What not to write
The funny thing about writing a journal that other people read, and that contains enough fantastical elements that most people reading it consider it a story, is that you start to treat it as such.  Like, right now, I'm planning something.  I just called Maggie for one part of it, and I'm going to talk to Doug about another part tonight.  But, revealing what I'm planning now, or even back a couple weeks ago when Maureen suggested a housewarming party and it started kicking around the back of my head, feels like it would take away from the big reveal, which is just bad storytelling.

Of course, that's not the only reason I shy away from writing this down.  I want to leave myself room to change my mind, so that if I decide in the next couple of days that this is a really bad idea, I can just back off.  I mean, sure, I can always go back and edit posts if I later decide to do a scorched-earth and leave no trace of what I was thinking, or even delete the whole damn blog if the mood strikes me, but that seems dishonest.  Revisionist.

I mean, I'm tempted to go back and edit previous entries - replace any references to "Michelle in my body" with "Alexei", or "Carter" with "Mikail", or add little notes saying that something I said was obviously the result of Mikail using his sick little love potion on me.  Make the entries around Carter's escape less confusing.  But I don't; for better or worse, those entries capture what I thought and felt at the time.  Maybe later, when I collect them into a book, I'll add stuff like that, make it a more conventional narrative.

There was, at least, some good news on the "love potion" front; Mags tells me that she and one of her co-workers have been studying it (along with one of her old professors), and have a good chunk of how it works sussed out.  Given a year, she thinks she could even develop a sort of antigen for it.  Of course, the side effects would probably include some form of depression if it got overzealous and went after natural happy brain chemicals.

Ah, well.  Always a trade-off, eh?

-Marti


- posted 10:42 AM - - (archive use only)