But only if

Part of me thinks I'm close to understanding the flow of a timely blog. The other part of me feels like I couldn't be further away. I know one particular artist that works visually, and just about every day her social media is peppered with her current project progress or future progress aspirations and notifications. I think it's a really excellent system. I wish I could adapt it for myself. But things don't clarify in the same way for a writer. An image can become crisper, as the darker lines bring confidence and by juxtaposition the hesitant strokes become grayer and grayer until they're almost the color of the paper. Paragraphs only work that way with very close inspection, and even then, it remains subjective. When a non-abstract visual artist moves forward, the representative image becomes more and more of what it's supposed to look like, as if it's slowly transitioning from solely within the artist's mind to a place where everyone can see it. To this day, even if the sentiment of a sentence becomes more focused for one reader, it may not for another.

On that note, I got some more feedback. It was a surprise, which made my day. I got a chance to ask questions about what the reader took away, what things were clear, what parts were confusing, what was the picture they developed of the characters' contexts. I was fed, and the day was good. I think at this point I have my answer on the different between two stories I was trying to compare, the Ballad of Beginning and Blood for the Soil. Both were intended to be introductions into a larger narrative framework. But one, the latter, was written after that framework was already constructed unlike the former, which was the first foray into that story's architecture. I don't think it was any fault of what I did in the writing, but more how I thought about the writing. The fact that one story was waiting to be written and the other was already drafted made all the difference. It wormed into my pace. In the end, what I was left with was a first chapter. Which isn't necessarily bad, as it was not what I sat down to accomplish. On the other hand, the reader did say they wanted more, that they would've kept reading.

In other news, it is November. Actually, it's almost the holiday, which means it's almost December. NaNoWriMo is almost over. I was asked this year, like I'm asked every year, if I was going to participate. And like every year I said no, not exactly. I think that a lot of people are, a lot of people I know. I think a lot of people are thinking about writing, and that encourages me to do the same. I try to take advantage of that, to push my own objectives forward. So I set a goal for myself to finish the novel I've been writing off and on most of the year, the one I want to submit to the open house submission in December. I was told that counted, that I had a writing goal for the month. That made me feel good, to be participating in spirit. The following pressure was like a really tight hug. I have outlined, to that end, and drafted chapter 20 this morning. I estimate somewhat around five left, and a week and change to do it in. Once I finish the draft that gives me a decent cushion to flip it over and scratch through the pages front to back. To feel sad and angry and disappointed and resigned. To put it away at the same time that I put the year away, which has been its own journey of peaks and valleys. 

I'm almost ten years past the point where, physiologically speaking, the male brain stops developing and starts breaking down. Yet I feel like I've learned more and grown more than I have in all those years combined. Maybe it feels that way because it's fresh. Maybe it is that way because I've fallen down so much recently. I'm glad, if only because the stories I have yet to write will be all the more richer for it. 

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