Hilary Moon Murphy's Novel Dare Page
Before I begin, an apology to those of you using the Netscape Browser who found that they could not read this Dare Journal at all. Somehow, the bottom section of this Dare Journal (entries from July 31st-August 2nd and part of August 3rd) disappeared, taking all my HTML control codes with them. I am annoyed and perplexed by my missing entries and Geocities cannot tell me where they went...
Pre-Dare: Approx: 28,000 words (six chapters) + a 10,000 word outline
August Dare total to date: 7,522 words.
August Novel Dare Stats
August 30th, 1999: You may have noticed that there have been no entries in this dare journal for over a week. That’s because I spent most of the last two weeks vomiting. No, that’s an exaggeration. I also continued to go to work, and then collapsed from exhaustion on my lunch hours and whenever I got home. Several of the more clueless and well-meaning staff people at work, seeing me run for a bathroom, have tried to console me with the fact that morning sickness usually ends after the first trimester. It is very, very hard not to snap at them and tell them that I’m in week 23.
The only reason I’m not in the hospital is that I’ve been managing somehow to keep down about one meal in three and I’ve been drinking water constantly. I’ve called the urgent care line and the obstetrician several times, but so long as I can drink some fluids and keep down some food, they think I’m handling it. Maybe I am, but I worry about my baby getting nothing the last week but saltines, rice, broth and flat gingerale. Vegetables? Protein? Milk? Forget it. It doesn’t matter that I’m consuming empty calories so long as they’re empty calories that stay down. This is not my idea of how to give my kid a sound nutritional start in life.
So, Hilary, is this pregnancy thing worth it? Surprisingly, the answer is still yes. My baby started kicking two weeks ago. It felt like a tiny finger poking me gently from the inside. Since then, the movements have grown in frequency and intensity. Some mornings the baby is so active it feels like she is doing somersaults and karate katas in there. Oh yes, we had our ultrasound last week. My baby’s measurements are all (thankfully) still normal, as are her vital signs. And, in case you cannot guess from the pronoun I just used, we think our baby’s going to be a girl. My husband is ecstatic. He’s now seen her tiny perfect hands on the ultrasound and can feel her move. She has become suddenly real to him. He’s even talked to my stomach a few times, something he felt silly about before. I love this baby very much, but worry that I’m not taking the best care of her because of all my sickness.
But Hilary, what about writing? This is supposed to be the journal of your novel dare. Have you been slacking off? Well, yes. It’s been a pretty dismal month for this dare. I wrote about 7,500 words, or two chapters. That’s only a little over a tenth of what I set out to do. On the other hand, I was not anticipating that I would have an out-of-commision computer, or that my baby would interfere with my writing this much before she was born. Will I do a dare again? Maybe. For now, I just want to keep forging ahead and finish this novel at whatever pace I can manage. Thanks to all of you who have written words of encouragement, and hugs.
August 17th: Yes, I haven't been here in a few days. The word count for the novel for the last three days was zero, but that's okay. I've still been remarkably productive, and hope that I can get back to my fiction tomorrow. I've spent much of the last week working on the estate: tons of letter writing, multi-part incomprehensible legal forms, and long distance phone calls. Icky stuff, but it was hanging over my head and I'm finally getting it out of the way. We've also been making progress on baby preparations and house remodeling.
I've been researching methods for controlling depression, and have started swimming three times a week, walking the other days, eating right and managing my stress (hence the drive to get the estate stuff and remodeling out of the way.) I've also decided that maybe it's time for me to make some changes at work. I love being a librarian, but I have worked in the Technology & Science department for over two years now and would like to try something else. So I'm going to be applying for other jobs in the system to see if a change of venue helps.
All these changes seem to be helping. I've had no emotional dips for the last few days, thank God. No nausea, either. I'm still computerless, but my husband has promised to give me some more time on his until my laptop comes back from the shop. So, it's back to the dare and probably a good thing, too. My characters have started calling to me in my dreams...
August 13th: 2085 words. Yes, I actually have a word count for today. Amazing stuff, eh?
