Listening to Childish Gambino's album Awaken My Love. It's pretty damn good...to me anyway. It reminds me of old 70's R&B. It's really cool.

I must apologize for the other night. I got writing and didn't come back and am just now showing up. The good thing is that now my work in progress (WIP) is at 254 pages and 104,083 words. My goodness, I didn't know I could write so much on one story. It's moving along nicely but...I'm at the point now that...I don't think it's very good. I wanted to do a feeler and get some feedback on the story so I posted the first chapter...it was just a few pages. Nothing big. And I got no response. I'm thinking it's either too long for people or...that they have better things to do.

Also, I think I may have to change the beginning some and on top of that...I don't know if my chapter headings are working well. The chapter headings are actually rules given by the narrator throughout the story. She's a character in the story as well. It's a weird thing and I liked it at first but now I'm like...what the hell am I writing?! I know that when I began the story it was a venting piece about all the wrong that had come to me in a particular relationship and from there – it became about the wrong that my friends and family also suffered at the hands of others. Then it spiraled into a story about vengeance and how one man was going to get his due for all the wrong that he'd done and it's all wrapped up in fiction with true elements. Now it's like a hodgepodge of erotica, thriller, horror, suspense and very little comedy. But I bill it as an erotic thriller. There is sex but I don't think it's enough to call it erotica. Though the sex had is pretty...intense...I don't know if that's enough to name it so.

And with all of that, my novel has gone through a million name changes. I started out with naming it Cheaper 2 Keep Her...then to Wicked Games... then to Cheaper 2 Keep Her: Wicked Games. I googled the title and found that these titles were already taken. So I came up with more names:

Brought to the Light

What Doesn't Kill Us

Killing Us

Tangled Webs

Lies That Bind

Deadly Intentions

Wicked Webs

What They Don't Know, Will Hurt Them

To finally....and I think I'm gonna keep the name or else I'll go crazy...Wicked Games: Love and War.

Naming things like books, babies, pets, cars, houses and body parts is hard work. It's like the name gives these things life. We know that babies and pets are alive but they don't seem to be a part of you or real or significant to you until you've named them. Houses in particular – everyone knows not to name their house right? Seriously, I've seen enough haunted house movies to know that naming the house is giving it a life of its own that will eventually turn on you. That and...don't build your house on a former grave site or Indian burial ground...just don't. The one house that sticks out the most is Stephen King's Rose Red. That damn house killed people and started building itself after a while. So no – don't name your house...Or car! Stephen King made the rules...not me. I'm just saying. If you're gonna name houses and cars and even computers because hey – as far as I'm concerned they're faulty too – 2001 – A Space Odyssey was a movie that told us all about that...just be ready for the consequences. Hal 9000 would have been blown to pieces messing with me. The computer read lips man! Or the computer from War Games...what's his name...ummm....dammit I gotta look it up. His name is Joshua but formally known as WOPR (I totally said whopper... cause Burger King), War Operation Plan Response. He wanted to start the fallout of humanity convinced he was playing a game with the man that made him. Global thermonuclear war was almost upon us people because a computer couldn't differentiate a game from reality. I'm just saying – use caution naming shit.

And did I really just go off on a whole tangent about naming thi-....smh. I'll be alright. How did we get to this strange place where my mind is trying to think of other bad things with names? LOL What were we even talking about?! Dude...now I gotta scroll up...un momento (that's all the Spanish I know so don't engage me with it...I'll just look at you or phone or computer screen with a blank stare and nod my head yes.) Okay we were talking about naming the book! I want my creation to LIVE! (I said that in Victor Frankenstein's voice – awesome movie, you should see it, Harry Potter (I know that's not his name!) is a slave in a circus with humpback, which ends up being really gross). My favorite line because of the way that Charles Xavier says it (I know that's not his name!), "This isn't life!" I've said it myself on many an occasion during the reflection of my existence and believe you me, I could stand a lightning strike.

Off on a tangent again....sorry.

Thing is, I want my book to live and for the words of the thing to be a direct reflection of the title. I want to breathe life into a lifeless thing and make it live so much so that the words jump off the page and into the minds and hearts of the reader. I carry awesome stories with me, I quote books and movies and songs because they live with me. I love that and I want to be able to do that with my readers...but they first have to read the damn thing!

It's frustrating. Maybe I'm targeting the wrong peoples. I'm going to finish it and give it to my beta reader and get some much-needed feedback. Right now it's so rough but it finally has a title and a pulse. The image I just had – of my complete book on a metal slab with chains at all the corners getting ready to be hoisted up to the uncovered ceiling beneath a stormy sky where lightning streaks across the sky. And me below in mad scientist garb screaming LIVE! It lives now.

