Music Monday With a Sickness

  I'm still struggling along through Obsession: A History By: Lennard J. Davis and learning all about what makes a seemingly normal person slowly slip into a sickness of the mind. Honestly, this isn't my first difficult character to write. Some characters have filled my dreams with nags and complaints, a few even leading to books of their own. But, not once have I ever had a character that has so completely confounded me until now.

  Writing out the books outline was enough to bring me to tears. The monster this young man becomes was enough to make my stomach turn and disgust me. The problem is he doesn't start out this way. To reel the girl in, he is confident and charming. The first few chapters he is everything she could ever want in a lover, but he slowly changes as his confidence wanes and hidden complexes start to show. Fear from the lose of his parents is redirected toward her. Fear of losing her too changes him and turns into obsession, madness, sickness.

  I imagine the best way to describe these feelings has already been shown by the band Disturbed. What do you think? Have they got the right idea?

Disturbed- Down With the Sickness

Music Monday to Find a Monster

  Here is an update on my 'Anikin" dilemma. Not being a psychopath myself, it is hard for me to pull up the emotions it would take to turn someone who is loving, caring, smart and charming into a monster. So, once again  I'm hitting the books and doing research that blows my mind. Surprisingly this is even worse than my zombie research that taught me the ends and outs of a corpse's decomposition.

   

  Picture credit to www.quora.com.

  My main research into the psychology behind this type of character is based on obsession, so I thought it would be a good idea to start at the beginning and see where the emotion came from. To that order, I started reading Obsession: A History By: Lennard J. Davis.

  Not to tute my own horn or anything, but I can honestly say I am a very smart woman.  I'm smart enough to read books on psychology and understand what they are talking about. But, I have to say this book is taking me a while. Its almost like translating words from another language. I understand, but I have to check my mental dictionary with every other word. I'm learning a lot about the human mind. There are a number of topics in this book I already knew people have done, but Mr. Davis explains the when, why and how of things in a way that make me fully understand it. But alas, it is major research and I'm only half way through the book after two weeks. To much info and translating make my head hurt.

  Over the next few weeks, I'll drop in to update everyone on how my research is going. Until then, here is today's Music Monday video to help me find my character's monster inside.

Meg & Dia- Monster

                                                                                                                                                                          

Music Monday For Everyone Who Works to Make a Living

  Lately I've been working 5 days a week and I constantly feel dog tired. Sure I only work part time, but I'm old school. I am proud to have a job, especially one I love, so I make sure to show the boss he was right in choosing me to do it. I work my ass off, run instead of walking, go the extra mile to help whomever needs it and use my best southern manners even to the nastiest customer.

  Even so, some days I just don't want to get out of bed. Tucking into my blankets with our baby ferret snuggling under my chin, seems so much more appealing than dealing with a customer who yells at me about coupons or not having enough stock right after a sell.  Those days are what Dolly was talking about. Back then I was to young to understand, but now I hear ya sister as so many others do.

  To all those tired, anxious, stressed people working to make a living: here is an old song just for you. Be proud that you go to work every day and work your tail to the bone. Without all the working class people, the world would simply stop moving. Remember you are the one who keeps society going. Give that great customer service, because you never know if your smile is the only highlight of someone else's day. And I'll keep up with my writing even if I doze off in my notebook from time to time.

  Dolly Parton - 9 to 5

  And P.S. Just so we know, my boss is nothing like Dolly's. My boss is like a big Papa Bear. He takes care of all of us. Without his support our store would have quickly fallen apart. Three years later and we are known as the friendliest, fastest, cleanest, best stocked store around. A visit from the higher ups actually got us the complement of being Grand Opening Ready. Which is the best complement any store can receive!