Yesterday was both a good writing day and a bad writing day.

Especially since I woke up in totally the wrong mood and spent almost the entire morning and early afternoon discussing Hall-shit with Liz about a character who - among his other faults (like having a bad redneck accent that gets worse every time I play him and I really need to get a hold on that before I sprain my fingers) - happens to be a cop, and thus is not even remotely friendly with the "scum" characters that inhabit this novel.

You normal people out there (who are probably not reading my blog, but that's ok) who are alone in your head, I just want you to know. Some days I envy the shit out of you.

I sort of think about my headspace (which is not necessarily the same space between my ears and over my mouth) as a rather cramped apartment with lots of rooms. Each room is assigned to a given character and I'm constantly building on new wings. There are a couple of "common" areas, but mostly my characters are forced to stay in their own rooms if they're not currently "on call" because a lot of them tend to fight.

What's worse is sometimes having multiple versions of a character. Like Bastian, for example. (All my charcters have at least two versions, the one who's on the Hall, in the story, etc, and therefore doesn't know all the evil nasty things I have planned for them. And the version that does, who gives me advice, talks to other characters they have no way of knowing and protests my plans loudly. Most of my characters are a lot like me in that they'd much rather have a nice calm life. But that makes for dull story, so they're generally out of luck. Thus, they complain. A lot. Especially to me, as I'm the chick in charge. Wow, this is getting to be a really long aside, isn't it? New paragraph.)

Anyway, Bastian has his regular Hall-version self (Angel - which is his current alias), then there's his "I know the plots" Hall-version (ArchAngel - Arch meaning over). Then there's the novel Bastian (Mace - which is the alias Bastian was using when he first came on the Hall and is, in the novel, the alias he's still using.) who's a bit younger and less cynical than the Hall version. And his Arch. There are a couple of wispy "what ifs" Bastian/Angels who float around from time to time from alternative timelines.

Unfortunately for me, Bastian (in all his different guises) is a very powerful character. He's the one I have no control over whatsoever. The best I've been able to do is nudge the people around him in order to get him pointed where I want him to go. He's very difficult to shut up. Getting him stuffed into his room for an extended period is so hard that I end up being reluctant to let him out again.

And - Karen forgive me for this - he's sort of an asshole. No, I take that back. He is an asshole. He's an asshole and he's an evil man. Just because he has some good points doesn't make him less evil. He's almost nothing like me, and unlike a lot of my other characters, he's nothing like I'd want to be if I could, and I wouldn't really actually want to know him in person. He's scary. And uptight. And a murderer.

However, he's an evil man who happens to be exceedinly emotional with an almost obsessive lockdown on said emotions, which makes him a real handful to deal with.

I had a good writing day yesterday. Several very emotionally charged scenes. At first I didn't like one of them. It came out a little flat and eratic. I poked at the conversation for most of the rest of the afternoon and finally got it placed to my satisfaction in the evening. Which made me very happy.

And I got some good, creepy writing done after that. Nearly 2,500 words yesterday alone.

There are only two times in my life that I miss smoking: after a really good, multuple orgasm fuck, and after a day of good writing. There's nothing quite like leaning back with a cigarette and looking back on the day's work with satisfaction.

Too bad I quit smoking seven years ago.