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A brief post about writing in general and in particular
I just spent a great chunk of the weekend talking books with Robin Sloan, who just polished off the rough draft of his new novel.
Both of us have been writing more in the last few years, breaking out of the some-time-hobby practice we’d both engaged in since we were each kids. And there’s a significant change that’s come with that: These days, writing doesn’t seem like a mystical power, far away and distant. It seems accessible. It seems like if you practice it you will improve (I know…crazy, right?)
I think back to my early twenties, in which I thought I had so much to say but my hands were pinned by not knowing how to say it. Every month I had a new idea for a novel that would usually energize me for about one night (ten pages of a rough draft) and then go into the archive folder of my hard drive to collect computer bits of dust. These days, I still see the challenges and difficulties in a longer work but I know I can work through them. I’m no expert, but I can see that I’m learning. That I’m getting better. And that’s pretty exciting!
Project Lazarette is progressing, I promise. I’ve been necessarily derailed by some freelance work, but the available hours are starting to drift back toward Lazarette’s many-thousands of words. So far Parts One and Two are rough drafted. Upcoming benchmarks:
– This week I will complete a solid second draft of Part One.
– Then I’ll embark on the rough draft of Part Three (the final part).
– Hopefully in a short month or two, Parts Two and Three will be combined with the first and go out to a small group of readers. This will be the first time the book, as a whole, is conjoined.
What’s the big personal lesson I’ve learned? Just keep writing.
