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Showing posts from 2014

The more things

Sometimes, the solution to a given issue can be terrifyingly simple. I'm 90 minutes from having a functioning website again, three months removed from the situation first cropping up. It was a five minute fix following a two minute conversation. Sometimes, the solution to a given issue can be terrifyingly complex. The news out of the American midwest crawls and lurches like a hungry creature slick with steaming tar, dripping acrid confusion. It isn't something people want to touch, or closely examine. I took some time to post some thoughts on social media, and have some conversations to schedule, some face to face interaction and honest dialog. I feel like that's the best I can do. It probably isn't, but that isn't something I want to touch, or closely examine. Tomorrow is the 1st of December, two weeks prior to the first of six grad school application deadlines I plan on preceding for this year's volley. I found some programs that fully fund their students

Person: odurate, visionary

Chapter 9 was halfway done before I had to stop and have a conversation with myself. About things like comparisons between characters making decisions that were true to them versus decisions that were better for the story, for the fluency of the reader or the authenticity of the setting. This right on the heels of coming back to the novel after the hiatus I took to get a short story cranked out for a contest. Ironically, I ended up sending something old, rather than something new, borrowing some advice from a friend along the way. Not that I think the hiatus is to blame for my falling off track of what I wanted to accomplish and in what timing. There's enough to go around for everyone. I asked a friend recently about things he felt he was good at, and that might do the world some good, and how many of those things he had on his bucket list to do. Like most people who ask those kinds of questions, I was hoping to find some of my fear of mutual exclusion in him. Instead, having ju

"Wrote you were a hearer"

I was happy for myself, about who I was. Someone invited me to a friend's "low country boil," and all I really heard was the opportunity to see an old friend that I hadn't greeted in person in many months. One of those things where we made plans that quietly and repeatedly fell through. The invite triggered a commitment, a resolution. And hours later, a curiosity. I had no idea what a low country boil even was. Parts of the South Carolina coast region are close to, or below sea level. The low country. And boil, well, shell fish, corn, potatoes, and sausage, all together with bonding seasonings. Also, there's a lot of it. I had heard about community events, and attended times and places where I was told what they were, but that night seemed like the truest definition I had been presented with. Except for a few of us, everyone there was from the neighborhood. I arrived with that friend, first, and things were pleasant enough until the couples began arriving. &quo

Such a prickly thing, choice

I sent the story off. Not to the contest, but to the readers I remembered who agreed to look at it for me. I wasn't in any particular hurry, but I did find myself in a frenzy over tiny, logistical details. Thrice I looked the story over to smooth its roughest edges, and thrice I ended up adding or changing or adding and changing. The story was already over 5000 words, which isn't a lot for a stand-alone short, but with all my manic meddling, it ballooned to 6000. I knew I had a problem. So, with the first step of acceptance, I pushed it through the electronic womb at friendly bystanders, hoping they wouldn't be mowed down. After the first draft, I knew it was bad. After the second, I thought it was alright. After the third, I was convinced somewhat of both. I will have to submit it by the end of the month, and I refuse to do it without looking it over twice more after I get some degree of feedback. I cannot help but think that I will be sending off a woefully imperfect p

Medicine from morpheus

Chapter 8 is drafted. I have my eye on 10 being a stopping point, to go back and see how this rewrite is taking shape. By the time I get there, I imagine the draft so far will be well over 30,000 words. Somewhat predictably, because the setting isn't contemporary, but speculative, much of it has to be described within the prose. Where chapters of my modern novels hovered around 2500, this time around they're in the ballpark of 3500. Not sure why I find that interesting. The more people I meet and conversations I have, the less I find these sorts of ideas to be commonplace. I had a dream that spurned me to act on the email sent to all previous applicants of a writing contest I continue to fail to place in, or get an honorable mention, on an annual basis. Such behavior compels me to clarify the definitions of sadism and masochism, just for my own edification. One of the ideas I've had going in was to pump the brake more on the quiet wondering and tap on the accelerator in

Back (on) track

Trying to form better habits. Still not sure if blogging regularly is good, in the long term. Creative story ideas abound. Yesterday I attended a writer's group meeting, something I hadn't done in some months. I got up that morning and churned out a large bit of chapter 7's draft. At the meeting, labeled a "write in," I pecked away at a few more paragraphs. Functionally less productive. But then, there were things to discuss. A younger man sat down next to me after coming into the room, and looking around at all the full tables. I was reminded what it was like on the school bus for the first day of junior high. I offered, he sat, and said, "what's your story?" and nodded at my work. I never knew it could be that simple of a question. I couldn't tell him all I wanted to say in one sitting, and I felt good and bad about that. And like I said, there were things to be discussed. The group was considering a joint publication project, for a variet

Falls

I guess this was all a big hiatus. Likewise, I suppose there are more than a few things to update. I've restarted the science fiction series. It took me so long, I think, because part of me really didn't want to put in the work. I couldn't have said it was perfect, or even very good, the way that it was, yet I was much more inclined to patch it, in places, stint, bandage, and staunch where it needed. Rather than tear it all down and start with a surer foundation. Objectively, I have to admit that even though I have many more months of work ahead of me, the book will absolutely be better. Everything I learned writing the first original novel, and half of the continuation I am able to incorporate into this new version. Looking back, even joining the world building group was of some help, even though I never work-shopped my world. I prepared its details as if I would, and that mindset put me in place where I could start all over again, and not feel like I failed. That end

Spring worrying

I did it. Last month I finished the last novel in my Where Shadows Lie series. Well, I almost did it. Last month I almost finished it, but on purpose. I left off the epilogue, because I didn't want to write it then. I wanted to write it when I finally submit it somewhere. I wanted all the experiences I'll have to weigh in on that final punctuation. But for the series' entirety, really, there isn't much more story to tell. The reason all of that didn't sound more joyous than it might have is because new problems have cropped up since then. I have new challenges, and have experienced new failures. Foremost is the science fiction story. I might have mentioned that meetup group I joined last year, the one that dealt primarily with world building. I joined that group because of my sci-fi story. Because I got about half way through the second book and recognized the setting as too two dimensional. I could see the strings holding things up. The sky was painted, and the

Up

I wish I could report that the chapters of the novel have matriculated out of the teens, but I've yet to write chapter 20. It was very much uphill for a while, and it's still uphill, but where before I toiled in the shadow of clouds surrounding seemingly limitless peaks, now I can see the character of the heights I've almost reached. When I set out to finish off the series, I had a lot of goals, and the first among them was to finish things up well, to put as much energy into this last book as I did every book leading up to it combined. To the end of getting everything down with a significant degree of verisimilitude, I went back and read all the previous novels. I think it's paid off, but at this point I've done this enough to know that the first draft is only the first draft; it's a long way removed from an idea and an empty page, but still far afield of a published book. Still, I can see daylight, and I'm happy about it. I've also moved, here in th

Time travel

Missed the new year by a few weeks, I guess. The applications are in. My mentor told me to let him know "when" I get the good news. It's nice to have people believe in you. Now is also about the time that I start sending emails to publishers I submitted to back in the fall. Missives to the tune of "Hey, so... I sent a submission in. The three months have passed. Did you guys get it?" It's a pretty fragile situation. They could have gotten it, and they could still be mulling over its merits. Or, it never arrived, or worse was long discarded into a slush pile somewhere. Either way, it's just as likely that they will have never heard of me. I guess it's not so nice to not have people believe in you. Work has started back up, and this time around I got a chance to sit in on some of the conversations the counselors have with the students. They pull up graphs and charts and talk about what's against them, things they didn't even realize, and