22DEC17 Found while Dreaming

The working title for my novel. It's about a man adrift. Aren't they all? I mean my characters,not men in general. While searching for his purpose he gets caught up in an old chase for a ghost ship. eventually he finds the answers he needs, well, most of them.

He is a black man with African roots trying to come to grips with being a citizen of the galaxy while maintaining a link to his own culture. he is also a pacifist forced to do violence on occasion, in fact he has chosen a violent way of life for some reason.

full disclosure, i have been toying with the idea for a couple of years now, but i get about fifty pages in and it kind of falls apart. I am at an integral action scene and i just kind of mentally say "eh," and move on to something else. I have the ending, even ideas for the next story, i just can't move the damn thing forward for some reason. but I'm doing it now.

I'm fifteen pages into the re-write and it feels like it's gonna get done finally. it is good for me to have something to focus on. I don't do well with down time and i have way too much of that now.

16Dec17 novel?

Well, the school thing is essentially over. Next semester consists of studying for the comprehensive exam, that and figuring out what to do with myself.

The last couple of weeks have been a struggle. I'm coming to grips with the reality of having more free time. My school journey mostly consisted of complaining I had no time to write what i wanted. I  have the time now, I just don't know what i want to write anymore.

There are several old short stories I thought sound structurally, but poorly written. I am breathing life into them with the goal of eventually sending them out. Was never confident enough to do that before. Hooray me. But that is more editing than creating.

School made me a better writer but changed the stories I read and now want to write. I'm actively looking for deeper meaning in things now. I mean I always have, but now, shit, its all about levels and layers of meanings. A damn story can't just be a story anymore.

What the hell is that?  I was warned school might change me, (Jason)

My ideas occupy this weird zone of wanting to write deeper but without all the pretentious bullshit sometimes present in what is considered literature. My ideas for stories now are mash ups of various genres with no clear place anywhere in fiction. In addition to this, I concentrate on short stories when the original goal was novel length works.

My muse casually asked over lunch why i wasn't working on a novel. I realized I hadn't even thought along those lines. Of course this is exactly what i need to be doing. She's good like that. (smile)
Its a task that requires focus and commitment and perfect for the guy with time on his hands. I have become so concerned with writing a good short story I missed the big picture.

Now i just have to come up with an idea that is suitable for the novel form. I have several re-occurring characters i want to see do other things. I just have to decide which one i want to spend the next year with.

I'll keep you posted. as always.

18NOV17 update

So, have to be registered next semester to retake the test. Had a long talk with my advisor who was very sympathetic to my situation. Turns out I only have to take one class and its designed to allow me the time needed to study for, and pass, the test.

Things are mostly back on track. I'm still working the dwarf story and its progressing. Funny, you feel like it's going nowhere and want to quit it. But I find by just powering through you get to the light, so it's slowly getting there. Patience is the key. I am more of that than I used to be.

I read a little story of mine yesterday I'd for gotten I wrote. I was surprised to find it pretty good. I usually cringe when reading the old ones, seeing only the huge mistakes. But this one seemed as good, or better than more recent works. Maybe I'm too hard on myself. All these years and I still question the quality of the stories I put out. But I am proud to have written anything. I used to read and think that an impossible goal.

Waiting 11Nov17

Updates.

In the interest, as always, of keeping things real here, have to talk about school.

First off, I failed the comprehensive exam.

 I know, surprised me too. I was brilliant, dazzled with my responses put my own flair on everything. Bad move. Apparently I should've been thinking more like a professor than a writer. "Too casual" was the major complaint along with numerous grammatical errors. 

Grammar,the bane of my exsistence! 

I'm not sure what this means for my masters. I have to take it again,probably next semester.

On the upside. I successfully defended my thesis. The little story came through! I am going to be a published writer! Yeah, yeah, it's a university press. Fuck that, I did it.

This whole week has been a seesaw of anger and elation. I want to jump for joy and kill. I am one failed overall exam from finishing. How the fuck do you pass all the classes but cannot graduate. Even the assholes who decide on this pass/fail fiasco should realize the flaw in this process.

Done venting. Now it's on to the next story.

"Hang the Hunter" 05NOV17

I've been working this grieving Dwarf story for a few years now. He's gone from short story to novelette and back. Right now he's existing in a series of shorts. I've studied so much of the form that i think it serves the character better, that and i don't have the patience for long form works.

That's not the issue so maybe I shouldn't have brought it up, but this is going somewhere,

The real issue is time itself. Hang, was one of the ultimate challenges for me. I wanted to do a fantasy story that was my take on things. He would live in a world i created, without all the things i find boring or common. Its a nice enough little story but I'm hitting the wall this week.

My taste in reading and writing has changed some since he came about. I haven't read a fantasy piece in years and I'm not sure i can get to that place again. The words used to flow. I could see his little ass stompin around shootin stuff, just owning his world ya know? Now I'm questioning and micromanaging everything he and the others do. Normally that's the fun part. Now it feels like work, like i should shelve it. There are other projects i could give attention to. Joba my retired space medic and his less than honorable friend Chaos. There's pieces closer to reality like the man who's touch shifts a person's luck towards good or bad, but Hang and his cohorts are next. I am tasked with him and i must finish. I guess i just needed to vent a little.

His first story is complete, the bones anyway. I just need to put flesh to them. Make you care about their collective fates. I'll get it there.

Damn near the end 26Oct17

It is, and I am acutely aware of this. Every drive across the river, every comment made in class, the faces. Everything, reminds me my schooling is near the end.

I completed the comprehensive exam Saturday and submitted my final manuscript yesterday. Al that's left is its defense, and a final paper,

I shelved the idea of a doctorate, I cannot read one more critical article or tear one more writers work apart. My goal all along was to understand the literary concept in order to become a better writer, not critic.

freedom is on the horizon,but  I've done the sitting at home thing. it can be maddening. The desire to teach isn't really there either. 

As in the past, all that's clear is I must keep writing. So that's the plan. I have the tools now. Time to apply them. I have many previously written works I always thought solid, idea wise, but poorly executed skill,wise . I'll fix them, then shop them.

Updates 07Oct17

Received feedback on my manuscript finally.

It was good overall which is nice, but I knew that. What I was really waiting on was her pointing out the little things I'd missed.

 As a writer you wouldn't complete the work if you didn't think it good.  I knew the story was solid enough. My concern was missing the little something that could be really big.

Shout outs to my professor Dr. Johanna Leake. Others questioned my choice but I know her,  Dr. Kuchta and dr. Bryant, to have the eye. They never sugar coated their critique of my previous work and more importantly, every instance pointed out they were correct about.

So, I'm about twenty pages into the rewrite and up against it. About a month to get it straight, study and pass the comprehensive, write a final paper and defend my manuscript. 

All that and I'm still confident, still determined.