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.

Take Your Pick

Endless Vacation (In My Mind)

Really coming up with some great ideas right now.  Can't wait to put the best ones in action.  Feeling really inspired.  Really expanding my world right now in a big way.  The characters and the story are coming alive in a way they never have.  Very excited.

Very happy with how Tales from the Fringes is turning out.  There is still three stories that I wish I could include here, but they are all unavailable, which is in itself a good thing.  One is going to be published, the others are hopefully under consideration.

Very excited for everyone to read the final product of Tales, which is hopefully, probably, most likely only a few weeks away!  Just got the word back that they have accepted my changes and I can now order another proof.  This will be polishing.  Making it all shiny and new and perfect (enough).

Starting to get back into my schoolwork again, too.  This vacation can't last forever.  :-(



This music video has to do with my novel, and I won't explain it anymore than that.

A New Beginning

While it doesn't seem like it should be an easy decision to make, starting over on my first novel is the right way to go -- not because I am not proud of what I have written so far, it just has too many problems that no amount of rewrites will fix.  I have tried to morph it into something better than it can be, and now I have to stop fooling myself and do what I have, in times of frustration, wanted to do for years.

On the bright side, however, I am salvaging parts of the story -- in essence I am taking the best 30-40 pages and hyper-focusing on it for 60-70,000 words.  My goal is to paint a vast, complex picture of a young adult trying to deal with some traumas while spending the summer on a farm half a state away with distant relatives, where he meets somebody who might make it all worth it, if he is not too blind to notice.

I am confident that I can write a draft of this by the end of the summer.  I am taking it as a personal challenge to use the ideas that manifested in the first trial, and work them in a more plausible, more focused, highly detailed way.  The scope of my previous try was too large.  The details were too small, too brief, too disjointed.

In addition, now I know my genre -- at least for this book.  It is a YA novel, a coming of age story.  It has always been the latter, but I had never settled on the former.  It makes a whole lot of sense for me, and, although I have research to do, I feel like it should have been this all along.

It's good that I know this.  Even if it did come at the price of six years of work.  I feel like I could not have reached this point if I had not been through everything I have been through.

My goal is to write as good of a novel as I can, and if that means starting over, then I am perfectly willing to do it.  I have long know there are a lot of problems with my manuscript, and the same ones seem to surface in different ways, no matter what I have done.

To get a professional criticism and confirm all this -- but also that I have potential -- is a step in the right direction.  I wish I had sent it to her sooner, but, I can't live my life dwelling on something like that.  I must continue looking towards the future.

In the meantime I am going to put out this short story collection, Tales from the Fringes, and see what kind of audience I can build.  I will focus on school and settling into a career in education.

I don't really see it as a step back as much as a humbling.  Life is a learning experience and when I lose track of that I get discouraged.  I don't have time to get discouraged.  I can only move forward.

On the bright side, I already know this story inside and out.  It will take discipline, research, and planning, to write a new manuscript, but I anticipate the writing process going more smoothly this time around.  Everything that I lacked when I first started writing fictions I now have.  Looking back on my first writings, I have come an impossible long way.  Now it's time to take all that knowledge and the skills I have developed, and this world and these characters I have created, and put it all together.

--

Tentative Title (since the focus of the book is shifting, the title has to change): Outside the Garden
Goal Length: 72,000 words
Genre: Young Adult Literature

Synopsis: Lance Adamson goes to stay for the summer on his uncle's farm near the small, central Ohio town, Babel, to escape the recent suicide of his best friend Art, as well as other ghosts.  There he meets Evie, his only ally.  With her help, Lance tries to begin the healing process and avoid being sucked into the Nimrod Evangelical Temple and the preachings of Pastor Lee Charles, who has virtually everyone else in town under his control.

--

Like I said, this is essentially a 30-40 page chunk of my book that I am hyper-focusing on.  I have written beginning two pages, and, I am really excited to continue.  I can tell even by the fact that I am able to write a synopsis of it that I am in much better shape that I ever have been.

Everything is coming together.  Not in the way I was imagining that it would, but, this way seems more plausible.  My gut instinct tells me I am making the right choice.  I am excited to be thrown back into the creative process, which, for me, is the best part of all of this.

Guerrilla-Posting!!

Should I do some music reviews on here?  I used to do that for The Stater.  I could just go around to local bands and check out the scene, do some casual interviews and really listen to the music and then write a blog about it.  I can even use the band's press photos (which is super easy in the digital age).  I could do albums or go to shows.  Either way I will conduct an interview of some sort.  I will do it through email and do it kind of Rolling Stones style, with my take on it and then a transcription of the interview, verbatim.  Casual.  Honest.

I am just trying to think of more ways I can build my audience on here.  I feel like that this is going to be the key to my success, because it is free and accessible, and, when I do occasionally release something for sale I will self-publish and do it cheaply just so I can make more of the profit, which I can invest into actual advertising.

This way will take longer but ultimately it will build me a loyal audience, because, well, I don't know.  This is free.  I like that, and, as far as I am concerned, free = freedom.

I don't have to be rich or popular but I do want to try and make a living of some sort, but only if I can sustain it with a steady profit, because I still have to pay my bills and fix my credit.

Any move I make at this point in my life has to be strategic.

I feel like I need to watch "Field of Dreams".  If I build it they will come?

I don't know if I can hold my breath on that, to use a few corny expressions in a row.

This lady on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?  and she doesn't know the Abby Road album cover.

That is...  Mind-numbing.