valarltd | Writing Angst

It's very darn hard to write ~~ferret sex~~ hot, no-strings-attached sex when one of the muses involved is broken-hearted over something you've plotted for a number of chapters down the road.

It's like the bit in The Snake Oil Wars when Lance Candor keeps re-running his funeral. "When Lettie looked over, she was as likely to see a flag-draped coffin as her husband."

So it is with my David muse. He's had me in tears for days. When he's not being clingy and comfort-needy on his new owner, he's bewailing the loss of his last one, his true love.
Between quoting French poetry, most especially El Desdichado (Gérard de Nerval)
Je suis le ténébreux - le veuf, - l'inconsolé, I am the Dark One, the widower, the Inconsolable
Le prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie; The Prince of Aquitaine before his ruined tower
Ma seule étoile est morte, - et mon luth constellé My only star is dead, my bejewelled lute
Porte le soleil noir de la Mélancolie. now bears the black sun of melancholy

Dans la nuit du tombeau, toi qui m'as consolé, (In the night of the tomb, if you would comfort me
Rends-moi le Pausilippe et la mer d'Italie, Give me Posillipo and the sea of Italy again,
La fleur qui plaisait tant à mon coeur désolé, The flower that was my sad heart's pleasure
Et la treille où le pampre à la rose s'allie. And the grape vine that tangles with the rose.

Suis-je Amour ou Phébus?... Lusignan ou Biron? Am I Cupid or Apollo? King of Jerusalem or the Duke of Biron?
Mon front est rouge encor du baiser de la reine; My forehead is red still with the kiss of the queen
J'ai rêvé dans la grotte où nage la sirène... And I dream of the grotto where the siren swims.

Et j'ai deux fois vainqueur traversé l'Achéron: Twice I have crossed the Acheron victoriously
Modulant tour à tour sur la lyre d'Orphée Bearing on the lyre of Orpheus
Les soupirs de la sainte et les cris de la fée. The sighs of the saint and the cries of the faerie.)
and crying, he's being a real drama queen. Most of all, he keeps rerunning the departure and coming up with ways he should have killed himself then and there. Most often, he imagines flinging himself into James's arms for the last kiss, opening his carotid artery and bleeding out there on the tarmac in his beloved's arms. He knows it's selfish, petty and far too overly romantic. Doesn't stop him dreaming.

I really hate depressed muses. Been coping with a glum RPG character for weeks. And this is David's second major emotional blow in a short time span. We're abusing the poor dear mercilessly.

"Rock us all down" goes badly. Were I a different sort, I would have written it as a comedy and called it "Bad Hair Day."
My kinky cosplayers are having a great time though. Media-junkie fans are great fun to write.

I'll see if I can get the epilogue finished. It'll bring the novel full circle, and enlighten Nicholas in many ways.
Need to get plotting on the other romance too. It'll fit Ellora better than Nikolai will.

We'll shop Nikolai to Torquere first. Their only restrictions are no bestiality, no pedophilia. And they relaxed the first enough that my werewolves could mate as wolves as well as humans. They need Turn of the Screw, serial fiction, which is how I sort of structured things. I can edit as necessary to fit.

Loose ID, Venus Press, Circlet Press (takes short stories, not novels), Amber Quill Press (invitation only). Well at least a few places to look.