Even Blood Toy’s critics have cited Diane’s determination to keep going, despite regularly getting beat or bled to unconsciousness, her best quality. While Diane compartmentalizes herself(Assassin–Dreamer-Girl), the Assassin is her dominant persona whenever she is awake. It must be…or she dies. There isn’t much room in her life for the Girl, so that persona inevitably gets squished into the corner. Maybe she’ll have time one day to experience all that ordinary stuff that girls do—like shopping, dating, going to work, learning how to order a coffee at Starbucks.
The Girl has always been a reflection of myself. When I started writing Diane, she lacked the sharp edged wit and resolve that characterize her now. In fact, she was the very persona of despair, exhibiting the kind of self-absorbed, fatalistic depression that only a teenage girl could pull off. She still has a little tendency to over-dramatize, but as Diane got older—as I got older—her unhappiness became more grounded in reality. A vampire killed her family, and her mission to avenge them cost her the remainder of her childhood, her friends, her home, and her future. She missed out; nobody’s gonna fault her a little self-pity.
I have often envied Diane for her ability to just be one thing, even if that one thing is pure misery. But I tend to compartmentalize myself as well. I am Wife and Mother-Breadwinner-Author. Personas listed in order of dominance, Author is not last by accident. When the first two parts of my self are not over-tasked, I have plenty of time to play Author. Over the past month, the Author has been squished in the corner….way, way, way in the corner…an itty, bitty corner of the basement you don’t go down into because “Here be Spiders!”
Over the past month I have had to become an Assassin of a Wife and Mother. The school year started seven weeks ago. Four weeks ago, my daughter was put on behavioral probation. Three weeks ago she was invited to withdraw. Two weeks ago, my husband and I had the opportunity to get on first name basis with the parking valet attendants at the Children’s ER. And one week ago, we set up house to run nearly as orderly as an Inpatient Behavioral Health Ward from which she was discharged and enrolled her in school #2.
My Wife and Mother duties hopefully can be managed by my husband for a few days, as next week I travel to the other side of the country to fulfill my Breadwinner responsibilities. This has to be my current priority. Last week, I forgot how to count. Not big numbers with four or five digits apiece. Nope, I forgot how to count to FOUR! (I somehow got eight.) My husband often jokes that my logical brain switches off after work. We are all in big trouble if it switches off during.
I am hoping to go into Author mode on the 5 hour departure and return flights. Then it’s back to Wife and Mother again. Somehow, somewhere, I will make time to get back to this blog, marketing Blood Toy—my next Kindle Countdown deal starts this month!—and finishing Book 2. Thank goodness I already know how to order coffee at Starbucks.
Blood Toy 