Surprise!

Well, folks, I AM writing. Of course, nothing seems to kill a muse faster than TRYING to summon it, and so I haven't written much, and what has been written has been deleted several times.

I'm trying to write polyamorous fiction--linked short stories about a single polycule, or relationship network, to start. What keeps staying my hand three or five pages in is establishing conflict.

Conflict, every would-be writer is told, is necessary to drive a plot. My problem is that conflict is not something I do too well, or often. Short term, explosive conflict I handle by remaining as calm as possible, conceding the other person is right in many respects, and then backing off if need be until both of us can reason our way through it. Usually, it turns out not to have been such of a much. Such short-term conflict is comparatively rare in my relationships, and I strive to keep it that way. Actually, I can state that as a positive benefit of being in a relationship with me: you're almost certainly going to become more calm, more at peace with yourself and the world...and hopefully it translates into your other partnerships.

My life is such that even things which might provoke worlds of conflict for others tend to just fall into place, more or less neatly. So a conflicted mind is very hard for me to relate to, most of the time.

Long term conflict, on the other hand, is something I have extensive experience with. The sense of not belonging, of not being understood, is very much with me. That kind of conflict expresses itself in the silences, in words left unsaid, in whole wings of relationships being closed (never by me).

And oh, how polyamory lends itself to THAT. Being told by a family member--to whom a good half of my polyamory blogs have been at least partially directed over the past three years--that the way I live my life will never be understood...it comes out as "I'm glad you're happy, but please keep it somewhere I don't have to look at it. Write about something less personal instead. Like hockey or something."

Any protest and I'm "overthinking". Which is definitely something I do, and so it shuts me up for a while. But I usually come back defiant, particularly when it's something so integral to who I am.

So much more I could write here. It's a shame that people can't be accepted for who they are and how important they are. It makes it scary for anybody contemplating polyamory: will I have to choose between a single, unfulfilling relationship and the possibility of losing family and friends for daring more? 

Hmmm.

I can write this!

See...that's what I needed to do...I needed to write to get to a place where I could write!

Polyamory is what I'm going to be writing about, primarily, offline. I have both experience with it and passion for it, and my life has evolved in ways that make even some more experienced poly folks raise their eyebrows.

Trying to figure out ways to imbue my SHORT stories with a sense of deep, perhaps insolvable conflict is taking up a lot of my mental energy. Trying to devise a plot that hangs together is harder than it should be.

In all my life, I've done it twice. Both stories are published here: if you're interested, the first is here and in the four subsequent posts; the second you've probably seen.  Usually, though, blog post or story, I just...write. I have next to no idea where I'm going to end up when I start.  Guided writing is a bitch, especially when my guide is a drunk hobo with Alzheimer's who takes me into the bad part of Noun Town and abandons me.

But I am, at least and long last, working on it. And now I have HAD AN IDEA. Let's go see what I can do with it.