Time to admit it

[charamei]

It's time I admitted it. I have a problem.

Two years ago, my first drafts looked like this:

Esenna was not, for all its people's learning, a particularly pretty planet, at least not in this region. The grass had a faint reddish tint, which was nice and homely, but it was scrubby and sparse, growing on solid metamorphic rock. The only good thing that could be said for it was that it did not, for once, resemble a quarry.

They had landed a few miles away from the nearest settlement. He was rather enjoying the walk when there came a shout from behind him, and he turned to see a tall young man in a brown pinstriped suit running at full pelt in his direction.

"Doctor! There I – er, you are." The man pulled to a stop at the last moment before tripping over K-9, and grinned at the Doctor. "Oh, just look at that scarf... hello."

"Hello," the Doctor said. "Do pardon me, but I don't believe we've met..."

"Oh, we have." The younger man was still grinning. "Well, not met exactly. Look, I haven't got much time."

On the horizon, a group of three people – two adults and a child – appeared behind his conversator. The Doctor, for once in his lives, was stunned into an appalled silence.

One of the adults of the group was wrong. So utterly, revoltingly wrong that the Doctor felt sick to his stomach even looking at him from this distance.

The young man glanced behind him at the three approaching figures, and let out a sigh of exasperation. "It's Jack, isn't it? I told them to stay away. Go to sleep, K-9."

"Affirmative, Master," K-9 said, and powered down. The Doctor looked down at him in surprise, then back up at himself, who was suddenly a lot closer.

"I'm sorry," he said, and brought a hand down heavily on the nerve cluster in the Doctor's left shoulder. "I'm so sorry, but trust me, I'll understand when you're older."

The last sensations the Doctor had before slipping into unconsciousness were those of his scarf being tugged from around his neck, and his future self's voice shouting, "Oi, you lot! Come and help me undress me! Not you, Jack!"

And my NaNo looked like this:

The depths of winter, too cold for combat training outside, were reserved exclusively for the other skills a Knight Magus should have at his or her disposal; reading, writing, arithmetic, strategy and history.

The classroom was dark and windowless, lit only by candles and a small fire in the grate. Despite the cold outside, they were deep enough inside the fort here that the room was stuffy and too warm, and many of the children towards the back of the room, hidden from their tutor by the shadows, were dozing slightly. One was flat-out asleep, head lolling on her desk, strawberry-blonde hair tumbling around her and encroaching on her desk-partner's space; he was amusing himself by dropping wax from his candle onto them, one at a time, clogging the hair underneath and sticking it to the table.

The class was as divided in wealth as it was in alertness; perhaps more so. The left column of desks, those nearer both the door and the fireplace, wore good-quality, even expensive clothing in bright colours and warm materials; the right column were uniformly in white shirts and brown trousers, worn with varying degrees of tidiness. The middle column was diplomatically divided, alternating between nobles and commoners, with the single exception of the front row.

A red-headed boy, large for his age and wearing the uniform of the commoners, sat rubbing at his temples in an apparent effort to see off a headache. Next to him stood a dark-haired girl, her clothes easily the best quality in the room despite their simplicity, reading her lesson in clear, concise tones.

"The Exodus of the Magi left an unprecedented crisis in its wake. When they left, whatever their reasons may have been, they took with them the sum total of magical understanding in the known world; not one person with the ability to read Myra or to teach others to use their talents remained. Limited to -"

"Thank you, Regan," the tutor said, and she resumed her seat. "Meredith. Continue, if you please."

The boy next to Regan stopped massaging his head and stood, squinting at their shared tablet in the dim light. "Limited to primary passive magic, we... we... Regan, this wax is filthy."

"No it's not," Regan said, confused.

At the same moment, a boy from the left column snapped, "You have no right to speak to one of the Imperial Princesses that way!"

"Shut up, Blyefall," the Imperial Princess said over her shoulder, and peered at the tablet. "There's really nothing there, Meredith." To their teacher she added, "He's not well, sir. Is he, Anya?"

A tiny brown-haired girl sitting just behind Meredith shook her head. "Not been right all day, sir."

"I'm fine," Meredith insisted. "There are things crawling on it."

