Buying Time

I recently reconnected with an old girlfriend, someone I had met in seventh grade at the school bus stop. As usual with friends much changes as you grow older and through no fault of our own we drifted apart. Last summer, a mutual friend passed away and through his death we reconnected. I guess for both of us the message was that time passes way too quickly and is available only in finite quantities. He had just turned 50, we are both 51 so it really hit home. He was someone I had known since I was 14 years old so we went back a long way.

My girlfriend mentioned retiring at the end of 2010. She is a teacher and like many teachers, she loves what she does but wants to retire while she still can enjoy her life. I wholeheartedly agreed with her. You work your whole life and then you grow older and more tired and suddenly, you look around and ask yourself - where did the time go? Suddenly, your life is not about making money and buying "stuff". Its about time; and friends, money cannot buy anyone of us any more of it. We are here for a finite period of time. We cannot buy another ten minutes or ten years. The clock ticks and it slips away.

As I grow older, immortality seems so very appealing to me. So exotic and unattainable is this concept of cheating time at it's own game. Yes, after we die we live on through others, but not in this body. It turns to dust and we return home. I would not mind immortality at this age. Think of all the experience and knowledge you have gained! Forget turning into a vampire at twenty-five, though I guess I would much rather look twenty five than fifty but hey, you can't have everything!

Stuff is great but as Billy S. says "Time is of the essence." He knows whereof he speaks because one day we are twenty-one and we blink and we are fifty-one. Believe me, it creeps up way too quickly. I have read that "overnight" success takes about twenty years. I figure that if I become an overnight success, that makes me about seventy-one.

Much to think about, this immortality. What's a little blood drinking in exchange for living forever with super human strength and heightened senses. Plus I'd be able to read the fine print on labels. Not too much to ask for now, is it?

Spirit vs. the Material

I believe it was the group 'The Police" who wrote about us being spirits in the material world.

In terms of Immortal Obsession, Christian is a vampire who continually wrestles with his essence as a vampire. A part of his world includes those around him. The other Parisian vampires, his best friend Michel and his mortal lover Josette. He still loves her in the present day, which got me thinking...

Does love transcend time and space? Can you love someone forever? Do our feelings travel through time with us, or do we forget lifetime to lifetime? Or maybe it is both. Then there is grief, anguish, and hate? Can these emotions carry forth in us from lifetime to lifetime? How does this impact on our present existence and the decisions we make for ourselves.

I frame this question in terms of vampires; the once human beings who have been resurrected into something immortal. What about us? Are we are spiritual beings who exist in physical form on this plane. Do we assume a physical body when we come down to earth and then we have to manage it, as well as the emotional realm that accompanies the physical world?

Do we forget that the physical is just that? Something organic and finite, perishable and fragile, temporal and ultimately gone. Is our true essence truly spirit that has travelled through time on a journey through numerous physical incarnations? What makes up the true "us" that we carry from life to life? I think about these questions as I write about vampires but also in terms of my own existence here on earth.

I observe that vampires travel through time but they must grow and adapt to the changing physical environment around them. We must also grow and change from lifetime to lifetime.

Do we recognize those we have loved from our past in the present? Despite changes in our physical appearance can we look into some one's eyes and recognize a kindred spirit, an enemy from the past, a former lover? I believe it is possible and in those moments we touch the divine, a power greater than ourselves; the place we all come from and return to when our work here is finished.

Vampires experience death only once and then they move forward through time. We are one being who travels forward through numerous lifetimes. We forget, return, live, learn and then leave again. Christian is still fraught with such mixed emotions about his past decisions, decisions he cannot change, people who are lost to him forever. All he has to hold onto is a love that both sustains him and pains him now.

Titles

I am toying with names for my trilogy of novels. So much is conveyed in words and it must be something that resonates with my style of writing, my beloved vampires and the nature of the series. I went to my trusty Thesaurus and have found several words that resonate with me: Beguile,enchant,bloodlust, bloodkiss, bloodline, surrender, sate, rapture, hunger. Somewhere in all these words is a title for me.

