Thought-Drive

I'm back to writing again, and the positive feelings and negative ones are mixing well together. I feel good in a vague sort of way, as if letting the words lie on paper lightens my spirit. I feel more energetic and excitable. Activity and smiles come easier. And I feel bad, right this moment between the first and second draft where I doubt the project's purpose, or my ability to execute it. It seems like a great idea to delete it and never mention it again to anyone. It isn't necessarily surprising, but I had forgotten that particular side effect of the first drafting. It's complete, and yet it is in its roughest possible state of completeness. No one can fault a sculptor for the look of a rough block of material, but after they've worked on it for awhile, if it still looks like nothing, doubt isn't far behind the confusion. But, I'm back to writing again. Since finishing the sci-fi novel rewrite, I've been on a bit of an involuntary hiatus. One of t...

I've had a couple friends ask me how things went. "You did an awesome job... you were natural and engaging. From experience you know that's a lot with that age group." "You did an excellent job. The students really enjoyed your talk." This is what I'm told, and I guess nothing particularly disastrous happened. I arrived on campus on time, but between locating the front office, signing in, waiting for someone to walk me to the right location, all I had time to do was greet my contact, and walk into a room with a large group of restless teenagers who suddenly decided they would all stare at me. Going in, I had planned to show them the next books in the series. I took them, thinking it would be a great opportunity for marketing, to talk to them about the first book, and then be able to physically show them that the series continued, what the covers looked like, the words therein, etc. In practice, the books stayed in my bag. I was alone on a makesh...

I found myself awake at 5:30 this morning, lying next to Nervousness. Tomorrow is the author talk at a local high school. All last week I had wondered if maybe I had grown socially, if my stage fright of years, which led me to speak in front of audiences and then afterward remember little of what I said. No, was the whisper, I'm still here. I got an email with some questions that would likely be asked, and that was a great comfort for two reasons. One, it means that they will likely ask questions, which indicates at least some level of interest. I won't be sitting in front of a group of people who were forced to stare at me. Secondly, I know what some of the questions at least will be. I am very focused on doing a good job, being insightful, which is to say helpful, for the sake of these young people. I think I have an idea of where they are sitting, and I don't want to be the latest in a long list of unhelpful adults. Still, even though I am hours removed from that qu...

Been awhile since I updated this, and as usual I have no excuses. It's also been awhile since I wrote consistently, but that's going to be changing soon, as well. Two weeks until the artist talk at a local high school. I don't know what to expect, and I think that's okay. I believe the point is to use it as a learning experience, gather what information I can and then draw conclusions after the dust clears. I was also told about a writing workshop in the area, where people pay non-trivial amounts of money to sit in on various sessions with professionals in the industry, and pay moderately less money to even pitch to an agent. I'm considering how much such an experience is worth to me, never having had it previously. Sometimes I guess one has to make decisions in the midst of the sandstorm. Navigating these things has been confusing and strange. So far as I can tell, there are a variety of doors a person can use for an in. "It isn't what you know, but w...