The Beginning of a Book is the hardest part…except for the end.
I’m finishing one project, and beginning another. I’m finding both of these two situations much more difficult to deal with than the two or three that are mid-project and moving along at their own divergent speeds. I don’t think I’ve ever had quite so many things all running at once, and on top of it all, I have the Stargate novel (thankfully collaborated on by the lovely and talented Patricia Lee Macomber who writes like the wind with talent sprinkled into it). It is slow going - this multitasking- but seems to keep my mind fresh. The only down side is that to move from one project to the other requires a surface and then a submergence into the mindset of each project. I can’t just close one file and open the other and go…much to my chagrin.
Still, progress is being made. I need to get the ghost-project off my back, get final payment, and move on. One thing I’ve learned is that one such thing at a time is more than enough on top of my own work. It was different when I didn’t have so many irons in so many fires…but now it’s choking the life out of me.
I have been working on a story called Tattered Remnants. It will probably be the darkest piece of fiction I’ve penned to date - very psychological - very brutal in places, but absolutely not without said brutality and darkness being integral. I want to create something that makes people shiver and step into brighter light years after reading it…
I’m also working on a throw-back sort of pulp-era novelette that I’m excited about. It will be, in some ways, a tribute to my late mentor and friend Hugh B. Cave. It will have a sort of South Pacific theme…
I’m also working on a new novel involving genetic science and a detective.
Those are the in-between - the things moving at their own speeds. The memoir I’m about to start - as ghost-writer / collaborator - is just important. It’s so important, and so … imposing … that the starting has been difficult. I expect to finish the first five thousand or so words this weekend, and then we’ll see…
Enough for now…
-DNW
06/20/08, 11:08 PM |
That’s lots. I’m just diving headlong into a pretty big project with a tight deadline, and given the day job and Peg recovering from yet another surgery, that’s as much as I can handle (and then some). But nothing gets the writing going fast and hot better than a tight deadline.
–M