This Blog: Presidential Elections

The author bio in my new novel (should be ready for your reading pleasure in a week or so...wait for the post!) lists my blog. This blog.

Hmmm...

Does one want to promote something that shows his struggling ability to maintain a simple blog?

So, this was added: "...he posts more often than presidential elections, less often than he would like."

That feels right.

But you writers with effective blogs have some major efficiency one-ups on me.

I have written fourteen novels, countless short stories, some really crappy poems, and even crappier songs. I am not lacking for words. I am, as they say, prolific in my writing. And yet, the blog. This blog.

I finished a "family" novel two years ago. Last April it received it's first major edit (after three minor personal edits). Since then it has undergone plastic surgery of extreme proportions, as should any novel, I am learning. But it's good. It's much better. And it's done. Ready to blog about it. This blog.

Not quite.

I start the formatting process for the publishing world I have chosen to enter called, "I will self-publish so that I can see my hardwork in paperback before I die." (Query letters occurred mid-editing.) Formatting (which has two "t"'s by the way) takes as much time as editing and is as much fun as eating carrots through your nose. (Sorry, that is something Cooligan, the main character of the novel, would say and this post is really for him.) For those of you wondering, carrots through noses is NOT fun.

Ready to blog? This blog?

Not quite. You need to create your cover. You take your own pictures. You play with fonts for years. Then colors for another few years. Then you change your mind. Then your name is too small on the binding (everyone who looked at my proof laughed...LAUGHED!). Then you change the interior again because it didn't look good. Then you spend four hours trying to figure out how to do the page numbers the way you want them. (Do NOT look at the page numbers.) By this point you realize why publishers take such a large commision.

You may have time to blog at this point. But if we select ourselves out of second person, we will note that I DO have time to blog now. This blog.

The pain and misery that is publishing a novel is complete.

A student asked me when I mentioned the soon-to-be published novel, "Are you going to stop teaching and become a writer?"

I thought about how much I enjoy writing (usually). And I thought that editing wasn't too horrible, either. Covers and formatting and spacing and lining up and page numbers and fonts and chapter headings and dedications and author bios and ISBN numbers and author photos for crying out loud...all of that, in its own way, is slightly appealing -- a challenge.

But I looked at the child and realized why I will not quit my job and become a writer.

I write because of experiences I have every day throughout normal life. Writing full time would take me away from normal life experiences. I write best under pressure, in those tiny moments between kids going to bed and my eyes collapsing. Writing full time would take away that pressure.

So, no time for blogging? We'll see. New years resolution? We'll see.

For now, take this blog. A post, just for you. A gift from someone who has finally finished the full circle process of publishing a second time.

Question: why will you not quit your job and become a full time writer?

Traumatic Brain Injury

This is not an excuse. I finished editing my civil war novel (takes place in 2025) and realized that I had never written the last pages. This realization occured Monday morning at 7:35 AM.

I went for a bike ride. I stopped by work. I visited my brother.

Then, around 7:47 PM, I tried to take an extra base in a softball game. I was a sub. A bad sub. I had only had my second hit of the double-header. I had missed 3 fly balls that came in my direction. The other team tried to hit in my direction because of how bad I was. Runners would get to third because how bad my throws were. My silly attempts to pretend to be a softball player were crumbling. So, I decided to take an extra base. I round second and head for third. The center fielder throws a bullet to get me out at third, but his throw is off the mark -- or on the mark. The ball hits me in the temple, fracturing the "cheek bone" in three places and causing a "brain bleed" -- these are not the technical terms, if you were wondering.

Now I'm home. Life attempts to return to normal. But a few things I have learned:

1) I don't want to play softball anymore.
2) I will probably use this in a future novel. Actually, I think I already used it in a past novel -- a kid gets smacked in the head by a foul ball.
3) while I am proponent of writers experience life before they write about it, I'm not sure if this was a good idea.
4) I met so many people in the 5 days in ICU -- so many potential characters! So, maybe it was a good idea.
5) The end of my novel was not written for me while I was in the hospital, which means, of course...
6) I still have to finish a novel I wrote 100,000 words for 2 years ago.

Question: what experiences do you seek out to enhance your writing?

Time

How do writers do it?

How do you?

We have full time jobs...right? I have one full-time and TWO part-time jobs. And then the children. Oh, the children.

Then we need to read. Of course, the reading. A writer must be a reader. If not to improve in the medium, then at least to support the others. We need to read published works, we need to read each other's unpublished works, and we need to read for the research for OUR unpublished works.

Did I mention living? What is a writer that doesn't live? Not that we all have to jump out of airplanes (though recommended), but we need to live...suffer...and probably suffer some more.

There is sleep, of course, but that is negotiable.

So, when do we write? And if we figure that one out, then when do we edit? And if those both get accomplished by some miracle of the universe, when, oh please, please tell me when, do we write query letters!!??

