Yo. Remember me?
I knew it had been a while since I posted, but I was shocked to see that the last post was dated September 18th, when I broadcast my guest post on author Louise Wise's site.
Without going into details, I had a personal life transition-and-upheaval period that sapped time, energy, and motivation away from my writing projects. It's not quite over, but in the past few weeks, I've been slowly digging out from under, and I have the ship underway again. In the last week I've really hit stride, and my per-day word output has hovered in the 1,000 - 2,000 range. And I think it's good stuff.
Some of that I credit to Stephen King's memoir on the craft of writing, (brilliantly titled: On Writing). It's been on my to-read list for a half-dozen years now, and when I saw it on the shelf of a used books store, I grabbed it and gobbled it up in a few days. I think we've all had experiences with a precipitator or Gordian knot-cutter that inspired us and pulled us out of a rut (if you'll permit that clutter of mixed metaphors); although more than half the book was autobiography, it got me going again--with energy.
The novel has turned onto the home stretch and is headed into the last fifth to seventh. I obviously missed my publication goal of mid-December, and don't want to reset expectations unrealistically, but I'm aiming for sometime before June. There's a lot of re-writing, editing, subplot additions, and the formatting and grunt work to do after the first draft is finished in the next month or two, (oh, shit, a cover . . .!) but I can see light at the end of the tunnel, finally, and it's not a train.
I'm also looking for beta readers in about 30-60 days.
Although I have about 12 working titles, the one I'm (currently) favoring is The Winds of Heaven and Earth. Those of you who are lit-savvy may pick up on the Melville reference out of the gate; the rest of you will will have to get Google do your heavy lifting. (And those of you who just have to know more: I was researching for materiel that would make epigraphs that would fit with the themes emerging from the book, and I was struck by the resonance of that passage with my work's themes and imagery.)
I've been coy with details on the book's plot, other than it's the first volume in an epic fantasy trilogy; but I'm pretty settled on the tagline as well, which will give you some insight:
“A wealthy North Carolina aristocrat investigating the mysterious disappearance of his pregnant wife discovers that his family is central to a magical realm’s ancient prophecy.”
That's all for now; back to work. I promise I'll drop by more often.
