Time is the enemy

Hard to believe it's been oh, about four months since I last updated this thing...my appologies to anyone who's dropped by hoping for an update. Unfortunately the refined art of book writing is a bit harder to learn than I'd expected; next time I'll be more focussed, more organized, not so concerned about getting the language just right the first time. Hard to admit it, but it's a hard lesson any writer needs to learn: doesn't matter what you've written, rewritten and rewritten again, no matter how perfect you think your prose is at the time, there's another way to write it, a better way to write it, a faster, less wordy way to write it.

Ahh, if only I hadn't thought of a new plot twist that just has to go in, which means a substantial readjustment in the manuscript. We're talking surgery from chapter one. But it does give my main character a little more substance, and he's finally making the much needed shift from passive to active. Good and bad, I suppose.

Which finally brings me to the subject line. Time really does slip away too fast; you get caught up in real life so quickly, so absolutely, that you blink and all of a sudden it's almost next year. Hell on the writing process. But that's not a bad thing either. As a writer I think it's absolutely crucial to remain grounded in the real world, we do, after all, write about human emotions and experience. Doesn't matter what the setting is, time period, theme, subject: any narrative that involves people must be inhabited by real descriptions of people. Otherwise they're window dressing and as about as deep as a puddle.

Just means I have to find more time to write, use my time more effectively, and continue to slog away.

As for everyone out there, happy slogging to you too; as much as it sucks, someday it'll be over. And then you'll have a book.