Mystery Madness

It's been a long time since this has happened to me, but I know it isn't the first time. My brain has been TAKEN OVER by the learning process. I've lost control entirely, and know I ought to just give in to the process, but it is always so strange to be LEARNING something unintentionally... well sort of intentionally, but the intentional part had forgotten this process happened sometimes... let me e'splain...

The Subconscious Brain

(see how it looks like a penis probing in there? I wonder if that is where the term mind-f*&#; comes from?) Yes, this is psychology, but I'll put it in Tart-Speak, so it shouldn't be that painful... when we work really hard at something, trying to absorb things that are new (or think about old things in new ways) the brain has a little rebellion. Sometimes you can even hear it in there saying, 'Yeah, I don't get it'. But those tricksey brains are better at stuff than they admit, so when they really don't get it, they try to pull this new stuff into old frameworks to make sense of it.

So see, now, I haven't plotted to kill anybody before (other than staring at the kitchen knives, I mean), and I certainly haven't plotted cover-ups, motives... all that good stuff (I mean anything I had done would have been justified, right?) And the Tart may be sneaksy in some ways, but she sorta lays it all out there most of the time—one of those by-products of being a flasher.

So my brain has been engaged in meandering to places henceforth unexplored, of late.

The Intentional Stuff

I have a notebook full of ways these characters are tied together that will be revealed as the book goes. There are three separate loops, each of which generates a couple suspects. I have actually written the first part of the book, weaving these things carefully in—I sent through chapter four, and have written five (did I start 6?). I wanted to be a little farther in than what I sent because when I start something, then set it aside for a few weeks, it seems like I usually want to tweak what I wrote last before going on...

I've also been READING! You know what is REALLY FUN? I have a stack of books to get to written by people I KNOW! I know, I don't know most of them very well, but when I jumped into the Blogosphere, it seemed like there were two well-established communities of writers—the Romance writers, and the Mystery writers. I didn't write genre, but Mystery was MUCH closer to my stuff than romance, so that was the community I dived into. I'm reading a Beth Groundwater book right now, but I've got a Patricia Stoltey in my stack and an Elizabeth Spann Craig on inter-library loan order. How fun is it to read a book by somebody you know?! These all have different flavors, different sleuths, different approaches... so that's good. I can be a mimic at times, and didn't want my own voice to pick up the accents of others, so to speak...

The UNintentional Stuff

So Saturday night I dreamed all night about editing, and you know what? Not a SINGLE change I made had been saved in the morning. I hate that—working so hard and all your work is lost like that... Seriously, though. I know that is because BEFORE I WENT TO BED, I'd just spent about three hours EDITING. (see how tricksey that brain is?). That though, is standard, run-of-the-mill anxiety dream... when you brain keeps going on the same project, even after you've gone to bed.

Last night though, is another story... I was plotting, conspiring, conjuring settings, motives and murderers... Oh yeah... I was DEEP in the learning process. Though I'm darned tired, today.


They say (don't ask me who 'they' is, because I don't know) that you can improve as much OVER NIGHT while your brain assimilates new information, as you do actively practicing during the day. Let's just hope THEY aren't insane...  Otherwise I may follow them off the deep end.