So I write down words, then combinations of words that fit together and I let them sit and I know something will jump out at me or roll easily off my tongue. It will just feel right. Those who have read any of Immortal Obsession know it is not a happy, light romance, but who said romance has to be light or happy to be inviting or to make the blood boil? Especially when vampires are involved. There should be some of the "pit in the stomach" in reaction to a vampire, especially if he is beautiful with a voice that could melt butter on your skin. When you look into his eyes you sense he can see right down to your soul and while you know he wishes to steal it from you, you would give it willingly.

That is his power. It is chilling, seductive and forces the surrender of one will to another with no knowledge of the outcome. It's a dark gamble.

October 7th, 6:30pm

Geese honk outside my window as they fly past. The whirl of my portable heater breaks the silence as I write this post. The porch lights are already on and soon mums will replace my summer flowers. I want to curl up with a good book or a good movie, make soup from scratch, or a good meat sauce. It's time to order fire wood again, bring the fireplace tools up from the basement, check my supply of candles.

As I look out back, I realize that we have to bring in the deck furniture, empty the flower pots and begin to rake the leaves, again and again. I usually buy one bale of hay to put under the pine tree in my front yard and lots of mums for the front steps. I stock up on birdseed, salt and sand for the steps. I need to get a winter servicing for my car as well.

I have had a fall wreath on the front door for weeks now and I've put a simple candle and leaf arrangement on my dining room table as well. Fall is my favorite season, though you would never know that since I spend so much time at the beach during the summer. I love Fall. Not only do I find it beautiful but many of the most significant events in my life have taken place this time of year. I always take a deep breath once October ushers in and I don't let it out until December 1st.

The landscape changes, my wardrobe changes and I relish all this beauty before old man winter comes hobbling along and I shutter. Every winter I hear myself say how much I hate it and so I try not to focus on the external, but work on the internal- this goes for the world outside my window as well as my internal one. I read more book, watch more movies and write more while sitting in front of my fireplace; the mantle filled with candles. I am forced to slow down, to stop and listen to myself. I rest and recharge my battery for another year.

On second thought, maybe old man winter isn't so bad after all.

Trailer for Let the Right One In

The movie opens October 24th. I read this book over the summer and I could not put it down. The author captures the essence of a creature that exists in our world but not of it. A must see!


Let The Right One In

That Double-edged Sword or the Agent Update

I have been asked when will Immortal Obsession be available to the public. Good question. I have an agent who is reading a partial of my manuscript and if she likes it I assume she will ask for more. If she doesn't, I am back at square one again. I still am waiting to hear from several other agents I queried. Hopefully they will oblige me by responding sooner than later. The waiting is a double-edge sword. In waiting/anticipating, all things are possible and who knows if I will get a another bite. I don't believe in putting all my eggs in one basket. Too risky.

A dear friend of mine who has worked in publishing for a very long time says that this is the most exciting time to be a musician or a writer. We have many more options for getting our work out there to the public and more control over it. Sounds good to me as I check the mailbox each day. I have to stay positive and focus on what I love to do - write. So I am working on my second novel in this series. This one takes place in present day California and New York. Though the story line seems clear at the moment, I am sure it will go through a metamorphosis as the characters speak to me.

Writing is hard work. Don't let anyone ever tell you differently. Those who are successful and achieve fame and monetary success deserve every penny they earn. Writing has kept me up at night. I have agonized over dialogue, love scenes, and killing characters off. I have tried to imagine the violence that some of them have perpetrated and witnessed themselves. Sometimes, it is hard to walk in their shoes.

When the muse taps me on the shoulder, I heed the call, as I am at this very moment. There is nothing more rewarding or more revealing than bearing ones' soul on the printed page. It's that double-edged sword again, folks.