Light

This time of year depresses me — literally — with its dark mornings and uniform bleakness of the terrain. It’s not the deep despair of my bipolar depression, but a constant sense of flatness, of anhedonia, of just wanting to stay in bed. The festivities of Christmas that buoyed up my spirits have long passed; all now is grey.

My psychiatrist has prescribed 1 hour a day in my grow room for light therapy. There’s plenty of light in the small basement room, supplied by eight fluorescent light fixtures. And, although it’s a small room, there’s a table and chair where I can sit and even an old iPad I use to maintain my plant records.

And then there’s the plants. Right now, I have starts of herbs like hyssop and calamint, celery leaf and Asian celery, and my tomatoes and peppers popping out of the ground. For the most part, they’re tiny seedlings with their seed leaves no bigger than a baby mouse’s ear. But they’re alive, and I almost believe I can feel the light of their lives brightening my day.

In the gloom of this season, I will take all the light I can get.

Writing about the moment.

Good morning, dear friends!

I feel like I’m fresh out of ideas today. I just got another rejection email, it’s freezing rain out there and I still have to go to work, and I’m wearing one of those technological reminders of mortality around my neck — a Holter monitor. (Don’t worry about that last point — we’ve already found the problem with the little pitty-pat-cha-cha of my heartbeat, and it’s easily fixable with a med tweak. They’re just making sure that’s all there is.)

It’s a good day to be down. Not depressed, just down. The desire to wrap myself in the coccoon of my blankets (rather than throw my clothes on over the monitor, put on makeup, and trudge down and up a flight of stairs with my computer backpack) is almost overwhelming. Almost. After all, life is out there, not under my blankets, and the adult thing to do is make the best of it.

Girly-Girl is sitting on the arm of the couch next to me, purring. She’s my editor.

My editor is falling asleep on the job.

It’s definitely dark (and rainy) out here at 7:30 AM. I’ve had a Messenger chat with my favorite nature interpreter about aquascape and pond design. The rain hits the window like buckshot. I discuss the sorry state of American politics with Richard.

I check the seedlings downstairs in my grow room — the only evidence that there will someday be spring. The tomatoes and peppers and eggplant stretch and grow in their bigger fiber pots; the perilla seedlings perk up, the first of the miner’s lettuce seems to be sprouting.

Someday there will be spring. Someday I will find an agent, someday I will feel healthy enough to work out, someday I will accept aging gracefully.

But for now, I sit in a warm room lit by the glow of candles, next to my cat. I can live with that.

Hope Springs Eternal: Querying again

Spring must be coming. My cat Girlie-Girl is standing on my chest while I write, some of my seedlings are coming up for summer, I’m dreaming frisky dreams that are too graphic to write about, and I’m querying again.

Girlie LOVES being held, doesn’t she?

I’ve sent four or five out yesterday, and I felt good about it. This is the stage of querying agents that is fun — the part where I get to brag about my novel. This time, it’s Mythos, which starts with a woman’s missing memory and ends with the upcoming Apocalypse.

Here’s the beginning:

In the waning light of a Chicago summer evening, a male rested his back against a light pole and gazed at the indigo horizon over the lake. The breeze from the lake caught a strand of his dark hair and blew it across his face. He gazed up at the concrete horizon to see a form falling, falling from a good height. He squinted, and then raced down greasy streets to its impact, his nerves on edge, his heart barely pounding.

He arrived at a dead end where a woman lay sprawled, her head pillowed by a cat that had been crushed by the impact. Just behind her stood a rusty dumpster in front of a wall, which amplified the smell of dying.

He knelt in one flowing movement. He checked her breathing – she breathed still, steadily, as if she slept. He, of anyone on Earth, knew she did not sleep.

The man leaned closer, and his face brushed against curly blonde hair. He could smell the sharpness of blood. “Can you hear me? Let me know if you can hear my voice.” No response.

He did not touch her so as not to injure her further. He did touch the cat, black with a white locket, whose labored breath indicated certain death. He whispered to it, “Well done, brave cat. You have saved this woman’s life.” The cat purred.

He leaned again to whisper in the woman’s ear, his hair falling in his face: “Please do not die. We have just met, but I suspect you are the most important being in my life, my love.” He stroked her hair and murmured words of comfort. Tears ran down his cheeks.

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When the sirens approached, he froze for a second.

Then he dissolved into nothing.

**************

The less fun part of querying, of course, is getting rejections. I’ve never not gotten one. Every time I go through a round of rejections, I swear I will quit querying. But I keep writing, and I keep querying. And spring keeps arriving.