I decided to stay home and write tonight instead of going to the movies with my spouse and some friends. Unfortunately, I was unable to get the borrowed laptop to boot up ("No boot device detected") and could not find a boot disk anywhere. I plan to call the friend I borrowed this computer from and find out if it normally requires a separate boot disk or if I've broken yet another machine. (When I married a Murphy, I had no idea that Murphy's Law would apply to me...)
But since my spouse was out, I snuck time on his machine and started the next chapter. My heroine finally returned from the demon realms only to discover the skewed time effects of traveling between worlds. She's been gone all night, is covered with scrapes and bruises, and has no explanation of where she has been. Even worse, she learns that she has missed the death of an old man of whom she was very fond. He called for her repeatedly before he died... Guilt, shame and a Hindu funeral full of bizarre relations follow.
I feel much better today. The clouds of gloom and doom parted and I could be my obnoxious and outgoing self. My co-workers joked with me that I was so quiet yesterday that they were tempted to send out a search party for me. I joked back that I had not really been at work at all but spent the day lounging at home eating bon bons.
Today my belly has been having another growth spurt. It does not grow gradually but has days where it gains an inch or two in diameter all at once. My navel hurts and I can feel my abdomen stretching. It's hard as a rock, which means I may have some trouble sleeping tonight. These growth spurts are very strange. I feel like I have been taken over by aliens.
I've made an interesting realization. The days of nausea usually precede growth spurts, which indicates a definite hormonal connection. I'm beginning to wonder if my emotional lows aren't somehow tied into this same cycle, too. I think that I am going to have to keep track of all these changes and mood swings on a big calendar and see if there are any patterns. I'll probably deal better with emotional lows if I can predict when they are going to hit.
August 12th: Writing total: big fat zero. I battled depression and nausea all day.
It's been only the last few weeks where I have started to gain weight with this pregnancy instead of losing it. Any day that I can avoid throwing up is a major victory. Well, I succeeded in not throwing up -- mainly by running outside to gasp fresh air until my stomach calmed and the tears stopped running down my face.
The battle with depression is another story. I don't know what is happening to me. I've had hormonal mood swings before, but rarely hit such lows. I just feel that my life is in a downward spiral. Why? I don't know. I have a fabulous husband, good friends, and am finally pregnant with the baby I always wanted. But I cannot shake the darkness inside that tells me that I'm without value. At work, people keep forgetting that I'm there because I'm so quiet I practically disappear. This is not normal behavior for me, and it frightens me a little.
Part of it may be post-Clarion blues, and part of it may be anxiety about the future. The baby is coming in December (or January) and I know I'm not ready yet. Part of it may also be that my writing is going so slowly. I feel like such a sham. Here are all these other hard working people in the dare, and here I am trailing far behind. If Lori White can manage two thousand words a day while planning a wedding and struggling with back pain, why can't I overcome a little moodiness? The irony is that my depression becomes this vicious cycle where I get depressed about not writing and then can't write because I'm depressed.
The only good thing is that these dark moods last no longer than a couple days, and then I'm me again. My apologies for dumping all this darkness on you. My next entry will be about writing, I promise.
August 11th: Borrowed the laptop from my friend Shannon Atwill, but did not manage to get much else done. Spent way too long talking with Shannon about babies and Clarion, but then I hadn't seen her in months. The only writing I got done was a couple of pages scrawled on my lunch hour. Hopefully, this is the last of the handwritten stuff for a while.
August 10th: I'm on a roll. Eight pages handwritten, and tomorrow I should be able to borrow a laptop so that I can (finally) type. I realize that I'm the snail of this dare, and it's time to start catching up a little. I'm almost done with my demons, and this makes me a little sad. I think I'll have to bring them back as the main conflict in my second book.
August 9th: Wow. Five e-mails today about this Dare journal and only one of them was from a Dare Participant. Other people actually read these things. Everyone was curious about the sentient ocean of milk, which makes me happy. This means that there's an audience for my weird stories -- all I have to do is find it. Someone has offered me use of a spare laptop, so I can start posting word counts again soon. Got three more pages written. Oh, and for those of you who are wondering: my stomach is behaving now. I'm one happy camper.
August 8th: I hate one-day weekends. Sundays fill up with all the chores and minutiae that got missed on the previous six days. Yes, this is a way of saying that I got hardly any writing done. Wrote less than a page of dialogue.