"You've had that headache for six hours now, and you keep on saying you can see -"

Their tutor, Sir Baldwin, an unfortunately balding man too old to see the front lines again, cleared his throat, cutting Regan off as politely as possible. "Do you often get headaches, Meredith?"

"Never like this, sir," Meredith said, before adding hastily, "I'm fine."

"If you think there are things crawling on the lesson tablet, you're not," Regan retorted.

Baldwin plucked the tablet out of Meredith's hands and gave it a cursory glance. When he looked back at the class, now mostly alert and intrigued by the scene unfolding in front of them, his face was thoughtful. "Speaking of primary passive magic..."

A murmur went around the class. Meredith looked up in terror. "Sir... do you mean...?"

Baldwin nodded, face gentle. "I'm afraid you may have that headache for the rest of your life." He waited a moment for this news to sink in, then, still gentle, said, "Sit down. Who hasn't... ah! Lysistrate!"

There was a giggle from the back of the room. The sleeping girl's desk partner moved his candle to drip hot wax onto her neck instead of the desk; she bolted upright, yelping in pain, then yelped louder still to discover that she was glued to the desk by her hair, and tugged herself free. "Yes, sir?"

"Continue for us."

"'Course, sir," Lysistrate said, and picked up her tablet, glancing hopefully at the boy next to her. He shrugged; he hadn't been paying attention either. "Blah, blah, Exodus of the Magi, primary passive magic, blah, blah, subject kingdoms revolt, saved by fairies, Magus Swords, Exodus of the Elves... er, here we are. Nobody knows why the Magi and, shortly after, the Elves chose to leave Tilrir and Nara. One theory has it that they went to join the demigods in Mahar; others suggest that they had some foreknowledge that we lack, and were perhaps wise to leave. Nevertheless, the impact their loss has had on modern Escea is... you're looking at me funny, sir."

Baldwin was scowling at her, arms folded. "Were you by any chance asleep again, Hargreaves?"

"Absolutely not, sir. My favourite subject, history. All those exciting dates and names." She hesitated. "Did I skip a bit?"

"You skipped everything from the Great Rebellion to the Exodus of the Elves," Baldwin told her.

"Oh." Lysis put the tablet down with an air of resignation. "I suppose you'll be wanting to give me the strap, then."

"Not at all." Baldwin leaned forwards, scowling at her in the half-light. "Provided, that is, you can tell me the names and dates of the Emperors, in reverse order, from the present day back to the Exodus of the Magi." [I.e. current dynasty: Actene dynasty]

"Oh, sir," Lysis protested. "That's three hundred years!"

"I'm aware of that, Hargreaves. Begin."

The class craned around to watch her discomfort. All, that is, except for Anya, who had gone rigid in her seat.

"Right," Lysis said, and hesitated.
"Good [swear], girl, don't tell me you don't even know who the current Emperor is?"

"Of course I do! It's Barnaby. Barnaby the -"

"Barnaby is dead," Anya said, her voice suddenly clear. The class's fickle attention shifted to her.

"Don't be daft," Regan told her.

"Emperor Barnaby is dead," Anya repeated. She was still rigid, staring ahead, eyes unfocussed.

Meredith waved a hand in front of her face experimentally. When she did not respond, he said quietly, "Sir?"

Baldwin was already there, staring intently at Anya's face. "Anya? Can you hear me?"

"She's just mucking about," Regan said uncertainly. "Isn't she?"

"I... don't think so."

"Emperor Barnaby is dead! Long live the Empress, Winnefred the Second, [titles]!"

Anya collapsed onto her desk. As the class burst into excited chatter, Baldwin rocked back on his heels, sucking air through his teeth. "Two in one day. And one a Seer, at that..." he checked Anya's pulse, nodded, and turned to Regan. "I am sorry, Highness, that you had to find out about your father's death in this manner. Nevertheless, as the beginnings of reigns go, I would say your sister's looks... ominous."

This year, my first drafts look like this:

Just a spot, he'd said. Soon clear up, he'd said. No need for a brolly, he'd said, and if Donna could only find the Doctor through the sheets of rain, the rolling thunder, the bustling market crowd and the narrow, winding streets, she'd kill him for it.

