refreshing.

“Wait for the rain. Sun setting.”

I have this new sense of appreciation for all things in this world and no longer see with black or white vision. I get it now that everyone’s different but yet the same, ultimately wanting the peace of mind, comfort, love and respect. I get it too that I can’t impose myself on anyone but must accept that sometimes I won’t get what I think I want.

“And suddenly you’re in love with everything.”

The world cycles itself and history does repeat. What appears to be tragic and hopeless today is tomorrow's past incident. Courage and faith is what gets us through each moment. I must accept and appreciate life for what it is because at the moment, it won’t change. It is what it is.

So what does it all mean? I have not a clue and it doesn’t bother me that I don’t know. What is important is that as hard as it is and as impossible as it seems, I’m trying to pull myself through it.

My sun has set and I am in love with everything.