This is a Writer's Blog

I know this has been sitting here simmering for a long time - again. The soup has mostly boiled away and the bottom of the pot is now probably permanently lined with a black sludge in all my inattention to my blog.

I started this blog to talk about myself. Which is why most people start a blog. We think we're fascinating. I mean, my life must be exciting because I'm still in it, right? And what subject do I know better than that of myself?

But clearly, my life isn't really that interesting because I can't even find the time to post nothing little tidbits about myself or my daily doings. I intended to transform this into a writing-specific blog because that's where I want my attention to be these days. Enough of the day job, enough of television's mindless banter ... get to work and do what it is I love to do. Or feel, in some way, compelled to do anyway.

But then I languish. How many topics on writing can I possible write? I mean, really. I'm not an English teacher and while I may be adept at using the language, I can't expound upon all the little frillies and functions within it. God how boring! I mean, I had a non-published post on 'Foreshadowing' sitting waiting for me to press Publish Post. You know what it was about? Game of Thrones. Yea, okay, there was some exposition about Foreshadowing in it but let's be honest. I had just finished watching the entire series thanks to Xfinity's on-demand and absolutely loved it and wanted to talk about it. And so I found a "writely" thing to couch it in, and created a post. Thank god I never published it because it was stupid :)

So, in the meantime, I received an invitation to a new social website called Google+ - thank you, Krazy Karl - and have been building up quite a network of other writers around the world and getting oodles of inspiration. Literally, oodles. And realizing that just because I am a person who likes to write, that doesn't make me a writer. Only writing makes one a writer. And I still neglect that whole "writing" thing too much. Unless you count long emails detailing what I did the night before and what I plan to do once work is done that night to my friend Mel. If you count those, then I am definitely a writer. (I count those, shhh.)

So what does a writer write about in a writing blog if not the nuances of writing?

Who cares.

My friend Peter writes about things that remind him of or inform his writing as well as movies he loves and things he does with friends. And he's a writer. And I would consider that his writing blog. He markets his books in it as well as lets his readers know what he's currently working on.

So here's the rundown of the things I am currently working on (besides emails to Mel which are ongoing and probably not interesting enough to note here):

• Cassidy. My first novel. A defining piece of me, if there ever was one, in my opinion. I am in the third draft and finding it somewhat hard to commit to sitting down and working through the noise and distractions this house offers me. That doesn't mean that I don't want to work on it, it merely means I am easily distracted
• 9 Years. A short story I wrote about a year ago that stands ahead of most of my other shorts in story and skill and one I hope to get published in an online story site. Pretty much done but with some read-throughs and possible tweaks still before I'm comfortable sending it out.
• Prudence. Another short story, this one unfinished but with great promise. Very much character-driven by a psychotic little girl in pigtails. Not sure where exactly it's going to go but I bet Prudence has an idea. Another one I would consider for online publishing once done and edited and read-through and tweaked.
  
• The story I woke up with this morning. Yes, another distraction from Cassidy. What can I do - the entire first paragraph was in my head when I opened my eyes. Not like I could just jot the paragraph down and not pursue it any further today. Not yet sure if it's a short, a novella or a novel but rest assured, it is apocalyptic and therefore quite capable of holding my attention

So what am I doing now? A blog post. Hey! At least I'm writing something.

Past Perfect Progressive

Past perfect progressive tense describes a past, ongoing action that was completed before some other past action. This tense is formed by using had been and the present perfect of the verb (the verb form ending in -ing).

from http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/grammar/tenses.html#past%20perfect%20progressive

Does that make any sense to you? Do you remember learning about that verb tense in school? I sure don't and, as an English major in college, I've had four more years of English classes than most. Regardless, Cassidy is chock full of Had Beens and one of the chores I've set myself in this third draft editing is eliminating at least 70% of them!

I am by no means alone in this: my friend Peter is running into the same issue, as are countless other authors - no doubt. It's funny, I don't find myself talking in the past perfect progressive (hardly perfect, by the way) in daily conversation but writing seems so much more formal a conversation and therefore, apparently, in need of tenses that are not commonly taught in most English classes. My goal in this third draft will be to give Cassidy a more daily conversational tone and less of a formal, elevated (snobby writer) tone.

This draft is going slowly for now as I split my free time in helping my husband with his business accounting but as soon as I can get that to a weekly maintenance stage, I intend to tackle this imperfect, non-progressive language issue along with all the other notes I have amassed (thank you, Mel!) and hope to have a completed draft within a month. And with my hubby strongly considering a solo jaunt* to Phish's Superball IX festival in NY for the weekend of July 4th, my chances increase considerably!

*I have to keep myself excited over the possibilities of completing the third draft in those days home alone to avoid the tears that come from having to miss a guaranteed good time with friends that long weekend. Blame moronic American work standards for that piece of silliness and I will take it as motivation to remove myself from that silliness as soon as humanly possible!

Restart

New Design, New Purpose.

This started out as a writer's blog and went off into Me-Land. Not that there's anything wrong with Me-Land, if you like endless plains and long stretches of prairies bounded on either side by hundred-year old oak trees. It's a nice place to visit.

Let's get back to the original purpose of this blog.

I wrote a book. I.actually.wrote.a.book. Yes, the same one the previous entries ended on. I completed the task and not only soared past the requisite 50,000 words to win NaNoWriMo, I also finished the book. It contains a beginning, a middle and an end.

I set down the book, after November, for five months. Thought about other things, caught up on reality TV. I let myself forget the story.

Then in March, I picked the book back up and read through my November words. Not surprisingly, it bordered on atrocious. What can I say, I wrote it in 30 days.

So, after a prolonged read-through with extensive note-taking, I set about fixing it. I am still in that phase.

I have a finished second draft, using Microsoft Word's mark-up features, and still a long, long way to go. In this case, I have much more to add than subtract - at 60K some-odd words and a lot of missing information, I am slowly but surely slogging my way to the end goal.

End goal: publication. How to get to that goal: hunkering down.

Name of the book: Cassidy

1,000 Words

Here, on November 28th, I am. About 1,000 words to go to "win" for the second year in a row. Of course, the story is a helluva lot more than 1,000 words from completion so I may have to do some serious truncating, here in the first draft, to just reach the end. For me, winning this year has nothing to do with word count (especially now the count is so close) and everything to do with beginning, middle, end.

Just wanted to crow.