Yes, I need to jump start the Muse. She's run from me for the moment. I suppose this happens to every writer, the words seem to vanish. The story is called "A Dirge Born of Swallows" and it has been one of the most difficult I have written. Of course there is a theme, a tone, etc. There is no outline which is by choice. I usually outline all my work fairly meticulously. This began as an exercise to break me out of some habits I have developed. I needed to "shake things up" as it were. Instead of beginning at the beginning I began the story in the middle by expanding out a previously written short story called "Chasm" to see what happened. What happened was originally a 30,000 word piece. After some feedback from better authors than I, it was stripped down to 16,000 and became "The Children of Pandemonium" a piece that creeped me out in a good way. On the cutting floor, I realized that I had three stories that were all linked together and so I'm developing them in that way.
Which has brought me here, to stare at the last word I typed without an idea of what comes next. I've dropped out of the stream of consciousness where I'm watching the characters move and describing it as a reporter instead of creating it as a writer. This is an unsettling feeling, like I've woken up from a dream that was a far better place to be than the reality I'm surrounded by. I'm sitting in a coffee shop, with my lap top open, and music playing in my headphones. All the things I normally do when writing, and yet I can't get back to that place on the edge of a waking dream. Now I see why writers drink. Maybe that's what I need, copious amounts of alcohol, and drugs. Something, anything to take me out of me and put me back where the magic is.
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