BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

How y’all are?

As I’m sure you’ve noticed from the lack of bloggage of late, I’ve been wayyyyy too busy. So…what have I been doing? Well, stuff, and things, and stuff. You know…things you have to do when there are things that need doing.

Yeah, real specific there, eh?

Okay, I suppose I should be a bit more forthcoming. Primarily, I’ve been traveling. Over the past few weeks I’ve been in Virginia, Maryland, Nevada, and Arizona just to name a few places.

This Friday morning (yeah, like day after tomorrow) I hop another plane and head for Spokane, WA. Fortunately, even with all this being away from home, my kid still remembers my name and I haven’t found anyone else’s shoes under my bed…so, I’m pretty sure Evil Kat hasn’t replaced me yet, or even started the application process. Which is a good thing, because she’s way too busy to train another husband.

So…on the Spokane deal. I have a layover in Salt Lake City on my way, which is where I meet up with Morrison and we catch a flight into Spokane where we will be appearing at the Conscious Living Expo. Per our itineraries, my flight in from St. Louis lands about 6 minutes before Morrison’s flight from Virginia. So, I have 6 minutes to find her gate and meet up with her so we can shuffle off to our connecting flight. No big deal, right? Guess again…

Now, I don’t know if any of you have ever walked through an airport with Morrison, but I have. Here’s the thing–under normal, everyday circumstances, Morrison walks at the same pace as your average human being. This is NOT the case when you put her in an airport. For some reason– perhaps the fumes from the jet fuel, I dunno–when faced with an airport concourse, Morrison turns into a sprinter. It doesn’t matter if she has 3 hours before her connection, she does the 4 minute mile from one gate to the next. Last time I had to do this we met up in Denver on our way to Reno for the Northern Nevada PPD, and there I was cruising along at a brisk pace, thinking everything was normal…But nooooooo…30 seconds later I look up and realize that Morrison is about 25 yards ahead of me and widening the gap. On top of that, she was completely oblivious to the fact that I had been left in the dust and was just jabbering away to thin air. (Yes, it was thin…We were, after all, in Denver.)

So, you see, I am going to need to wear running shoes just to deal with this layover, because the TSA isn’t about the let me bring a tranquilizer dart with me in order to slow Morrison down.

Okay, enough of that. Morrison is getting wayyyyy too much air time in MY blog.

Speaking of airtime…Thursday (10/11) at 3:15PM (Pacific Time) I will be doing a short phone interview with Tanya Tyler, one of the radio personalities at KZZU 92.9FM. They apparently have a stream on their site so you can listen via the internet if you are so inclined. You can find it here- www.kzzu.com. I’m not sure what we are going to talk about, but I guess we’ll all find out. If you happen to live in the Spokane area, according to the website Tanya is giving away tickets to the Conscious Living Expo all week.

So, let’s see…What else is going on…Oh, yeah, by popular demand, Miranda has her own Myspace page now. You can find her here- Miranda’s Myspace. Go ahead and send her a friend request if you are feeling brave. I have a feeling she’s looking for more victims.

Other than that, well…I’m basically spending a lot of time cleaning up around the house and that sort of domestic type thing. What I REALLY need to be doing is packing for Friday, but as usual I am dragging my feet. I did, at least, get my suitcase out and set it in the living room. I suppose I should get busy and go put some stuff in it…

More to come…

Murv

It came screaming into the world with a -30-, Fin, The End, insert your favorite editorial mark here because some of the symbols don’t seem to want to show up in the blog, tagged on its rear, yesterday afternoon, right about 5:00 PM…

Yeah, that’s right. The latest manuscript is finished, submitted, and all that good stuff. Sent off to “college” with only a virtual suitcase and class schedule (read: date with an editor) as I waved goodbye from behind the keyboard.

One of my friends asked me what it is like to finish a manuscript– Elation, Relief, Joy, Sadness, what? So, I thought I would share the answer here, hence the title of the blog…

Uh-huh…Writing a manuscript for a book, especially one that is contracted and has a deadline, is a lot like giving “intellectual birth.” No, not birthing a really smart kid (although, the Evil One and I managed to do that somehow– Our daughter is brilliant and will probably take over the world by the time she’s thirty, but I’ll brag on her later)… What I mean is, by the time you get to the end of a 100K word manuscript, you are spent. Worn out. Ready to just collapse.

For example, I jump out of bed at 5:15-5:30 every morning. You can almost set your watch by me. Today…Not so much. My feet finally hit the floor around 8:00, and it’s not like I stayed up late celebrating or anything. My celebration took the form of the wife and kid taking me around the corner to the new Mexican place for dinner (so I didn’t have to cook)… That was nice. It was excellent. All was good. But, I went to bed at my regular hour. I was just plain exhausted…

Some may wonder how you can possibly be exhausted by sitting on your ass behind a keyboard and typing for hours on end. Well, I don’t just sit. I get up to go to the bathroom and refill my coffee or tea… (Actually, I do make sure to get activity in, but that’s a different story)…

The real deal is the exhaustion you experience is purely mental fatigue.

(Well, there is the stiffness from sitting in one position, hunching over some research looking up something, the itchy eyes from staring at the screen, the cramps in your hands from typing all day… but this blog is about the mental stuff…)

Remember, when you are writing you are pretty much living with this set of characters. I know that may sound insane, but trust me, that is how it works. You are walking around in a daze for the 4 to 6 months it takes you to tap out the story on your keyboard, and you have a whole host of folks bopping about in your head. Whispering in your ear. Telling you how THEY would do something that you are doing. Letting you know THEY would never eat a Braunschweiger sandwich because it’s yucky… Well, you get the picture.

These imaginary characters become a part of your family, and for a period of time, a good portion of your life. You can’t do anything without thinking, “How would XX respond to this?”… “What would YY do if she was in this situation?”…And, more often than not, they tell you in no uncertain terms. Of course, you are the only one who hears them and that makes you look like you are talking to yourself…So, you try to avoid doing so in public lest the men in white coats come to take you away… The point is, they are with you night and day. You cannot get away from them, and if you try, they chase you down and make your life a nightmare. Why? Because you are supposed to be paying attention to them while they tell their story, and if you ignore them they get pissed.

So, what it comes down to is the feeling when that -30- goes at the end of that last page…

Well, it’s all of them. You run through them just like you would the stages of grief….You feel accomplished, you are elated, you are ecstatic. You are ready for these folks to go back in their box and leave you alone for a while. Then you get worried. Things happened to them in this story. Are they handling it okay? Are they going to make it through without counseling? Are YOU going to make it through without counseling?… Then you are sad…. It’s like houseguests who have been staying with you forever who finally leave. You think you are happy they are gone, then you realize you have grown so accustomed to having them around that you miss them terribly and want them to come back…

So, name an emotion, I’ve probably felt it, or will over the next couple of days… That’s why I warned you in the last blog my brain would be like oatmeal for a while…

It’s a rollercoaster…And, I’m on it right now.

But, you know what? That’s okay… Because, last night I got to sit and have a normal conversation with my wife– That means not once did I stare off into space wondering how Rowan, Felicity, or any of the other characters would respond to the innocuous things being said.

Of course, in a couple of months when I start the next manuscript, I am sure they will be happy to fill me in on what they thought…They always do.

More to come…

Murv