A rickshaw sped past, its driver howling something at her that was lost to the wind. Donna leapt backwards out of his way, yelling back at him, and her foot landed in a muddy puddle created by a missing cobble, splashing water inside her shoe.

Her wet hair fell into her face again. She pushed it away and turned to look for somewhere dry-ish to hide, and that was when she spotted the Doctor. He was standing under the overhanging second storey of a house in a narrow alley, waving his arms at her and, by the look of it, shouting for her.

She made a run for it, slipping and sliding over the damp cobbles, charging through marketgoers rather than around them and ignoring their indignant shouts. The Doctor stepped aside as she came hurtling into the alley.

"Should be all right here until it stops," he said. Even this close, he had to raise his voice to be heard over the storm. "You all right?"

Donna began to wring out her hair. "Soaked, but yeah. You said a light shower."

He looked awkward. "Yeah, well, it should be. They only get storms like this for a couple of months each year... funny, I was caught in it last time I was on Lavethe, too. Nearly got pneumonia."

And my NaNo looks like this (excuse the typoes please, I'm mostly writing on a tiny netbook this year):

Their bedroom [Epicles' bedroom, technically?] was on the secodn floor[?] of the house, a great olive tree blocking its onlyt window. [God only knows how the bed was formed, but] they lay together, Timandra's head pillowed on Epicles' chest, and they talked.

Neither of them had ever been particularly interested in the other thigns a man and wife could do in bed, but talking...

Their topics of conversation ranged from the philosophical to the literary to the political, to things as simple as hoqw their dayts had been. They had discussed [Pythagoreans] and the war up here; here, Epickles had tauight his young wife to read, smiling in fond pride at his clever young bride. Here, she had dioscovered Sappho and Homer; here, they had discovered in mutual deliggt that neither of them much cared for sex, and had resolved to give it up entirely juist as soon as they had a son whom they were sure wouild reach adulthood...

...tonight, they discussed murder.

"I overheard you talking to [Slave1]," Tinandra said. Epicles smiled to himself; of course she had. AShe overheard everything, often by design. The number of witnesses hge had invited back to his house because he wanted his wife's opinion on their testimony, who had never even met her... "There's some sense to his tale, you know. It must be magic or the gods, and I don't qite believe that it's the gods. This scale iof retribution..." she shook her head. "I suppose it could be random violence, like the flood [contemporary sources as this is from Ovid?], but it doesn't seem right."

Epicles had barely opened his mouth to agree before she continued, "And that's whu I thin kytou sohuld go and see."

"You... do?"

"Yes." she sat up, her face bearing that same determined expression as it did when she was fighting to weave a bad;y-woven thread, or learning to read all those years ago. "My son is dead, possibly murdered. I want to know what happened, and if it was men, I want vengeance. You might not be able to find the men, but you may be able to find something. A witness, a spell [component].... anything/."

He stared at her. "AND IF i DON'T? yOU'D be left here alone while I was gone."

"you've left me alone before." She looked down at him, her fface set. "You yourself said that you trhought there was something in it."

"I did,!" he agreed. "And I should like to know more, especially if it means getting to the bottom of this blight. Perhaps even ending it. Also, my son is dead."

"So you'll go?"

"I don't see that I have a choice," he said, and smiled at her. "It would appear to be my duty not only as a father, but as an Athenian, too."

His wife smiled as him, the shadowy crinkcles around her eyes lifting for the barest of moments. "Thank you."

So... yeah.

Somewhere in the past eighteen months (which, let's face it, have been horrific both emotionally and creatively) I have forgotten how to write.

Or at least, I've forgotten how to write fast. I've forgotten how to let the muse take me. The last time she did - and the first time in eighteen months - it was for a planning session, not a writing one..

I'm not giving up. I am well aware that I'm dragging myself out of a massive creative black hole; that I'm writing at all, and that NaNo is flowing for 1,667 words a day with little hesitation (though soem deviation and repetition - it is NaNo, after all), puts me miles ahead of where I was six months ago when 100 words a day on the train was like pulling teeth. Even if it's never quite the same again, writing is a skill and I can relearn it.

Just, it's time I stopped kidding myself. Two, even five years ago I was a much better writer, and I'm playing catch-up now.