Holy Mother of Christ

No, not this one.

I'm just using it as an expression, just saying it.


I'd get very tired of me very quickly, were I not so intimately involved with myself. I'm not paranoid enough to receive care (or money), nor am I a danger to others, but I don't respond in healthy ways to much around me. I don't have big problems with my thinking, not in that way, but I can't say the same about my emotions. And, of course, we humans are only like ninety percent feelings.

I don't hear voices, none that aren't mine. I'm growing weary of my view.

The good news is, I talk about writing in the "more" section. For now, that's all I can offer the world.


Yesterday I started thinking about a short story. Maybe I should set a resolution to write one a month.

I also got more deeply into my rewrite of The Reader's Emporium. I made it halfway through chapter two when I remembered earlier misgivings about the POV. As it stands now, Chapter One introduces feckless Brad (a college kid) as the recipient of The Reader's Emporium. He plans to use it to get rich and be successful.

Chapter Two takes place in it, and introduces the people who work there. They're all worried about Brad's arrival and what he'll do to the bookstore. It's been suggested the story start there, in OKC, with that and there's much to that argument. One thing I remember reading is to delete the beginning of anything written. Most stories don't start until the third paragraph or so, most novels not until chapter two or three. That's a good rule of thumb.

The thing is, I've also gotten praise for the way it's set up, with the reader knowing Brad's plans and being able to see everyone's fears as silly. Of course, it could work the other way, with the fears being the original emotion and later learning they're unfounded, and I don't know how that would work. It would be more suspenseful.

My biggest problem is POV. Chapt One is pretty much Brad's, as is the rest of the book. Chapt Two is, simply put, a disaster. Who the hell is telling this part of the story? It was originally written from Dick's POV (the bookstore's manager), but since he's a very minor character I corrected that early on. However, what I did was to write it mostly from another minor char's POV, breaking one of my rules. Also, the POV shifts from Dick's (who's on the scene early) to hers, when she shows up.

No one's objected to that, which I find remarkable, but why am I doing it from hers? I want to include some things from Dick, some from others, and am scared about omniscient POV, which I don't understand. I want to include all kinds of reactions, want to write however I want and need to, and it's all one big mess.

Who the hell is saying this? -- I ask that of each line I write.

Today I think I'll study up on omniscient POVs. Maybe I can leave all the thinking out of it, just be some sort of fly on the wall. I know when I first started writing I thought I was using omniscient POV, but all I was doing was swapping and jarring the readers. I don't know how to do it, how to write this story, this chapter.