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...

When I sat down to commit to the sci fi novel rewrite, I did so somewhat purely. And by that I mean I had no plan for where I would submit it, how, why, etc. The story wasn't strong enough, I felt, primarily, so thinking about places to send it was moot. But I did assume that once I was done, I would have somewhere to submit it. I finished the rewrite. It fell 5,000 words short of my initial goal of 90,000, but even then it is still almost half again as long as the other books I have out in the aether mingling on virtual shelves. I felt good about that fact. I felt good about a lot of things, especially the new ideas that started flowing after I had this project out of the way. When I sat down to finally look for publishers to submit my work to, my eyes were opened again. According to this website , the landscape has changed. Some places, known for years for producing entire series of door-stop novels, are only taking short stories, for the foreseeable future, it seems. Other ...

Last week's work went well, especially considering a mysterious Christmas Eve illness. I didn't realize what was going on, and I suppose it may have just been food poisoning. I'll probably never know now. Regardless, I edited to chapter 18, and am feeling very good about this home stretch. I now have a better understanding of what was missing in an epilogue yet to be written, and having scanned most of it within a short span, I am more familiar with this new retelling, this rewrite. Earlier in the process I was worried I had written the same story. I have banished that fear. I had a good conversation with a writer colleague, and her questions put me in a great position to see what my story might look like to different eyes. She is preparing a piece for submission herself, and I think the process was as beneficial for her as it was for me. We're supposed to be getting together for a more in depth chat this week. If I had my druthers, I would be able to finish everythi...

The break has started, and so has the work I planned to do during. A friend of mine paid me the compliment that he was really impressed with my ability to look at how much time I have, and stick to a script of how to spend it, in regards to completing my creative projects. Naturally, after that conversation on Tuesday, I squandered that afternoon, Wednesday, and even Thursday. To reach the first week's mark, I had to work Saturday morning. But, it did get done. I am learning a great deal, and at least for the first third of the novel, I am happy with the rewrite. Just about everything that I had in mind to fix has been taken care of with the third drafting. The world holds up a lot better, feels a lot more distinctive. I have mental images of it now, how it feels and smells and sounds. Connecting with the festivities of this weekend, in some respects, it's a lot like Endor. But I also know in what ways it is not like Endor at all, and for that I am very satisfied. Somethin...