making story and art

I am a week ahead of targets for NaNoWriMo. Sometimes writing this novel feels like crafting one long spell and at the end of it my own life will take on the shape of its happy ending.

Friday night I painted a gift for someone who shared my admiration for Neil Gaiman so I drew a version of Death inspired by Steampunk. Some of the designs in the artwork were also inspired by the novel I am writing so it is all connected and complex that way.

I write an average of 3-5 thousand words a day, including what I write in my journal. My writing has been the thing that saves me and keeps me sane through the storm of questions orphaned of answers. My art-making, on the other hand, helps express or magnify what I could not contain in words.

Lately love has been lurking and I let it sit beside the lamp while I write as long as it does not interrupt me from my writing. But sometimes it would sigh and I would hear it and we would stare at each other unable to offer any consolation. It likes to hang out by my desk on late Saturday nights when it knows I tend to be more vulnerable but I am used to its tricks and I manage to bury it in a good pile of words. I would write, write, write until my fingers would cramp and my eyes would ache and love would be barely breathing beneath the pages. Of course in the morning I would find that it had managed to slip through between the lines and everything I have written would have love's taint.

I just keep on writing.