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Head, ache

I have long been unable to perfect the art of denying my own gratification in writing. I do not know how it is possible to feel so deeply what Delphinia feels and deny her her desires.

I come home with a great headache, and this is not what I should do. If I had had my camera, I would have gone to the garden to take photos. I long to express, but my mind is too tight and rigid for me to be writing.

I know the only way to make my story as I want it to be is to make the desire of Delphinia's heart my own, and thus consumed in them, write my way through every possible denial of them, torturing her in every conceivable moment. That is the story I want, but after a scene that tormented her effectively my imagination conjures an even better torment, with no interim of relief for her emotions, and yet I am too weak to continue.

I can see that the romance stories I like to write now are more akin to torture. I am bored with anything less.

Then I wrote a little on A Fine and Private Place. It is cheating to write of Ophelia, I suppose, but there is my own ungratified desire with which to contend. I have felt for a while like my soul is sweating out a fever. I have never known this kind of denial. I feel powerless against this, the must-have, and the must-not-have. When I consider all that has passed in the several years conjoining my world to Ophelia's, and others, I do not think that I can return to a common reality. I really do not think I can.

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