Oooops.

Heh. Long time, nothing blogged. Busy is a good word. More truthful is lazy and looking for work. "Kick a garbage can and homeless artists scurry out." Haven't written in a while, though the urge is gnawing at every part of me like Catholic guilt. I'll try to do a bit better in the coming weeks. We shall see.

Hey all...

I'm still here, though it may appear that I've been AFK (away from keyboard) for quite some time. The old creative juices are still flowing, but the biggest priority lately has been the quest for full-time employment. It's as though looking for a job is a full-time job in itself.

My Gulf War fiction has been on the back burner for quite some time now and I think it's about to boil over and demand my attention. It will be good to get back to it. The characters will need to be whipped back into shape, of course. Too much time on their own has made them lazy and fat.

I think I put it off for so long because I know it was starting to move in 6 directions and away from where I originally saw it heading. New directions are fine, good even, but too many directions at once makes for a confusing plot line, even to me. Time to get out the scissors and start a blaze in the fireplace...it's editing time.

Focus.

Side projects happen. Sometimes you will be moving right along and something comes up that needs your attention. Perhaps it's a short-story publishing opportunity, sometimes a writing contest. Whatever it is, it is bound to happen and it throws the train off the tracks. My novel is not forgotten, only maturing in my head. Yeah. That's it.

An excerpt of my Gulf War memoir-in-progress is being printed in 'F-Magazine,' my first short for an anthology is being printed, my second short for an anthology is being polished, and I'm still waiting on news of when my international student anthology short story hits book form. The novel I have been working on for the last few months has been put on hold but is far from forgotten.

I need to let myself know that, sometimes, this is okay. The break from the book will help me see something new. At the very least, I will start to see the story as a reader. It has been long enough away from my eyes to allow me to forget parts, and seeing it again will help me find the gaps in continuity that are probably obvious to those reading it and not to the fella writing it.

I miss it, actually. I worry that it gets lonely without attention and hope it's staying out of trouble while I'm away. I didn't actually tell it I was leaving, but I'm sure it knows I'm coming back. Some time. I just need to focus.

Short Absence

Whew! Guess it's been a while since I made a post. No worries, I'm still kicking.

My anthology submission has been revised, edited, scrutinized and accepted. Printing to commence shortly. It was quite the adventure going through all the steps, but it feels good that it's done. Now for the next submission!

Writing, as a job, is a never-ending cascade of ups and downs. Acceptances and rejections, rejections, rejections. No sense letting the rejections get to you. It's a matter of perserverance. Just because one manuscript (or so many you can't count them all) hasn't been accepted doesn't mean the work has failed. It only means the time/editor/reviewer/publication/mood wasn't right at the moment it crossed someone's desk. Fifteen minutes later it may have been perfect.

I'm not giving up. This is what I love to do.

re: edit. and rev.

I think the title says it all. I'm in the process of cleaning up one of my accepted anthology stories. The process is made easier by having one of the people from my writer's group giving me helpful hints and suggestions. No small feat, actually.

Having someone you trust to read your work for revision ideas, not an interested family member, friend or lover, is a huge risk. They see the story differently from the writer, though the story reads the same to both on the page. The writer has the unfortunate advantage of a bigger picture of anything he or she writes and not all of that information ever hits the page. In a short story, that information may not even have an impact on what others see but may affect how the writer feels that character would react to tension and mood in the growing story. A writer that knows his main character likes chocolate but not peanut butter knows this information may do little for the story arc and leaves it out, but that personal choice helps the writer define a character and it fleshes the character out, makes them 'real.'

In a bigger sense, though, the writer may know things that don't hit the page and the reader may wonder why the protagonist or antagonist has reacted the way they have to a certain stimulus. Only by having an outside eye will this omission be made clear. The writer may need someone to point out that something is not making sense because a detail, one only the writer knows, needs to be present on the page for reader to understand why something happens the way it happens.

If you take writing seriously and want to do the best you can, you honestly can't do it alone. Sure, writing is a solitary art, one that takes a person away from others to brood over a pen and paper or a machine for hours at a time, but after the work is done it needs to be reviewed and critiqued. Sometimes it needs a nudge in the right direction, other times it may need a shove and a kick. In the end, few writers in history have ever been able to sell and publish their work without someone else's keen eye and subtle suggestions. I'm no fool.

And if the writing fails to be accepted, I also understand that it's not the fault of the person that took the time to help me. My story needs more work or it needs some time alone in my stacks to ferment and age. If there is still a salvageable story after it's been sitting a while, then it's still worth telling, even if not the same way it was told the first time. The terrible truth is that a story is never finished. Just ask any writer about one of their books or stories. Ask them if they are 'happy' with it and you'll get many different answers that mean the same thing: I could have done better, I should have changed this... I understand that I may look back on something I've written and laugh or try to apologize for it, it's in the art. I will always try to make what I write the best it can be before print. After that, only time will tell.

Anthologies Abound

Hey, all! A few sprinkles of good news in a pot of rejections. A few members of the writer's group I'm in are being published in two anthologies printed by Avendia Publishing: "Sin" and "Sex." I will have a short story published in each of them, the first going to print by the end of the year.

To follow up that good news, the Bath Spa University / Columbia College Chicago anthology team has accepted one of my Persian Gulf short stories for their upcoming anthology partnership. The book, "Open to Interpretation," will be released in the coming year. My story, "Home Life," will be in it.

In the mean time, I've been elbow deep in trying to keep a World of Warcraft guild afloat, my revisions on shorts rolling and my attention focused on why my novel is taking a turn for the waste basket. Hemingway, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know when to let my writing fall from my fingers into the fireplace.

Opportunities

Sometimes you just get lucky. After the rejection I received from my short story submission to a Chicago literary magazine, I was a little slow to jump back in the mix. My rejection pile continues to grow and my confidence needs a boost once in a while.

I've been invited to join a team of writers on an anthology project. Each writer submits a story, which comprises the length of one chapter, and serves as editor to another story in the book. It is the chance of a lifetime and it's only the start. The follow-up book to the anthology is already in the works as well.

This is a very exciting opportunity and I will be happy to share more when it gets closer to the publication date. Time to put the novel aside and get to this project. I'll post more soon.