The Marshmallow Ranch Gazette

Volume 5, Issue 16 - Tuesday, August 11th, 2020

Howdy, patrons!

In case you didn't know, last Thursday was my 40th birthday! I spent much of the day just enjoying the feeling of being off work, but I also got in some writing and reading too. Best of all, part 1 of "A Bearable Partner" went up on the Patreon!

I think it's time to take a step back and realize that longer serials are just not going to work for me right now. As much as I'd like to outline, write, and post a 13-episode story it's something I'll have to work my way up towards. For now, working on smaller stories that get me in the habit of writing and posting on a regular basis is the way to go.

For my first story back, I wanted to do something simple but hopefully engaging -- and I couldn't think of a better chance to get back into the swing of things than writing a cozy little romance story. Two men, each lonely in their own way and needing companionship, finding it in the unlikeliest of places. It's a wonderful exercise in building characters I can fall in love with, each with distinctive perspectives and thoughts, filtering them through dialogue that aims to put their best foot forward while still being earnest. I have to admit that the first episode is pretty rough, but I'm enjoying the work at least.

I've been paying attention to the dialogue in my favorite shows and movies just to get a feel for how it works. One of the things I've realized is how important it is to have each character's mood, disposition, relationship, and goal at top of mind for each interaction. Especially with 2,000-word episodes (or slightly over), there isn't a ton of space to have these expansive and meandering conversations -- and it probably wouldn't be very interesting, anyway. Richard Linklater, one of my favorite directors, constructed a series of movies around two people having long conversations, and it's arresting. But I'm not even close to being there yet, or the densely-layered dialogue of, say, Downton Abbey. Still, that's where I'd like to get to.

For now, though, Laquan and Cody are two folks who are used to being rejected by the world around them hesitantly learning how to be accepted by someone. I don't know about you folks, but for me it's been a journey, learning how to be a part of a community or having a close relationship with someone else. So much of my 20s were spent with people who were wrong for me, or trained me to devalue who I am or what I think. And well, if we're being honest, that damage goes back to childhood. And it can really mess up your chances at happiness because you can become fixated not only on what's wrong with you, but also fall into this trap that only the love of someone else will enable you to fix it. But that's just not so; the reflection of someone else's love can never be a substitute for having a healthy love for yourself.

We tend to get hung up on the things that make us different, and that can make us distrustful when someone's actually attracted to that. I can't imagine an actual werebear thinking that someone would be into them becoming this one-ton killing machine on occasion, even though werewolves are starting to gain a bit of cache in the "monster-dating" scene. Still, looking through Amazon lists of self-published authors might prove me wrong. There is a SHITLOAD of books about paranormal romances, including vampires, werecreatures of different stripes, dinosaurs and zombies. It's actually pretty impressive -- and kind of encouraging. 

Depending on how this (and subsequent?) stories with them turn out, I could see eventually creating a novel around these guys. Though let's not get too far ahead of ourselves…

Anyway, I hope you like "A Bearable Partner"; the plan is to have it wrapped up by month's end, maybe a week later depending on how the later episodes go. Part 2, of course, will drop on Thursday.

Until then, patrons!