Self-Centering

I have been incredibly self-centered for the last two weeks.

I have been in my own head and the heads of so many others. I've been focused on my journey and my main character's journey. I've been watching us both change. I've been proding us both: me to write, him to go in the direction so I can get to those final three lines I wrote on the 1st of November.

I've been living in a split Brooklyn and New York. One I walk through, grabbing and stealing, sticking people and things and places and sounds and smells in my pocket to use at night. The other Brooklyn is ephemera and chopped up, but when I turn my eye to one street or one bar or one room, it glows with clarity. (The second Brooklyn is also split in ways that only I understand and will have to explain in chapter 14: A Door, A Jar.)

I spent two days in the desert. I spent two days in Las Vegas. I swallowed sand and talked to rabbits. I watched the fires rage in the rearview mirror. I ran from a pit boss dressed as Jesus. I had a great meal and watched a comedy legend, who never existed, have a stroke on stage and collapse.

When I talk to someone, part of my brain is dissecting their words, editing on the fly for the greatest impact. A voice in me says, "If she had told you she had a twin right then...Wow, what a metaphor that would have been!" I take their phrases and hide them away, just for me.

I get moody and sad when I don't know where to go next. I wander the house, room to room, muttering and angry. "What is it about?" I say. "Why are they there, doing what they are doing? It seemed so cute, four days ago, when I planned it. Now it doesn't mean anything at all. It's just stuff." But then I dig deep and find that one thing it was missing, the important thing that ties it back. In Las Vegas it was Buggy Lepsheck. At the Met it was Amy appearing at Allen's side to ask him how he has been. Somehow I had planted the seed for her return in chapter 2, without knowing, and it makes perfect sense.

I swell with irrational ego whenever I get over any hump. I crash if I stall on a single word too long.

I don't eat when I am moving, but when I stop I cook elaborate meals. My dirty dishes are in inverse proportion to the amount I am writing.

Sometimes I drink when my main character drinks. I think he may be a lush if not worse. I try not to walk past mirrors.

I wish I could give him a lover but I can't. Not yet. It's not about that and never has been. But he could use it.

I try not to walk by mirrors.

I have passed the halfway mark, I think. Or at least solidly into Act 2. I am itching to get to the 3rd Act. But I can't rush it. It has to take its own time. But as soon as Allen tells Dave, "I want you to leave," and Dave says, "I can't. We have an agreement," that's when the fun begins.

I see the movie. I see the opening credits and the closing credits and I can't see what is actually in front of me.

I have been incredibly self-centered for the last two weeks.