Don't drink and dial!

Wolf called Jessica again but it went straight to voicemail. “Hey,” he said, sighing. “If you’re there, talk to me. I’m tired of playing games. I just wish you’d pick up.” He slid down the wall and cradled the handset between his jaw and shoulder, resting both arms on his knee. “I know I hurt you. A lot. But…I love you.”

There. He’d said it. And he couldn’t take it back.

“I love you,” he repeated, growing confident on Jack Daniels. “I know I didn’t handle things properly…I’ve got issues and I took my frustrations out on you. I guess I felt safe venting to you, but I didn’t think about how it affected you. What can I say? I’m selfish. But I do want the best for you and that’s why I was horrible, ‘cause I thought if I pushed you away, you’d go off and find someone who’ll treat you like you deserve to be treated. I know that sounds stupid, but it made sense to me at the time. I was wrong and I can’t deal with letting you go. You’re amazing. I just hope you achieve your dreams.”

Wolf paused, suddenly feeling foolish instead of brave. “Anyway, if you want to call me back, we can talk properly,” he rushed. “If not, fine. I’ll respect that. I’m leaving on Friday, so…just call me.”

He hung up and dropped the handset to the floor. What a whiny idiot. He should have learned by now not to drunk-dial.

“What’s done is done,” he muttered, reaching for the bottle and taking a slug.

* * *

Over in Santa Monica, Summer and Jessica stared at the answering machine.

“Girl, call him!” Summer nudged her. “He’s just bared his soul to you – what are you waiting for?”

“His drunken soul,” Jessica said cynically.

“Aw, he needed Dutch courage. I think it’s cute.”

“A whisky-soaked rock musician clogging up the voicemail is hardly cute.”

Stop forcing me to smell the flowers, dammit.

I hate it!

I put Headliner away for a few weeks, so I can come back to it with renewed vigour for setting the scene. While I am a chatterbox, as are my characters, I am often concerned I don't have enough descriptive narrative in my novel; that's what the blogs and articles tell me, anyway. As a reader, I don't care what the author tells me a room looks like. If they've done a good enough job of shaping their characters and said characters' journeys, I can imagine how their room would be furnished without any help from the author.

However, it does seem this is an important feature of the novel (even though I tend to skim past descriptions longer than a few lines on a page when reading). The key is balance, but chucking a descriptive passage here and there for the sake of balance is not going to work. And my characters fly so fast through life, I'm not sure they even notice their surroundings. Being on tour, playing shows in different cities each night; one doesn't get chance to stop and think, let alone appreciate one's delightful hotel rooms.

Okay, that's my complaining done for the afternoon. When I get home after my show, I'll consider ways to address my predicament. While I write primarily for me, I do want to please my readers, too. Waaaaaa!

Why I don't often blog

I often thought I didn’t blog because I have nothing to say; now I realise I have far too much and my inability to easily organise my thoughts into cohesive separate topics is why I don't bother at all.

I pulled up a chair this morning and wore my earnest writer face. Shall this blog entry be about what’s on my mind today? Shall it be about serious issues? Sex? Work? Writing? My plants? My pets? My social life? My Americanisms?

Ah, sod it. I'll go eat something instead. A romp through my unhinged mind, visiting locked-up hiding places is a road trip I didn't prepare lunch for.

I need to give this more thought over steak. Which reminds me, I should write a post about my vegetarianism.