Monday, September 06, 2010

The Year in Fiction

Back in 2009 around this time I wrote a post in which I hoped to sell ten short stories in six months. (Note: the fire I mentioned finally went out and Colin Wells returned safely home from Afghanistan, got married and is completing his Army service.)

I have sold 4 stories—my sidebar tells the tale—out of 21 submissions with one story still out. I expanded a short story into a novella which I'm now expanding into a several hundred page novel.

For the last three years, animation writing has morphed into a maze consisting mostly of dead ends. That could change rapidly, but so far has resisted the impulse.

In any case, nothing gets finished by wishing and wanting, so on I go. Halloween is my deadline for finishing the novel's first draft. I hate and resent the novel. It's like a five-pound bee you can neither kill nor drive from your home.

October 31. Death to the bee!

5 comments:

Vanessa Walilko - Kali Butterfly said...

Death to the bee, indeed! I go through a similar process every time I work on a big piece of armor--I stare at the piece, I hate the piece, I throw the piece across the room. At some point something turns a corner and suddenly everything starts coming together, and then the last link is in and suddenly the piece is the greatest thing on the planet and I'm the greatest person on the planet. Who else can give birth from their brain and fingers? Only the greatest!!

I wish you successful writing with a heaping of awesome sauce. I want to read that novel.

JP Mac said...

For some reason, anything worth doing is worth hating for the hook it has in you.

But you're right. I love when it turns the corner and you're zoning. I'm always glad I didn't quit.

Thank you for the "awesome sauce." I'm thinking around March '11 for completion.

If you'd like to be a final draft reader, let me know your interest and schedule.

Love to hear your two-cents (or a half-cent, depending on inflation.)

takineko said...

Hating it huh? I get that way with art. Especially when it's important to me. Creative people are an odd breed...

I'd say you were pretty successful in setting goals for yourself and meeting them. That's pretty awesome! [Teach me some of that]

Luke said...

I know you can do it John! Come October 29th, so much inspiration will come all at once causing you to go in shock until you write endlessly for 36 hours straight.... Or not, I really don't know.

Alec Dever said...

Keep going John!
I know you can and the rest of us!

BTW,is there any chance I could proof-read the draft (I'm always on)?
;)

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