August 7th: Didn't get much done because I had to work today, but at least I wrote some new pages about the demon fishing village. This scene is working a heck of a lot better now. Neurotic demons are fun, and the imagery that I'm using is a little more original. Unfortunately, I had to toss out most of the rest of the pages that I wrote in the last few days because they no longer fit, but maybe I can use those descriptions elsewhere.
August 6th: What I wrote today was mainly description, and I think I'll have to throw it out. At the end of my last chapter, my heroine caused part of reality to explode in an attempt to get away from a rather pushy sentient ocean of milk. The explosion had the nasty effect of having her tumble through the Three Worlds until she eventually lands in the realm of the Asuras, Hindu demons.
My problem: how to depict the realm of the demons in a way that would be true to Indian folklore and believeable to a western audience. I started out writing descriptions of lakes filled with bloated, headless bodies and paths paved with jagged broken bones and I am very unhappy with it. Part of it may be that I've never enjoyed either horror or grossness written for their own sakes. Part of it might be that I realize that I'm being unfair to Hindu demons. In folktales and the great epics, their world seems not so different from that of the humans. They have families, live in thatched huts in villages, have daily jobs that they work at. The demons in Hindu literature are not always evil. They are enemies of the Gods and often war with them, but sometimes they commit great acts of piety and kindness. And let's face it, the Gods of Hinduism have not always been the nicest bunch, either.
So what I really need is something more subtle than over-the-top horror imagery. I want to slowly build suspense and create the subtle impression that something is very wrong. And that can be damned hard to convey. I was sort of stumped when I had an inspirational conversation with Lyda Morehouse at Diversicon last night. Yes, I was bad and went to a convention when I could have been working on my writing. But how could I miss out the opportunity to meet with the two other twin cities participants from this novel dare? At any rate, Lyda was discussing the character of Satan from the television series Brimstone, and said that Satan did really subtle evil, like tearing out the last page of mystery novels and flipping parking meters to "expired." This got me thinking: what can I do that is similar, using Hindu tropes?
I think that I will build a distorted reflection of an Indian fishing village for my demons. And set it on yet another shore of the Ocean of Milk, because my heroine should not have gotten away from the Ocean that easily. It was the original ocean of creation, and its tides should wash onto all the worlds... The demons should be threatening, but they'll also be dysfunctional and neurotic. And what are the demons fishing for on the edge of creation? Hey, I have to keep some surprises for the novel. All I can say is that my character will have to be really creative to get away this time.
I have to work tomorrow, but I'm really looking forward to going back to the story. Neurotic demons should be a lot of fun. Oh, and in case you all are wondering, I am feeling lots better. I've had two whole days of being yuck-free! Whoopee! One more bizarre thought: with all the milk imagery in my novel, I should get a grant from the American Dairy Council. I think this is a heck of a lot more interesting than their "Got milk?" campaign...
August 5th: I want to thank those of you who have written to encourage me to stay in the dare. Your support means a lot to me. Another three pages written. Progress is slow, but I'm still going forward.
August 4th: I've learned that my computer is going to be out of commission for the next ten days at least, while the manufacturer works on the faulty power switch. My husband has been needing his for work, so it looks like I'm stuck with handwritten pages for a while. It's an interesting discipline, writing things out by hand. I never tried doing a long stretch of writing this way before. It's very frustrating for me, because I like to write my scenes out of order, flipping back and forth between different scenes as the mood strikes me. Now I'm writing in a more straighforward chronological fashion, and it's a lot slower.
Wrote only two more pages today, but I've been fighting off waves of nausea and vomiting attacks again. Oh well. At this point, the dare is the only thing that is keeping me writing, so I'll stick with it even though I know now that there is no way I'll make 60,000 words by the end of the month.
August 3rd: I'm beginning to think that I should drop out of this dare, since I'm falling behind fast and the time fairy doesn't visit my house. But I'm stubborn. Despite my computer being out of commission, despite having my time sucked away today by a dozen last-minute crises, I still got some writing done on my dinner hour. Scrawled five pages into a paper notebook. Don't know how many words that was. Don't care. I wrote something, and I will continue to write this month no matter what. Even if my word count total falls far behind everyone else's, I will have produced.
Hmm