Now that I've decided to follow a six-month publishing calendar, it's really freed up so much time literally and in my head. This weekend, though I got up at my usual time to continue my weekday work schedule (best to follow that through the weekend so as not to mess with my sleep cycle), I didn't work on edits or revisions. I just messed around, reading and catching up on some subscriptions online, and it's such a weird, alien feeling.
I never used to give myself that much space in the past. I never did. And I love it now. Of course, in addition to just messing around, I also dove into planning for Doppelgänger, which is coming out pretty surprisingly since I finally latched on to an unexpected interpretation, if you will, of what a doppelgänger actually is. Other story ideas complicated things too much, and a couple of them were dangerously similar to previous books I've written, so no go with those.
Anyway, as you know, music is one thing I turn to for inspiration -- sometimes on its own, sometimes partnered with other forms of art (literature, visual art, film, etc.) -- and with my increasing focus on music from my childhood and teen years for my work playlist, I found a couple of standouts that I now can't shake off. The ideas both songs (individually and together) trigger in my head are the most promising, and it helps that I can find common threads or connections between two completely different songs given their histories.
The musical collaboration of Elton John and Bernie Taupin was a massive, massive part of my childhood soundtrack. I loved their songs as a child though I naturally didn't understand the meaning of some of them. I was much older when I actually took the time to listen -- really listen -- to the lyrics, and that's why so many of their songs are now an integral part of my work playlist.
I'm not going to get into my plans for Doppelgänger for now as it's still way too early for that, and I'm not done cleaning up The Twilight Lover. However, as a bit of a tease, here are the two songs that now inspired much of the plot:
God dang, it's a knife to the heart, both of these songs. I actually have visceral responses to the words and the music, and they're like the kind of pain that you don't want to let go. But that's probably me being dramatic? Nah. I love them both, and now that I understand what they're about, I love them even more, and I embrace the hurt.
Another thing about slowing down is that I'm planning to go back to writing stories by hand, which is, of course, a significantly slower method but more fruitful in ways than straight up typing on the computer. I've always loved writing in cursive, which clearly shows my age, but I've grown to appreciate how it forces me to take my time getting the words out -- that is, actually thinking about what I'm writing. I also think it'll be good for me to keep using my hand especially since I had thumb fusion surgery done a few years ago, and I can't hold a pen the same way again.
Oh, I can still do it, of course, but it's a hell of a lot trickier now than ever, and it's definitely a much slower process. I just hate to lose the fluidity of movement involved in writing cursive, especially since any handwritten messages I do at work are in block letters (because no one can read my writing, I guess).
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