Question: is query letter a four letter word?

I tend to write 500 pages of work for each one page query letter. And that seems to favor the query letter to much.

Guess what I think I should be doing...

Editing -- Stage 5

Editing, Stage 1: write a novel for the pure love of it and don't think about anything. Editing, Stage 2: have someone friendly read it and give you happy, rainbow, pony feedback. Editing, Stage 3: take a class on writing and have it critiqued there -- for real. Editing, Stage 4: join a writing group and have it critiqued over and over and make serious, deadly changes each edit. Editing, Stage 5: have stages 1 through 4 in mind while writing the next book. My seventh novel was 200,000 words, had two separate narrating voices, a political-criminal plot with a quasi-religious backdrop and a grandfather who dies. It was written in Stage 1. After Stage 4 it became 70,000 words (probably only 30,000 of the original), had ONE narrator and had no political-criminal plot or dying grandfather. I kept the quasi-religious backdrop, though. I am now "editing" my 14th novel (the second civil war one previously mentioned on this blog) and find that in writing it I had already done much of the misery editing. Now editing is a bit easier (if a little less fun -- no deleting 50 pages and re-writing it into 5 pages) and strangely engaging. I do not mean to sound high and mighty (I am well acquainted with the earth), but I don't want to put my book down. I want to know what happens next! Question: should you edit your novel as you write it? Question: is there a stage 6?

"I've go' a little black book with me poems in."

Lane Lowenowsky. She is awkward, an outcast, but she is not defining herself for me. She is a compilation of so much that she is almost too much. She is a book that started to be written, then flopped. We changed her around a little, we let her simmer and grow, and she tried to get on the page again. Darn it, Lane didn't want to come. But so many ideas needed to get out. Dolphins, a mystery, divorce, teen culture, baseball -- all these inspirations that get put into this spot in my mind and attempt to escape through a keyboard. There were so many that she came out, finally, in a flurry of words when I had the moment of space and time. The Lane and the mystery man -- Alfonso -- they conspired while I tried in vain to sleep. That kept me up, telling me their story. So I continued and wrote and added to their pages. But Lane isn't clear yet. The mystery is vague, unfocused. The characters scattered, wanting for something. The tone wants to be funny but keeps forcing itself into a seriousness that I've never been able to write well. Wisdom tells me to write their damn story anyway. But I don't want to. I want to pout. I want to kick Lane for making me feel like a bad writer who can't organize characters, plot, ideas, or a well structured or a succesfully grammarized sentence. Thanks for letting me pout.

Competitons

It is difficult to get your hopes up for just another one of those many writing competitions you have decided to enter. You are unable to afford the competitions with fees, so you are already resigned to be one of thousands entering those few free competitions.

And, of course, you've lost every one so far. The ones with a "cut" leave you wondering how your refined piece of genius couldn't even make the first cut! (When it is cut from 37,000,000 to 36,800,000 -- you think you should have a chance!)

But the world of writing stays within the realm of you, your desk, your computer, and the occasional brave writing group soul. You do not network well in the writing world. They are mysterious, intimidating, ask too much of your time, travel, and money just to look at them, listen to them. The time and energy spent writing, editing, sending, and resending and rewriting and re-editing query letters to well researched publishers and agents could have been reallocated to your social life, your children, or inventing the next Facebook, a cure for hunger, or at least sleeping more.

So it is that writing competitions are your only hope into the door.

And when you make the first cut, it is a horrible rush of pride that threatens to overwhelm the realistic notion that your chances are still minimal.

And when you make the second cut, you pull out duct tape, long pieces of rope, and tie your skeptical side down, mute it with all your force. There is hope...maybe.

You are inches from proclaiming -- to all who have ever dared e-mail you -- the glory of this second-round success. A sense of victory already wraps its flag over your shoulders.

To this, I say, send it. Market your minimal success and hope for more. Maybe it will push you back onto the page and maybe dare to take that step into the writing world.

Political Office

I'm running for office...

I'm not sure what office, when, or for what party, but I'm running. I'm a writer, not a politician. I have political views, but they are rarely extremely well researched, more general feelings about right and wrong, good for society, bad for society. I have educated views on education. I have well financed views on finance. And I have extremely well informed opinions about being well informed.

I love the speech writer. And I want to run for office to write the speeches.

I also want to act upon the ideas in the speeches, but first I want people to hear the words.

I just finished the first book about politics in 2025, the second Civil War in the United States. I want it to be commentary, an example of what could happen if our politics remain divisive. Early feedback says to keep it action, violent, pop-culture, quick reads, but I want to make a statement. Maybe I should just write and present political speeches for myself. About commonalities. Commentaries on common similarities of agreement.

I may try. Soon. On this very place. Watch out.