The Forward Path – March 2013
Torn between two
lovers
Feelin’ like a fool
Lovin’ both of you
Is breakin’ all the
rules…
So it’s been a long time since I’ve posted an update on The
Forward Path (August 2012, to be specific).
Much change has come to my little writing perch since last
summer. The changes are necessary, and
good for me and my larger goal of becoming a novelist, but I have to confess
they are also bringing the lyrics of the sappy 70’s Mary MacGregor song, Torn Between Two Lovers, frequently to
my mind.
For the first eighteen months of thunderstrokes, my focus
was almost exclusively on the blog.
Envisioning the blog. Creating
the blog. Writing stuff for the
blog. Expanding the blog. Blog, blog, blog. All of
which was great, because I was teaching myself how to start a piece of writing
(always a struggle for me), and then finish it (a much bigger struggle), and
then throw it out there into the wild blue yonder (by far, the biggest struggle
of all). It was great practice, and
great fun. But it got to the point where
the blog consumed about 90% of my writing time.
That left precious little time for the book I wanted to write. And writing a book had been my brass ring, my
reason for taking a left turn in life.
Somewhere around October of last year, I felt like the time
had come to make a transition, a switch in emphasis away from writing for the
blog, and towards the book. That meant
devoting my most creative and productive time (my 4 a.m. mornings) to writing
the novel. The effect was immediate and
transformative. I wrote about 50 pages
of a first draft in those first three months.
My writing time ratio reversed itself, going from a 90/10 blog advantage
to a 90/10 book advantage. And I have
fallen in love with the story I’ve been given to tell, the story of a boy named
Les Mendoza. Now I feel like I have to tell this story, because I’m the
only one who can tell it. And there’s a whole lot of story to tell, let
me tell you.
That’s a lot of tells, isn’t it?
Anyway, the price of all that telling is that the blog is
now consigned, as it must necessarily be, to playing second fiddle. What’s that old saying? ‘You can’t serve two masters?’ Or is it ‘You can’t master your serve?’ For
me, both are equally true. Whichever of
those means you can’t devote yourself to two things at the same time is the one
I mean.
In consequence, my writing output for the blog decreased
rapidly. It’s easy enough to see the
slippage; I went from 8 in August to 2 by November. I haven’t had more than five in a month since
then.
At first, I felt very uncomfortable with reassigning my
writing priorities. I hated going to my
blog and seeing the same thing for two or three weeks in a row. In addition, I felt like I was letting those people
down (oh, those precious few!) who had
become accustomed to reading whatever bizarre thing I might have to say on a
semiweekly basis.
I feared that I may have inadvertently given the impression that
I was getting bored with the blog, or that I was losing creative steam. Nothing could be further from the truth,
although I knew they had no way to know that, since I hadn’t communicated the
reasons for my neglect. You know, that gives
me an inspiration for my future epitaph:
Here lies Kevin:
Great Writer, Lousy Communicator.
That may turn out to be the story of my life in four words
or less.
Now that it’s a few months later, I have to admit that I
miss the blog. I miss being able to jump
all over an idea, to fly free and pursue anything that catches my eye. I miss the spontaneity, the gratification of
seeing something new posted, the sense of fulfillment that comes from growing a
quality body of work, and the true joy I’ve found in starting and (more
importantly) finishing something, and then (most importantly) turning it loose
upon an unsuspecting world.
I’ve discovered that novels are the long-haul truckers of
the writing world, and you have to be okay with the long-haul lifestyle,
because you’re in that cab by yourself for days and months at a time, and rest
stops are few and far between. It gets
lonely in there, and a little smelly at times, and sometimes you get sick of
hearing yourself talk. It’s easy to feel
disconnected without the feedback, without the sense of somebody else being
there to talk to, or at least to hear you talk, to verify your sanity, or at least affirm your own peculiar form of insanity.
I strongly suspect that those who rely on quick results and instant gratification shrivel up and
blow away pretty quickly in the novel-writing business.
In short I have learned that novel-writing is not for the
faint of heart, nor the doubter of faith.
And that means I must change in order to become who I am.
Did I just blow your mind?
I think I did mine. Or maybe it’s
just post-nasal drip.
At any rate, hopefully that explains why there’s a good deal
less going on here at thunderstrokes
than there used to be. It will probably
remain that way for the foreseeable future.
If it changes, dear reader, I promise to let you know. Within six months, per our usual
agreement. Thanks for reading, and sorry
for being such an insensitive bore.
Hey, now there’s
an epitaph for you: Thanks for reading, and sorry for being such an insensitive bore.
Want to know something you don’t want to have plastered all
over your headstone?
The lyrics from Torn
Between Two Lovers.
And that’s how I’m going to tie this one all up.
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