Thought-Drive

Twitter tells me I haven't been by in a while to post about what I'm doing. I guess I've also been somewhat neglecting this particular outlet as well. I have no excuses or reasons. But the words are coming. Blogging is like riding a bike I don't want to be seen on. It's got tassels and a basket; I'm not precisely in sync with what it advertises. Writing didn't happen last weekend, but oh the editing. The final proofing had to be done on the April release. Unlike last year, I actually had work to do, dialog to fix, mistakes to root out. I admitted a while back that last year I hardly even looked through the final proof. I thought to myself, "I've looked at this, what, fives times? Six? I'm sure by now it's fine." That wasn't the case, as I found out. Every time someone found a mistake, it seemed like I had to hear about it. Needless to say, I was motivated to prevent that from happening this time around. Consequently, I spent the...

At about six o'clock this morning I realized I made a glaring error in the plot-logic of one of my novels. It's not the first time, I'm sure, but this is certainly the most pronounced one that I can think of. It's also proof that even reading a previous book before writing its sequel is not a fail safe against such mistakes. I'm at a loss though for how to document it. The writing continues, but things are turning back around on themselves. Like the first whiff of decay from a spoiling bottle of milk, for the first time in a long time I can sense the expiration date of something I'm writing. I think the pace is to blame. One chapter a week has been the slowest I've written in years, and slow progress can be as deadly as no progress for a creative project. It stretches things out uncomfortably, and the more time is spent on it, the more other things "come up" and the more unrelated ideas begin to develop "on the back burner," the more ...