Okay.Well, I'm going to rest for a while on the topic of boys and the damage that we've done to them in our public schools here in California. Time to move on to other topics, at least for the time being.
Today, I thought I'd talk a little bit about my writing, since I've kind of been working on a few things at once.
I'd exchanged a few emails over the past couple days with a fellow author, and I told her about how I'd written my last novel (345 pages and 85,000 words -- I had to double-check those stats just now) in five weeks, including a complete revision. I don't know why I did that, and I'd advise anyone not to do something so self-destructive. I had to send my wife and kids on multiple vacations during that time, and I worked for maybe 10 hours per day.
After reading Andrew Davidson's The Gargoyle, I can really relate to his manic stonecutter, but at least I never resorted to eating instant coffee straight from the jar.
When you finish doing something like that, it's difficult to figure out what to do with yourself. Kind of like running a marathon, I guess (I've completed about 30 marathons in my running career). When I finish running 26.2 miles, it's kind of hard to grasp the idea of stopping.
Anyway, I've started two other things since that last novel. What I often do when writing is I'll write a few pages of a new novel and then put them away for months and just let the rest of the story play out in my head. When that happens, I can get back on those pages and the whole thing will come right out. So we'll see what happens with these latest projects.
This week, I am finishing my last edits on in the path of falling objects, which will be out in Fall 2009. I know it looks like there's a lot of work in front of me, but I am trying to finish by Wednesday. I work fast.
Finally, the picture on today's blog was just taken before sitting down here. That's a wooden skeleton I have hanging over my desk, staring at me all the time. He's also one of the first things described in in the path of falling objects, so when you read it, you'll get an idea of what the characters are looking at on that first bloody page.
BEDFAM 35
-- A. S.
