Bhagwan @ Large

Dear Universe…

Thanks.

No, really. I mean it.

What would a day be without more day? Yesterday’s 2.5 hours of sleep was awesome, especially combined with Day 4′s schedule of vegetables, vegetables,and fruit.

Nothing like gnawing hunger to keep me awake and focused all day. While it did afford me the opportunity to watch some movies, recorded tv and listen to some music, the writing got hard, and I’ll most likely throw some of those words out during revisions.

Thanks for sending this book to me in chronological sequence, for once. Unfolding scene by scene, with only the most tenous of over-arcing plots.

Mind you, you’ve brought me a good one this time, especially since your plan of forcing it into my brain over the last 4 months made it nearly impossible for me to write any other fiction not bought and paid for by corporate overlords.

At least I know how it ends. But the characters keep weaving themselves into one another, and their voices are getting tricksy to separate.

For the record, until two days ago this was Space Opera, not military sci-fi. Though I understand folks enjoy that sort of story.

I Know I do. Getting to read this one before anyone else is kinda fun.

Thanks also for Cheap Red Wine, and the profitable Poker Face it brings. Thanks also for top pair, top kicker, and the knowledge of when to fold it.

Los Gatos want me to add, “MrrRrrRrrow?” I told them that was rude, but Maleficent insists. For some reason, she’s convinced you’re responsible, and by you, I mean me.

Medea has only her baleful witchy green glare to add, having spent this week’s budget of non food-related mrrows 4 hours ago, when we first attempted this sleep thing.

Thanks for hot showers, and sweat soaked sheets. For warm and dry bathrobes, and for this rager of a headache, sore throat, stuffy head and fever.

But seriously, thanks for the top pairs. It’s good to have some hypothetical folding money, after last week’s spendapalooza.

See you tomorrow morning.

Jerk.

Looks like it’s time to hydrate and write.

Bhrow, winds. Bhrow!

I’ve got rain and thunder outside my walls and windows, giving the City of Shoreline, WA many things in common with Phoenix, AZ.

When I first arrived in the Valley of the Sun, it was raining. And unlike outside, it was hot. The end of October was to be my emergence into adult life, something the previous year of real responsibilities and debt accumulation could not equal. I remember the rain, and the joy of living, and the knowledge that each day was a treasure, never to be repeated.

It was magic.

And like all fantasies, eventually it ended. But every time I see a flash of lightning, I remember Phoenix, and my matriculation. I remember dancing in rainstorms, playing frisbee across tennis courts in water 8 inches deep, laughing and screaming at the pure emotion of it.

Every time it rains, I feel it in my chest. I hear myself coughing, knowing that I have a condition that can never be cured, only endured. I love the minutes and hours before a storm. the smell of it, the charged, electrified moments before the first drops fall out of a clear sky. I hate the pain, the wracking, prolonged agony that reminds me of the past.

In Seattle, it never stops. If the sky is clear, it’s going to be cold and miserable. But if it’s cloudy, or if the wind blows some hint of the coming storm to me, just for a moment I’m young again, free of pain, waiting out on the porch in borrowed lawn furniture with a tall glass of rum beverage, lying awake listening to the rain.

I love the rain.

I hate being cold and wet.

Here, in my well appointed cave, I can enjoy the benefits of maturity, and send my words out into the internet in-between flashes of light and the following cracks of thunder.

Today was not the most productive of writing days, but Chapter Four is in the bag. One of my mains now has a complete history, and the ever tangling threads bringing all of them together draw ever tighter. I remember being young, the feeling of the new. I remember the pain of love unrequited, and the wonderment as each new encounter fanned the flames again.

I tried to give that to her. Lifting her out of her personal, private Hell and allowing her to make her own choices. There’s more of me in her than I care to acknowledge, but I’ve just done that, haven’t I?

18748. And things only get worse for everyone from here.