I was inspired when a boyfriend called me needy. What did that mean exactly? I decided to explore the idea of neediness through fiction, and it became my primary theme.
Needy means not having one’s needs met. Today, we often use Needy to describe someone who is a controller, someone who constantly calls and wants to know what the beloved it up too, someone who treads toward abusive behavior. This is an exception to when I’ve heard a lover calling the beloved needy. It is used to mean one wants something the other doesn’t want to provide. In the book, Samuel wants affection after a difficult week. Mark provides affection for a time but then cuts Samuel off. Samuel complains and Mark calls him needy. Samuel wanted what Mark didn’t want to provide. This example is indicative of most examples I witness.
There are other situations, but I decided this was want I wanted to focus on. The Fates talk about this and decide that the trick to having a good relationship is finding someone who can support our needs and whose needs we can support.
Another inspiration was my own view of what people should do after a relationship. I believe initially we focus on the wrongs of the partner. We lament about this and that and dwell on why getting rid of that lover was the right thing to do. Even if the lover ends it with us, we dwell on what an ass, and how the relationship was not good. I think this is healthy, but I think at some point, we need to step back and say: OK, what did I do that I don’t want to do again; what did I like and want to see again; what do I need to be better. This comes from my own life. When my second lover ended it with me, I was devastated and for years all I thought about was about all his wrongs. I can’t remember why I turned inward, but I realized that he wasn’t going to be in my next relationship. If I wanted to not visit that same relationship again, I need to self-reflect.
This I ignored for a few years.
Self-reflection enjoys being difficult.
This became my secondary theme: Self-reflection. Mark is undergoing a Fates-forced self-reflection, but he’s participating. Other characters spend a moment of self-reflection about their own lives as well.
What is a quirky habit you have that relates to your writing life?
The music that I listen to.
When I write, I will listen to a piece of music or album or even just a song over and over and over and over. I’ll put it on infinite repeat. Usually, it’s a piece of music that for me fits what I’m working on. I’ve got a novel that I occasionally work on with a gay bartender as a main character, so disco and dance music get repeated (but not Madonna; he doesn’t care for her). When I work on the romantic sections, the music changes to Il Divo. It’s when it is just a song that I feel the most embarrassed. Remember, the cotton commercial with Zooey Daschanel—Fabric of Our lives. Yeah, that got too much play from me when I was helping my basset hound write her memoirs ten years ago (still not published, here’s hoping). And what’s embarrassing was I was renting a room from a guy and just had a cheap set of headphones, so my roommate heard it on repeat every time he came into the living room. I’m surprised he didn’t kick me out.
What are you working on currently?
I’m revising a draft of a cozy mystery, called Render Unto Caesar.
For Mark, Pride weekend in Yamasee County, South Carolina, means spending the day with friends, flirting with the out-of-town men, finding a romance, drinking too much, and enjoying all of Pride. However, the Fates have arrived to address a hole which appeared in the tapestry representing Mark, his past, and his present, which will direct him to the future.
Throughout the day, the Fates confront Mark with memories both pleasant and painful about his former lover Sammy. Parcae uses her goddess tools to manipulate Mark’s thoughts so he remembers fun dates, fights, issues which make him uncomfortable, and accusations of being needy. Was it Sammy’s neediness that caused Mark to end the relationship? Or was Mark the needy companion? When Sammy once said Mark ain’t needy, what did he mean?
Can the goddesses help Mark work through these memories so his self-evaluation can lead to better relationships in the future?
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Parcae stood to stretch her legs while allowing Mark time to reflect about what he just remembered while she strategized her next affront.
Mark refused to consider the significance of the memory, choosing instead to attempt to hide in sleep.
Parcae considered. It seems to me that if left alone, his memory inclines toward dishonesty. In lying to himself, he can’t or won’t learn. He needs to ask himself who he was in the relationship, but most importantly, who he was to Sammy. He needs to face this honestly.
She nosed about the room, acting like a nosy mother-in-law eavesdropping on the private conversation in the adjacent the next room.
“I wonder,” she spoke out loud to Mark, “why did Sammy date you?”
Mark though for a moment before replying, I liked his sense of humor.
Parcae sighed. “That’s you, not him.”
I’m good-looking.
“You going to include dick size too, shallow man?” Parcae snapped. “I asked why he—” she stressed the he “—dated you.”
I don’t know why he dated me. We never talked about it, Mark thought, matching her snappy tone.
“Yes, you did. Remember, after you’d been dating for a couple of months, he told you.”
Mark searched for the memory without finding it, so he remained still, his mind becoming blank.
Parcae ambled about the room, swishing her crinolines, which sounded like children playing in piles of dead autumn leaves. The sound cleared the air around Mark, and he felt the pinch of crisp autumn evenings, smelled the scents of autumn, burning leaves, warm cider, and funnel cakes. Mark’s memory opened and brought him back to the first Friday in October, when he and Sammy decided on an impromptu date to ride rides, play bad carnival games, and eat junk food at the Big Seven County Fair.
A smile came across Mark’s face, which Parcae noticed and approved. Instead of allowing him to rely on his own memory to show his past, she created a vivid memory so that she could observe how the memory touched him.
“Exactly,” Parcae said. “A good memory. Good memories bring clarity to past relationships.”
Mark thought, How do they do that?
“Comparison,” Parcae said. “Who you were then compared to who you were when you broke up.”
As her crinolines swished, Mark’s memory cleared. Instead of a scene being replayed as a motion picture, the memory flashed a series of slides so that Mark experienced a photo album of their date at the fair. The view was that of the gods.
Mark observed –
Mark and Sammy laughing as Mark pressed against him on the scrambler. Sammy’s wide mouth created a half joking yet half fearful expression.
Mark commented, When the ride stopped, Sammy showed me that the mechanism hadn’t closed properly.
The next slide: Mark exaggerated a baseball pitch as he attempted the Milk Bottle Toss. Sammy stood with his hands in prayer position against his mouth with an exaggerated hopeful expression.
Mark thought, I could just be silly with him, and he’d join in.
The next slide: Both of them standing in line for the Spook House. Mark noticed his arm resting on Sammy’s shoulder, as if he were leaning on Sammy.
Mark observed, I was being affectionate but unsure because of the location. Sammy never seemed bothered.
The next slide: Mark saw them sitting at a small picnic table under a canopy at the Penniless Pig, sharing a large plate of loaded fries. The slide transformed to a motion picture.
“What were you doing on the swings?” Mark asked.
“Being silly,” Sammy laughed as he devoured some fries. “In Germany, riders get the swings to spin around, and they reach for each other, and push each other back and forth. It gets harder as the ride gets faster. I was trying to do that.”
“Is that allowed?” Mark asked.
“Don’t know,” Sammy said. “since all we do is sit, either it isn’t allowed or no one’s thought of it. But … um …” Sammy paused.
Mark noticed Sammy glancing away, smiling, embarrassed, in that special kind of embarrassment when the lover admits he likes the beloved. On the sofa, Mark recognized his heart’s increase of excitement.
“Well,” Sammy continued, “Sometimes a couple would reach out and grab hands and pull each other closer. I was attempting to be romantic.”
“Did you want to hold hands?” Mark asked affectionately, without a hint of mockery.
Lee works during the day and writes at night. “Balancing the Weave” is his first published novella. He enjoys reading a wide range of fiction; however, space operas, dystopian, and post-apocalyptic fiction are his favorites. He is currently writing a crime novel.
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