interesting (anxious) stuff

My posting to this site has slowed down considerably, but that’s a good thing as I’m currently working on the book. Right now the working title is “He Do The Police In Different Voices” (and no, I don’t give a shit). Writing books is stressful, especially when you’ve never written one before and have to figure out how it’s done. Regardless, things are coming along very well, even though my word output isn’t as high as I would like. Lately I’ve spent most my time on the characters, something I’ve (perhaps out of dread) put off until “late” in the game — and by “late” I don’t mean to imply that I’m close to being done with anything, but rather that it’s one of the remaining aspects of the novel for me to work through/figure out. It’s actually the last aspect, but I’m going to say “one of” just in case farther along I come across something else that requires studying and lots of time spent thinking and staring into space. My whole approach to writing this book  has been to move slowly and work through problems as they arise, like trying to undo a tangle of knotted string, and so far so good. I can see progress, and that’s enough of a fix to keep me going.

I’ve been surprised at how a few things in my writing have turned out very differently from the way I initially conceived them. The plot, especially the genre elements, continues to recede further into the narrative background while the characters have come to the forefront (see above paragraph). It’s definitely made writing the story more exciting, since I’ve always intended the characters to be the main event — I want my plot boring in comparison. The other big change is how much darker things have become, specifically with Dick, my protagonist. I always wanted HDTPIDV to be dark, but initially it was more a gritty, noir-esque darkness apparent in the the setting and plot details. Now most of that darkness is in Dick, who’s morphed into one messed up dude. This is good.

The other day I read a couple of articles, this one about how (contrary to everything I’ve been talking about here) big books are now in style, and this one is about how impossible it is to be a writer, and how pathetic my life will be if I attempt it (it’s actually about the effects of THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION on publishers, readers, writers and the novel, but the subtext is far from implicit).

an update on new directions

I’ve been having a great time with my new blog/website/brand-portal, posting links and talking about general thoughts on various semi-related topics, but now that I’ve got a few entries under my belt I’m going to change directions a little bit. First, I’m not going to be posting as frequently as I have been. Second, I’m (thinking about) talking more about my book-in-progress. Why? Because I’ve reworked it (and by “it” I mean the plot/story/theme/approach/pov/characters, etc.) a little bit (a tweak or two here and there), and today I began working on the new draft regularly and in earnest. There’s a part of me that wants to use this site to discuss thoughts and ideas I have regarding the writing process, mostly because it’s a convenient space to work through any issues I might be grappling with at the time, and I think that would be an interesting experiment, to in effect liveblog the struggle of writing a book. I don’t know exactly what that would mean yet, and I don’t know if that’s something I can actually do (I don’t want to give much away about the specific plot details, and some of the issues I’m dealing with are personal in nature.), but it’s the mindset I’ve adopted going forth, and at the very least it’ll be interesting to see what happens. I think the key to success in blogging and writing in general is that you can’t concern yourself with what people are going to think, or put too much weight behind your expectations about where a given piece/project is going. “It’s all about the journey. Man.”

We’ll see. If I change my mind at any point I’ll be sure and turn it into an entry, like this.

why i’m doing this

Well look at this. I woke up this morning and now I have a blog.

I thought it would be appropriate to write about why I’m doing this for my first entry, but last night I was too tired and just went to bed. The task seems much more daunting now, probably because I haven’t had any coffee yet. It is something I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few months thinking about, however, and I think it’s important to write about.

Writing is something I’ve known for a long time I want to pursue — I even have vague plans of making money and supporting myself someday through writing. I’m currently working on my second book and have been for several months. The first one didn’t get any farther than the third draft when I outgrew it, and frankly, it’s not very good (at the time I thought it was genius, but at the time I was 23).  I’m much more excited about this second one, but as I write it I know I can do better and I know I have to get better.

Hence, this blog.

I want to use this site as a practice space for me to write about whatever I want however I want. It doesn’t matter what I write as long as I’m writing. I’m one of those people who works in bursts with (sometimes long) off periods in between, and I plan to iron that right out of me with the hot brand of discipline. I also see this online space as my eventual authorial home on the web, so bookmark it now. Maybe one day I’ll post and/or sell my writing stuffs here. Who knows?

Right now I don’t have any real sort of content plans, just whatever bucket loads I can draw from my brain well — and that makes me excited to think about, which is good since I’m the one doing all the work.