SquarePeg Books

Fantasy book 3 is being a booger.

An irritating booger.

Like that booger that immediately freezes in your nose the moment you step outside in the cold temperatures and stabs your sinuses with its boogery icicle finger booger. That same booger that just as quickly thaws when you go back inside to the nice mosty-toasty world of your home and makes you sniffle for A WHOLE HOUR but absolutely refuses to leave your nose despite multiple eviction notices via blowing your nose with a tissue booger.  The very same booger that when it psyches you out and makes you think it’s ready to leave, it is kicking and screaming while you’ve got it pinched in the tissue and are trying desperately to draw it out of your nose after a semi-successful nose-blow court hearing in the bathroom, but is hanging on to some sinus stalactite that is CONNECTED TO YOUR BRAIN and is threatening to sue over excessive use of force and makes you think a lobotomy might be the only way to remove it booger. The same booger that forces you to jam a finger up in there to try and claw it out, but fail miserably, so making you feel even more frustrated and even humiliated that you went after the damn thing with your finger, even if you were securely inside a locked bathroom and leaning against the door just in case the lock failed and someone could open the door to reveal you as a secret nose-miner. The same booger that mocks you with its teeny-tiny size in the sink after you bring out the big guns and use the neti pot for a sinus rinse.  The same booger that makes you paranoid for the next 3 days because you’re pretty certain its still up in there, hanging out with your brain cells, sharing “no shit, there I was” stories, surviving like some damn starfish that broke of one of its arms in order to escape a predator.

I think we all have had at least one literal booger like that in our lives.

As I write this rather thoughtful bit of prose, it is just after 5am.

I’ve been up since 3am.

And lately, I’ve been considering renaming this time between 3am and 5am from the noble and serious sounding Hour of the Wolf to the Hour of the Booger.

Because Book 3 is being that kind of booger.

My notecard tricks that have worked so well in the past for getting out of the Swamp worked for a little while, then a gator ate them (it might have been a booger. I’m not sure. I don’t think I was paying attention at the time and then suddenly, *poof*, now “no notecard tricks for you”.).

I’ve tried free writing with pen and paper, and while that can get the canoe moving again through the swampy, boogery morass, I usually end up back paddling and keeping a name or two, a few rough concept ideas, and then everything else gets trashed during the transfer to the digital space.  Then the oars broke and the free writing became more like a free concept sketch with the result being a booger posing like some kind of pin-up model on the page.

Sometimes taking a quick nap to let my mind wander a bit without being disturbed by piles of laundry and various chores that I really should be doing instead of writing helps – I’ve dreamed up inspirations for whole scenes that way.

This time I only got congested.

Out of sheer desperation, I’ve even tried actual plotting, like the way all the self help professional writing groups and blogs say you should do.

Man, talk about a head cold.

And just like the booger that just won’t get out, this particular book has been one that just won’t leave me alone until it’s done. No flirting with other ideas, no pulling up the steampunks or the romances to try and clear my head.

Nope, no, huh-uh. That just led me off into a sinus infection with a nasty headache.

Fantasy book 3 is being a tenacious booger.

And when I finally get it out, there better be some SPECTACULAR mucus on that tissue, or I’m gonna be pissed.