Not my favorite phrase: for the win, but in this case I will tolerate it. A much more beloved saying: fortune favors the brave. I’m feeling fortune-favored, at least a little bit. To what am I referring this time? Oh, just a friendly little conversation that has managed to continue for two days. It doesn’t seem like much but according to the revolving door of my life that so many people choose to go through, it’s heartening and frankly, really nice for a change. I’m just enjoying the lightness of tone and casual pace of the whole getting to know a kind and talented person. The fact that he is enthusiastically accepting of being playfully called “foxy face” is big points for him in my book. It’s nice to know someone so delightful–those are the kind of friends worth keeping around.

On another note, my muse for “Staged” is still MIA and as far as I know, dead in a ditch somewhere. That whole ghosting business that people do to each other (and yes, guilty here too, but I’ve had my karmic fill of it and won’t be doing it ever again) is really kind of cruel. I think I’ve finally reached a point of just wanting people to tell me straight out, “I don’t want to interact with you anymore”, instead of this other cowardly behavior. Seriously: save me the trouble of worrying about you and wondering if you’re dead or hurt, or contemplating something tragic, or whatever. Just communicate. It takes two minutes of your life. It’s really not that difficult. It also saves me time and energy. Don’t want to continue having a connection to me? No problem. Glad to know you, I’m moving on. Best of luck! At least I can retain respect for people who are upfront about stuff like that. The others? Dead to me whether truly dead or not. That’s really sad for everyone. In this muse’s case, kind of tragic. Now I have a piece of him in a story that will survive long after we do. In the interim, I get to be reminded that I probably said something wrong or whatever, when truly, I shouldn’t accept any sort of blame. That’s where honesty will get you though, I guess. I haven’t been able to touch “Staged” since before last weekend. There’s a part of me that wants to just push it off to another volume of The Doll Collection. I have enough stories for Volume One already, so really, this could wait if I decide to make it wait. Until I figure that out, the goal is to do my final edit on Sunday, pass it on to my editors, and once it’s formatted, never look at it or acknowledge it again. That’s almost like completely ignoring some aspect of your child–pretending it doesn’t exist. Wow–that’s  really awful. Thanks a lot, “muse”. I should probably mention that he’s not the first one to taint a book/story with this kind of maneuver. The Case Files are on heavy stagnation for a similar reason. That’s the trouble with writing a long series where a spoiled character appears at the beginning of the series, which also happens to be the end of the story–I can’t kill him off, even if he deserves it. The lesson here: adore the hell out of my muses, but never give them my heart–not even a little. Don’t even hint at it.

Ever.

Maybe also not let on how important they are, or how important their inspiration is to my Life’s work–it is my very existence that they are screwing with, even if they don’t acknowledge that. Sure, they can know that they have a part in it, but maybe it’s nonchalance on my part that will keep them from freaking the hell out and doing whatever stupid things they may be compelled to do. I swear, this sort of thing breaks people. Weak-mettled mortals. The disappointment isn’t worth the sharing of this information with them, clearly. At least the muse for Lt. Carver (The Pound) is thus far behaving himself. He is at double arms’ length, so we’ll see how well that works in the end. At least he was gracious to begin with. I can’t say they all start out that way. Very few end that way.