This imagination is something else. Yesterday, I imagined myself planting little words in a garden that was shaped like a book and watering them with ink. I stood back to watch the things I planted grow into full blossoming characters, plots and storylines. All I had to do was pick them from the trees the sprouted from and add them to the page on the little wooden table next to the garden. I think that was rather poetic. If my drawing skills were anything but trash – I'd have an image for you to view.

On a completely unrelated but relevant note – I haven't had a cigarette in three days. I've been writing like a madwoman and trying my best not to think about the fact that there's no nicotine in my body. I don't really know what to do with myself. I'm not having a fit or craving or anything it's just the thought that's bugging me. Like, I know every day around this time I go outside to smoke ...it's a habit or a routine. I never gave addiction the thought I have been giving it in the last few days. It is a thing of the brain I think...more so than the body. It's like...your body can and will recover but the thoughts are always there. The memories of how the substance makes you feel is always there. The memories ...it's the damn memories.

So I'm doing my best not to think about it save for writing about it. I write about it here and in the short works I come up with and even in the novel. Characters who smoke just seem so to be more upset with their lives than the ones that don't LOL. It's weird. I wonder if I'm interjecting my own personal feelings into the characters. I try not to...seriously. Everything can't be about me and I want it to be different. Some real stuff happens...okay a lot of real stuff happens and the hardest part is inserting the fiction and having it read well without being disjointed. I'm working on it.

I'll keep taking advice and listening to my inner voice and go from there. Speaking of voices, I was asked if I ever wrote down anything that the voices said to me when I heard them. I have done that. There is a very colorful journal on my bookshelf that has a lot of what the voices have said to me in it. There are some stories where that has happened as well. It's something else.

Maybe a little later in life I'll open that journal and try to do something creative with it all. I've read graphic novels that were actually biographies of the author. Wonderful, imaginative things that just leap off the page. Maybe when I become a big shot author – I'll do something like that. As for this thing here – this memoir. I've been wondering about its longevity.

I don't want to get to a point where I'm repeating myself with the things I say and tell you. This has helped me a great deal. I still, for some reason, consider this memoir a dark place where the windows have been broken to let shine in. I want more light. I need more light. I need for the walls to be broken down and for the doors and windows to be thrown wide open. I need no ceiling to limit my vision – just the open air of the light that possesses the outdoors. I want to live in it. Breathe it and feel it and be it.

This needs to happen. I want it so badly I can taste it.

On any given day – my thoughts dictate my emotions. If they are dark and scary then my mood is somber and I'm quiet. If they are positive then my mood is light and I'm talkative. Most times I fall between the two – and am just content, I guess and quiet but speak when spoken to. Otherwise, you wouldn't hear a word out of me. I pick my thoughts apart and try to get to the bottom of why I had that thought. Sometimes, I over think and put myself in situations that cause my mood to plummet. Recently I've just been engaging in rerouting my thoughts so that they do not affect my mood. I could be in the best mood ever and a dark thought will sneak in. I either deflect the thought by pushing it away or do something physical so that I am concentrating on the task at hand. I believe I resemble a person with OCD cleaning everything from time to time.

I want to do something new as far as a memoir goes. I definitely want to get back into blogging. But this here is something that has me in deep thought. What can I do to switch it up? I had an idea before and went as far as to start a new book on Wattpad for it but nothing has come of it yet. I need to do something with that but first, I just really need to finish the novel. I feel like there's a great pressure and weight on my shoulders to do so. I don't like that feeling. So I'm going to relieve myself of it by completing it.

I have to remind myself that just like I am, my book is also a work in progress. I have time, I just need to use it wisely. Every little distraction doesn't need my attention. People will be alright if I don't answer their every beck and call. They will be. This is something that feels like it needs to be done. Besides a finished product is never a bad thing. Never.

Where has the time gone? This turned into a ME fest. As it always does. But that's not a bad thing. Sorry about the way I went off on several tangents. I'll try to keep it together next time.

There are 94 published parts to this thing. I'm coming up on 100. I'll have to do something special, but what? I'll think on it and come up with something. Hopefully, it will be something fun.

I'm open to suggestions. Really I am. Please tell me what to do! I'm clueless.

See you guy later, until then I must go and breathe more life into this creation of mine. I leave you with this simple blessing:

May the work of your hands bring forth the desires of your heart...that experience reward at the end of your toiling. Do all that you can with the strength and might of the Lord.

Thank you for reading!