On Persistence

When I was working on my first super serious I plan on actually publishing this manuscript, I set a very distinct goal, but still providing myself some leeway since I know I'm an epic procrastinator. I wanted it to be out the world by time I was 30. After I completed it, it took about six months of edits and rewrites and research on the publishing process. It's been nearly five years since it's been published and I don't have my next book out yet. I'm not trying to be Harper Lee up in here, especially since the first book has been a fizzling turd, while To Kill a Mockingbird is a rave success. Yes, I'd like to get more work out there, just so it's out there. I don't want to mistake this with just putting any old shit out there. A lot of people do that, they think everything they write is worthy to be published. Mostly, it's not. I love thinking up imaginary worlds and scenarios and twisting them into something that will scar my readers for life. One could argue my book is drivel, and as its writer, I might tend to agree with you. But when I get rave reviews trickling down the grapevine from strangers, it makes one think, hey, maybe I don't suck so hard.

Granted, I'll throw in the fact that I've had a kid with these five years of no follow up novel. Being knocked up and sick most days while falling asleep at 8:00 pm was not conducive to writing. Having a newborn and sleep deprivation was not conducive to writing. IE: read... excuses for not writing, right? I'm rationalizing my lack of work. However... I started my short story project, probably about a year ago. It's been placed in the imaginary holding station for now. That plan on that one is to create about four novella length stories the revolve around some of the sketchiest situations you can imagine. I started my current project last fall. I should be almost done, right? No! My problem is, I've got the meat of the story in my head. I know what's going to happen. I know the main event, I know how it ends. I just need to piece it together. I need to get my ass in the chair and get all those in-between spots filled in. One could definitely argue that I'm not a real writer because I can't make myself set time aside to write every day, but to be honest, it's tough to find an hour even to have some quiet time to write when there's a full time job and a toddler at home who I want to lavish with attention. The truth is, I may not write every day, but I think about it every day, I think about my story. I think about how my characters are going to be affected, they're real in my head, after all.

I can't help but wonder how to high producing authors do it. Are they more dedicated? Probably. But where do they find the time? How did they get off the ground with their own full time jobs and families?   I'm sure they just say hey, this is my time to work, piss off! Before the boy came along, I was very structured, I had the time to work for hours on end after leaving the office. I could stay up into the evening working because I would have uninterrupted sleep. I could pour over my work and scratch out the shit. I could be obsessed. However, now, now that I like to be an engaged parent, I get about an hour to myself in the evening, after everything has settled down and the boy is sleeping soundly and instead of spending that time writing (like I ought to be), I sometime pour a drink and watch my stories, or I read. I can't help myself. While I'm reading, I feel guilty, like, damn, I need to be writing my own book right now so some crazy broad or dude can be reading my shit while sitting in bed.

The point of my blithering here is that I'm trying to keep myself in check. I am cutting out small sections of my day to write, even if it's only for a few minutes at a time. I don't foresee this current book being finished (completely) in 2016, though it's only April. If I hustle hard, maybe I could get it ready for a fall release, I'm thinking November. That's not much of a stretch if I give myself about five months to finish it and another month and a half for editing and re-writes. That's doable, right? Basically, I just don't want to add another year to the gap between books.

One final note is, I've posted a teeny, tiny, almost incomprehensible shred of a paragraph of the new book on my author page, I think every once in a while to keep all five of you interested, I may post a teaser or three, to keep hype it up.

On "That Writing Itch"

Lately I've had thoughts swirling through my head to write. To write something, to write anything. If y'all remember, I was working on another manuscript before I became knocked up with G-Money. Of course, I thought what I was writing was a huge, flaming turd, but rumor has it, that all writers feel that way about their work.

This itch has returned with a vengeance. It's uncontrollable, it's a tick, I'm jonesin'. Yet, I've done nothing about it. Why? I'll blame it on the kid. I'll say, between working full time and trying to give G-Money a happy childhood, there's just no time for writing. Go ahead, you can call bullshit. It's probably true. If I was a total die-hard, my ass would be in the chair after the boy goes to bed. I'd spend an hour or so after his bedtime and before mine feeding my addiction, hunched over the computer desk, staring at the white screen, blinking cursor, thinking of some sort of twisted shit to write.

Do you want to know what I do instead? I chill for five minutes and enjoy the silence and wind down from the tornado that boy is. I let the dog out, and stand out on the deck, listening to crickets and bullfrogs. I pick up the myriad of toys he's strewn all over the house. I tell the cat to shut his fat mouth because he's not eating AGAIN. I plop down on my bed and start reading some quality fiction and escape for a half hour or so before I pass out. Basically, I'm making up excuses not to park my ass in the chair and write.

Lately, I've been thinking about revamping "Stress Test" so it's not so cagey. I've been thinking about rerouting the whole plot, but then, it would cease to be its former self. I think part of the reason I didn't go hard into promoting that book is because, I didn't feel like it was my best work, but it was the best that that story was going to get, at that time. But now, a few years later, maybe I have more to offer to the story. I think revamping the former work is also giving me an excuse not to work on my current "sitting in the drawer" manuscript.

The bottom line is, no matter what else I'm doing with my life, deep down, I've still got the urge to write. Even though, I don't do it nearly as much as I should, (or at all right now for that matter.) It's been a constant for two decades, and I'm sure it will never amount to anything, but at least it will be out there.