I'm Not Scared

I am not scared I am not scared not not not.

It's just more words. I've heard them, or different flavours of them, so many damned times before: polio pneumonia scarlet fever diptheria polyps osteoporosis dysplasia abnormality HPV stage one and I'm not scared I made it to the half-century and they're just more words.

I'm not scared. It's just another test. It's just another doctor, another invasion, another poke another prod another doctor making a mistake which doesn't scare me doesn't scare me or another doctor not making a mistake, in which case this is terminal.

I'm not scared.

It's not a big deal. He's done it before, and it wasn't a big deal then. Nothing's changed now, not really. He's a little more practiced now, but that's to be expected. He's done it more often. Practiced isn't the right word. Acclimatized is a better way to put it. It's not because he's trying, not because he's really thinking about it. Because that would mean it's worth thinking about.

And it's not. It's not a big deal at all.

He wipes his clammy hands against his jeans and inhales deeply. He should be hearing the footsteps any time now.

ita, whoa. Rapist? Hitman? Bodyguard?

OK, can I get opinions, from those who have kindly beta'd The Burden of Memory for me?

I started the book with a prologue that introduced the main neutral, and/or sympathetic, human protagonist: Darrin Bergman, in present-day LA. It begins the book with his date-rape experience with the vampire couple, who are at the moment introduced to the reader officially at the beginning of chapter one.

Thing is, I have a series of in-the-past segments that will need to happen as the book goes along. Vide the book's title, the fact that these are memories, accurate or fractured or full or whatever, is important. What has to be shown are: Dory (Dorotta) and how she died, as a favoured handmaid to Elisabeth Bathory. Gilles (her chewtoy and partner) and how she found, killed and turned him during the Terror, the night the Bastille came down. Plus, memory vignettes showing the predators, the second generation post-White Sands testing kids, who are born with this odd, environmentally mutated cross between myelodysplasia and paroxysmal nocturnal haemglobinuria. This shows up as their hormones trigger at puberty, giving them the craving for filtered human blood. I need vignettes for this, as well.

So, can I ask opinion input on the biggie question: should I make the prologue one of the memories above - probably the White Sands exposure that triggered this in the first place - and move Darrin's introduction to be the beginning of chapter one?

should I make the prologue one of the memories above - probably the White Sands exposure that triggered this in the first place - and move Darrin's introduction to be the beginning of chapter one?

Whoa, crap. I've read that introduction, which is a nice hook, but the White Sands vignette sounds like it would be an even more phenomenal hook, because it highlights your awesome premise. While Darrin's introduction scene says, "This is a pretty cool story about vampires," I feel like the White Sands scene would say, "Dude. This is something different."

OK, that was kind of my thinking. Since Virginia Barbour - she's a UK science and health writer, a research physician and someone who consults for UK medical TV shows - has offered to help me craft the perfect disease, I think I'm going to go for a Hot Zone feel, literally, pick a character - the grandfather of one of the current crop, maybe - and walk the reader through the precise moment when the chromosomal mutation hits, what's happening environmentally around him, his own unawareness, etc etc etc.

I am preemptively offering to beta that cause, dude.

P-C, honey? Get in line.

Deb, I've read it, too, and I agree with your suggestion and P-C's opinion.

Oooh, can't wait for Deb to finish her vampire book so I can read it. If only I had time to beta right now.

This latest challenge is producing some really intense drabbles. All of them so far have been jaw-droppers.

I nearly deleted mine 30 seconds after posting, because I was afraid it came off as all righteous and Gandhier-than-thou. I mean, every human being has to cultivate some detachment just to survive. You can't be purely empathetic or you'd die of contact poisoning from all the pain in this world.

Still, some days I can't help wondering where the line between healthy detachment and wilful indifference is, and when exactly I crossed it. Yesterday (obviously) was one of those days.

Lies:

There is plenty of time.

There's time to work on the novel, write the magazine proposal, clean out the closet, read Dorothy Dunnett, get rid of books, buy more books, lose weight, paint the bedroom, go to the movies, call friends, make friends, get cousin Claudia's watermelon rind pickle recipe, say a kind word, plant a tree, save the world.

The sunset glows like the world is burning. The autumn leaves swirl in the yard. The sand piles up in the hourglass. The clock ticks. The bomb timer counts down. I'm about to cut the red wire.

Plenty of time.