In the Name of Progress

Sometimes I miss the times of heads-down writing, whether pounding out brand new material or refining a draft. There's a lot of satisfaction in the process (of course, or I wouldn't do it). But those purely creative stages are also mixed with an urge, a desire, to get things going and see signs of success in this endeavor.

Flip side: creating publicity materials, monitoring websites and creating content for them, checking statistics, keeping records. These tasks provide a sense of action, moving forward, and yet make me long for the pure creative process. It's a balancing act, to be sure, especially when I factor in a day job, a house to manage and care for, a family which I want to have quality time with, and then the simple human requirements of eating, sleeping, and just relaxing sometimes.

I did cadge some time yesterday to print up brochures for the up-coming Author Fest in October. Doing 30 tri-folded brochures took less time than I would have expected. I have some more stuff to print--business cards, extensions to another handout about my books, signs. I'm holding back on the signs in case I get a release date for "Dabblers" which I could include on them.

On "Stranger Faces," I'm still thrashing around with the final chapters. It's tricky because there are so many characters involved and they all must be brought to a resolution point somehow. Occasionally, I think I should just start writing it and see what happens. I can always go back and revise as necessary. In the past, doing so has sometimes succeeded in breaking the logjam and getting things moving again.

The idea of creating an anthology of my short stories has become increasingly appealing. I have an idea for another story to add to the collection, too. I envision prefacing each story with a few notes about it, like its standing in the Writers of the Future contest or something about the inspiration for it. For the time being, I have the print edition of "Two Faces, Two Faced" and the ebook of "Dabblers" in the pipeline, plus "Stranger Faces" to finish. Guess I've got my own pipeline of projects.