Friday, August 30, 2019

Excitement & the Art of Publishing

I'm so excited.  I'm about to sign a contract to get the sequel to Takuhi’s Dream published. Takuhi’s Nightmare was my July Camp NaNoWriMo effort. The old Empress is dying.  She has chosen Takuhi Maimun-Cheng as her successor. Can she maintain the Compire and keep balance between the Compire, its Assembly, and its allies?  What challenges lie ahead for her two children and her husband?  This is by no means my first published novel.  It is number 11. I get excited each time I sign a contract as though it were my first one because it took me so long to reach this point, and it’s all due to Saturn, the planet named after the old Roman farmers’ god.  I call him the Great Manifester because he will grant your heart’s desire, but you will have to work long and hard to attain it. .  

My mother supported my writing by bringing ho,e from the office she worked in waste paper with a letter printed on the other side.  It was fine for my rough drafts. Of course I would have to use a better paper for the final version.  .But I dreamed of an easier way that I could just dictate and avoid the laborious job of typing.  At last in the 20-teens came another dream come true, the Dragon. Speech recognition software. At last the price was down to where I could afford it, so my house mate and I each got one.  Then we had to train our Dragons. The movie that came on TV was How to Train your Dragon, and we laughed at the synchronicity.  I don’t know about Stephen, but I started using my Dragon right away.  I suppose that he was so busy playing his sex game that he hardly ever wrote anything with it.  

But I use it almost constantly. I still have to type a little, as when I translate the gobbledegook  my Dragon makes out of my speech into intelligible English. But that is just par for the course with Saturn.

highlight lyrics to add meaning...
Tonight's the night we're gonna make it happen
Tonight we'll put all other things aside
Give in this time and show me some affection
We're going for those pleasures in the night I want to love you, feel you
Wrap myself around you
I want to squeeze you, please you
I just can't get enough
And if you move real slow I'll let it go

That’s the song that occurs to me right about now.  Sure, it’s about making love, but couldn’t it be about other things that get one excited too?  I’m sure that were I to use my blood pressure cuff the number would be high, in spite of my having taken both blood pressure meds today (I’m very religious about taking them.) because I’m under stress, but it’s a good kind of stress.  What makes you excited? What quickens your heartbeat? What makes your eyes sparkle with anticipation? What gets the adrenaline and cortisol pumping through your bloodstream because the body cannot tell the difference between good stress and the other kind?

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