February Update

Before jumping ahead, let’s take a look back at the month that has passed.  January, and winter in general, have always been a time when I like to get things in order.  It seems natural, the end of one year and the beginning of another – a mental marker for the procession of time.  Makes sense.  This year I have e-publishing in mind, and January marked a decisive step towards that goal, with this being the first full month of the rewrite of my three-part novel, Monarch.  I find rewriting to be an explorative and transformational process, filled with varying amounts of angst and ecstasy. 

I’ve heard told on more than one occasion, and I tend to agree, that a rewrite takes twice as long to complete as the initial writing.  There are extremes to both sides, sure, but I am willing to say this is probably a good average.

So in judging the time it will, roughly, take me to complete the entire rewrite process for Monarch – with polish, proofing and all else that it will entail – I also need recall how long it took to write the first draft.  Let’s see...  

I began writing on July first.  I spent a day or two at the onset, before I really got into typing, just running it all out in my head; a coalescing moment where I allowed the story and the characters to begin to play, like a movie between my ears.  I am an outliner.  Some prefer to go in blind; I do not.  I like to have lampposts, keeps me on track.  Play between the lampposts, but keep moving forward, always moving forward. 

It took from July first through November second to write the three-part first draft.  (125 days x 2 = 250 days)  Now if we we're to believe in the law of averages, then it would be safe to assume that it would take two hundred fifty days, from the day I began on the rewrite in December, marking somewhere around September as the supposed end of the rewrite process.  But I have no intention of releasing the three parts at once.  No. 

Part one required a month and a half to write.  It was by far the most difficult of the three to get onto paper, and will likely take the longest to rewrite.  Three months – a solid three months, at the very least.  Once I have the first part available, parts two and three will then be released in subsequent months. 

So, with that in mind, let’s put January behind and move on to February.  A month that, although I can’t say what will happen with absolute certainty, will bring me twenty eight days closer to e-publishing. 

Until next week, I’ll leave you with a question that I need to answer before the end of the month:  Should Monarch be the first thing I try and e-publish?  I have a short story that might be better suited to hit the marketplace first.  Until then, thanks for reading. 

-aap

Why we do what we do

It is not an urge to be heard or read on a daily basis that led me to become a writer.  No.  If I had my way, I would not be writing this to you now.  But it is how things are done these days.  What I enjoy about writing is going into my imagination factory and spending hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, and in some cases year after year in effort to produce something that someone else might want to read more than once.  I want others to return to a work in order to find a bit of information that they may have missed the first time.  I believe that is what all writers strive for, to some extent.  If they are doing so for other purposes, then I can’t relate; I still have to work a day job, so a paycheck is not my motivation as of yet.  This post is disposable, read once and forgotten.  I can live with that.  But my other works are meant to linger, to haunt, to call into question the norm. 

A good comedian holds a mirror up so we might see our own reflection, causing us to laugh at our faults.  They are cynics focused mainly on the negative in society.  Many a fiction writer works in much the same way, though our material is not meant to cause knee-jerk reactions but self-reflection on a bigger scale.  Sure there are laughs but often they are suppressed because of the time needed to convey a point.  So while a comedian causes a belly ache, the fiction writer may only evoke a simmering grin.  Yet both try to create a certain amount of introspection towards our own lives, alluding to ways we can use the information as we move forward.  These observations and relating them on to paper are the point of it all.  Whether someone can empathize with the characters and their journey is the reason we take the time and use the amount of words that we do.  That and we lack the moxie to get up on stage and abbreviate what we like to drag out for four hundred pages.

-aap

MONARCH

To her suburban friends and neighbors, Ginger Reed, the beautiful housewife who is about to gracefully turn forty, seems to have it all: a nice home within a good school district, two wonderful and healthy children and a handsome husband who supports them. But inside, behind her brilliant green eyes, there flickers a flame of doubt; she believes, with every fiber of her being, that "all is not as it seems," and is afraid that her idyllic world may be coming to an end in less than two months.

The story opens on 11/10/2012, with one month and eleven days until the highly publicized end of the Mayan Calendar.  That is why Ginger has driven to a downtown bookstore to buy the book Cipher, a work of fantasy fiction dealing with the approaching date, and why there is such an assortment of "interesting" people lined out the door and around the corner to meet the author.

Monarch is the life-changing journey of a woman obsessed with time.  A fear of the future has seized the focus of Ginger's mind.  She finds herself feeling alone amongst others, fretting over what tomorrow might bring.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, the seconds go flying off the clock.

Now, if only she can finish the book, survive that ominous day and keep her family and herself together, then maybe she can find her way through this dark psychological tunnel before it's too late.

SNOWED IN!!!

My little world is blanketed in the white stuff.  It's been since the blizzard of '93 that I've seen this much snow in GA.  (Huh, I'm starting to sound like an old man recalling these things.)

1/10/11

Stuck indoors today and maybe tomorrow at this rate.  The whole city seems to be closing down.  Good thing I have a writing project that needs some work-- that should keep me busy.

Sorry coffee shops, you may not get my business today. 

Speaking of writing projects,  I hope to have an early synopsis for Monarch ready to be posted by this time next week.  Keep your fingers crossed. 

-aap