Zippity Dippity Doo on a Tuesday morning before work

I am hoping to order the proof of Out in the Garage by this weekend, along with some copies of my short story collection, Tales From the Fringes (which is only $6.86 at Amazon right now, by the way).    While these are copies to give away to family and close friends, I am going to start keeping some on-hand to sell and use for promotional purposes.  You never know who you are going to meet, or what opportunities will come your way.

And yes, I am starting on research.  Right now it is mainly an online thing until I find all the relevant articles and books.  I will probably start out by doing a lot of reading about American Exceptionalism before I start my historical research.  The former will help to shape the latter as I make a more complete connection between the Melville the and the thing he was criticizing (which is as relevant as ever in today's 24-hour propaganda cluster-fuck).

My goal is to go through AT LEAST two chapters of Out in the Garage a day until I have gone through all 17 chapters.  For the most part I am happy with everything, and I have no desire or see no need to change the story, the plot, the characters, etc. but there are some places where the language is still a little funky or inadequate and the descriptions are flat, boring, or too melodramatic.  

The melodrama worked more in previous versions where everything was over-the-top.  However, in the current version, it just comes across as cheesy, so I am going to tone it down a bit.  I want it to be vivid, yet subtle.  At least subtly over-the-top, or an implied over-the-topness -- if that is even possible.

Part of me does want to just say fuck it and publish it how it is, but I still have the time to polish it up before the release date.  That is one of the nice parts about current technology, and one which I will definitely continue to take advantage of.

I feel like I can't do any new writing until I have completely exhausted all of my current projects and the upcoming projects are thorough planned out.  I also need to get better at using my time wisely and dividing it more evenly between the things that are important in my life.  Sometimes some things might usurp more time than others, but right now there is nothing in particular that needs that.  I can be very productive if I push myself -- I just gotta be more Type-A than Type-B right now.

These blogs help with that.  In a strange way they help me organize my thoughts about my work and focus on what I need to be working on.  I have so many goals to accomplish, and I am not going to accomplish them by being lazy or focusing too much on one thing.  I can't lose sight of the importance of school, but yet my writing is also important -- it is, after all, what influenced me to study English and finally get my bachelor's degree-- and self-publishing is a challenging and rewarding hobby.