I am the gargoyle...

So, my friend who read the story "Secrets of Stone and Skin" told me something that stumped me. She said that what surprised her the most about the story is that the voice of one of the main characters sounded just like mine... and it wasn't the MC with OCD... it was the MC who is a gargoyle and male.

At first, it just baffled me. Then, I realized that it made sense. The gargoyle MC helps the chick with OCD cope. Looking back... I think that's what feels so psychologically intimate about the book is that it's how I feel as an adult when faced with my teenage psyche.

Weird, huh?

It turns out... I'm the gargoyle... and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Naked and Bleeding

I ordered hardcopies for my beta friends around me that were curious how Mutants and Curse Me A Story had changed... at the same time, I ordered a copy of "Secrets of Stone and Skin" which is the gargoyle/OCD book. On Wednesday, all of the copies arrived and I left them with my friend Stephanie and, I suspect, she'll assume she can just pass them on to the other people that normally ask to beta for me. On the surface, it's a normal pattern and she probably assumes that I've got a thick skin for anything other than unfounded or harsh criticism. Actually, most non-writers probably assume something like that if they're asked to beta read.

I know that most writers compare their manuscripts to babies... and, in some ways, I can't disagree. On the other hand, I was reading "The Picture of Dorian Gray" a few months back and Oscar Wilde tackled the feeling I get when I'm passing on a manuscript to betas.

The artist that paints Dorian's picture says: "Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul."

Later, Basil recants this and says, "I cannot help feeling that it is a mistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really shown in the work one creates. Art is always more abstract than we fancy. Form and colour tell us of form and colour--that is all. It often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him."

In both instances, it describes exactly how I feel about this particular manuscript. On the one hand, I feel naked just that it exists... that I wrote it. On the other, it involves gargoyles, among other things, so I should be able to distance myself from it and say, "It's a story not an autobiography." Even if it didn't involve either gargoyles or OCD, though, the reality is that I'd feel obvious and naked. It's a weird paradox involved in being a writer. You pour your soul into things and want to share them, but it makes you feel so completely vulnerable.

On a less awkward vein, my Nano novel is coming along well. I've reached nearly 16K despite yesterday being rather a wash due to it being a school holiday and T being so completely manic and out of control.

I'm about one month off my OCD meds now, I think. Getting off the meds involves nearly as many side effects as being on them. One particularly nasty side effects is a pins and needles sensation in my limbs and them constantly "falling asleep" if I'm not moving every minute or so. Several dozen times a day I have to deal with that painful paralysis that comes with that. This side effect can last up to a year, but I don't expect to be off my meds that long. My memory has drastically improved and I feel more like "me" now that I've been writing again. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to write without being on meds.

Speaking of which... I should really get to that or cleaning.

Le sigh.

I hate cleaning.

WIP that Muse--The Challenge Accepted

So, Juliette and I were chatting on Twitter and a discussion about Metallica quickly shifted into a cage match between whose muse could beat up whose muse.

Say what?

I'm pretty sure it was mostly me. Juliette is somewhat normal and does normal things for a living. Anyway, so we're both posting excerpts from our muses' most recent efforts (ie our Work In Progress.) I started a really strange story last Friday.

It's a YA, but might end up being a horror. It's so hard to tell really. (Yeah, be afraid... be very afraid.) It deals with a guy named Gris who is a Draconian Watcher and turns into what resembles a gargoyle in order to control the darkness and destroy these wraith things called Shades. (The picture above is one I drew as a reference today. The kids say it looks nothing like a gargoyle.) A girl in the town is being bedeviled by these Shades and he tries to figure out why. (Her name is Piper, and she has OCD and bad things happen to her... and she is worried she is doing them while sleep-walking.) So, this WIP is at 25K and it's a first person with alternating POV from Gris and Piper.

Per the challenge, we're supposed to post 500 words and see whose muse is beefier and ready to rumble in this cage match.

So, two muse enter... one muse leaves. Here ya go, Juliette, hit me with your best shot.

This is "Shades of Obsession" and Gris is talking to his cousin Danny after visiting Piper's room that night and cleaning it of Shades. He is talking about what it's like being a Watcher.

“Great Uncle Critch said it was like being a God,” Danny said. He said it defensively. Like I should give him something to be jealous of. He wanted to be jealous.

“Have you ever seen a Shade?” I asked. No, he hadn’t. I knew that, but I needed to make a point.

“No.” He shrugged and sneered slightly. “They look like a ghost, right?”

“My dad said they used to call them bog men. They glow green and have no lower bodies unless they’re poulter-geisting it. Their eyes are black, so black that it seems beyond anything you’ve ever seen. They’ll climb on top of you and your bones ache with the cold of their hollow souls. They open their blood red mouths and inhale your memories. That’s why they hang around old people so much. They don’t need them. They just want something that you have.”

“But you get rid of them,” he said. His eyes looked glazed and intense. He was getting the full explanation. Most of the other Watchers didn’t share this much with non-Watchers.

I held up my hand and concentrated on my fingers. The sharp, black, two-inch talons slid out. It was hard to prevent the rest of the transform, but his mom would have my head if she heard of even this much. “If I can’t convince them to leave, I reach into their chests and yank out their hearts.”

I heard him swallow, a loud gulp in the darkness I controlled. He probably didn’t know about that part. It felt heavy and woolen around me and I could twist it around any lights and wink them out. I could hide in it. I could push it against Shades so they left until I was ready to deal with them.

There were so many in this town—too many for just me, but I hated to drag Dad down here. I had some pride, after all. The idea popped into my head just then. Danny wanted to feel the weight of being a Draconian Watcher. Alrighty then, Danny Boy.

“So, Uncle Critch may have felt like a God but he was dealing with the damned devil every day… for the rest of his life.” I enunciated each word. When I saw the shiver run through him that had nothing to do with the cold, I added, “There are so many Shades that I’ll probably need your help, Danny. Can I count on you to help me?”

It’d be like having a side-kick or a minion. I’d always wanted a minion.

“Yeah, sure.” He nodded. “Are we going to kill people too? Great Uncle Critch said….”

“NO!” Geez, what kind of crap had Critch been spreading? Probably came out after one of those Thanksgiving dinners when someone hadn’t switched Crazy Uncle Critch to water half-way through. “We don’t kill people!” I shook my hand until the talons went away.

“Never?”

Okay, my minion was a bit twisted if he was disappointed we wouldn’t be killing people.

“I’d be okay with that,” he said.

Holy geez… maybe I was really glad that the birthright had fallen to me.

“Uncle Critch said it wasn’t something you bragged about but sometimes it was just something you had to do. It was the only way. If a person got swarmed by them and they ate their brains.” Danny made a sucking sound while gesturing away from his ear with his hand.

Uncle Critch had killed people that Shades had driven mad?

“I figure that Piper is already there, so if we need to kill her….”

“Holy hell!” I shouted, possibly louder than necessary. “We’re not killing Piper.”

Danny grimaced and scowled. “You’re sure? Your dad probably would… you know, to save her,” he muttered.

I slid a hand across my eyes, blocking Danny and his disappointed face from my view. I needed a moment. “My dad wouldn’t, because it wouldn’t be saving her. It’d be killing her.”

“Well, whatever,” he said.

We’d need to revisit this topic.