Return Of The Creativity Tsunami

In my last post on seizing each day, I made mention of getting fully back into the writing mode of my books. I think I may have understated just how much the creativity is flowing. 

There are so many story lines and I find my mind just flowing each time I sit down to write. In fact, it is somewhat like those heady days in 2014-15 when I could barely jot down the ideas fast enough. In just three-weeks, I've already written down 13 pages of general outline. In the past for example, 45 pages of outline led to 425 pages of writing, so just a bit short of 10 pages of writing for each page of detailed outline. The current outline is still general. So I can assume we have at least 130 pages of material...and I'm just getting started. 

Stay tuned. Details at Seven.

 

BOOK SIX FINISHED!

OMG! After five years of on and off writing, it's done!

I did my first re-read over the last couple of weeks and I was amazed (pleasantly) that despite the herky-jerky process of writing it, all the stopping and starting, all the painful blocks in determining what the story line would actually be, it turned out pretty darn good. And as I commented in my last post related to it, there are a number of ideas and themes that can be used to create the next book or maybe even books. 

My next task will be to re-read and capture all those ideas in written form so I can begin designing Book Seven.

Book Nearing Completion

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote a post about my finally getting back into writing the latest installment of my fantasy book series. Now I am almost finished with the drafting of this, the sixth book in the series. It has been an ordeal. As I mentioned last year, the first four books came forth like a volcanic explosion with me writing four books in just two years. Then the fifth book took about three years. I've been working on this one on and off since 2019. I am sure all the creative energy I put into Theodora was a major factor why this took so long. 

However, in the last couple of months, I've finally overcome some block and I've been writing at a steady pace that has not been there for quite some time. I'm hoping to wrap up the last chapter before I go back and edit before I head off to Ghana late next week.  

I've already started thinking about where I will take things once this book is finished. Up until now this has been a linear series. However, I have so many different characters with so many different potential story lines to explore, I'm considering taking a page from one of my all time favorite authors, Terry Pratchett, and create books that focus on individual characters and their specific stories/challenges. 

Glacial Writing

 A decade ago, I was possessed to write. I took a rather limited story I had developed in my youth and began to create an entire fantasy series out of it.

When I say possessed, I mean just that. It was like the story was totally complete and was using me to come into being. I would go out hiking and entire chapters would form in my head. I had to capture it in note form when I got back to make sure I remembered it all. I was writing furiously night after night. Between 2014 and 2016, I wrote four books totaling about 1,600 pages. 

During that period, I realized that I loved writing romantic, epic fantasy. I especially loved that my stories always turned out exactly the way I wanted them. Not like when I read other's fiction where I am always unhappy about how a character is developed or how a story line unfolds. 

When the last of the four books was finished, there was a let down. I had captured the complete cycle of the story. But I wanted to keep writing. I conjectured how I might create an extension of the core story. Between 2017 and 2019 I wrote a fifth book of 424 pages. It had a logical extension and I began to write the sixth installment. 

However, whereas the first four books came forth like an irrupting volcano, this sixth book has come forth with glacial, maybe even tectonic plate movement speed. For I am still working on it five years later! I think the fact that so much of my creative, emotional, and physical energy has been consumed by Theodora has had a lot to do with it. In my halcyon days, I would write 3 pages a night. Now, if I have the energy, I am lucky to get a page done a night and that is not every night. And there was a point where for the longest time I was totally stymied as to where to take the plot.

But, finally I am making progress and the pages are adding up and the story is unfolding toward its completion, at least for this book. One thing I am particularly happy about is the creation of a super villain in this book. Why is that important? I have had a pattern of making my villains conflicted souls who find themselves in situations where circumstances cause them to become bad. And then I spend many pages and books having them become redeemed. Which is fine. I like the way that all turns out. But it leaves you with a writing problem, no villain, no conflict. So I really wanted to create a bad guy who could not be redeemed. I am hoping I've got him now.

Return Of The Muse - Writing Again

I kind of thought it was gone, as in gone forever. The muse, the undefinable upwelling of creativity that had led to me writing my great epic fantasy series (ha, ha, I mean if I don't think it is 'great' who will?).

It all started in 2014. I had just settled into my transitioned state with us getting into our wild Eldership world travel mode. There was time to do something. I looked at a book I had written in my late 20's when I was big time into sci fi and fantasy. I felt I could do something with it. And them it hit, the muse. Suddenly, the entire framework of a much greater creation came out. Not just came out. It DEMANDED to be written. Between 2014 and 2016, I could barely stop writing. I put down over 1,500 pages in four books during that period. And I completed the cycle of the story. 

But I still felt a desire to write. I had tested the waters on getting published by sending my some of my work to an agent. The response was 'there is potential but you are going to have to make a lot of changes.' I went deep within. This sounded like getting a job. Besides what the agent suggested I needed to change went against the values, emotions, and feelings I wanted to portray. Besides, my real motivation for writing was I wanted a story where IT ALWAYS TURNED OUT THE WAY I WANTED IT! Nothing else I've ever read does. They are always killing off the character I love, or having them not get the woman I want them to, or any of a number of things that piss me off about reading or watching others' stories. 

I made the decision that I was writing for an audience of one - me. I thought through how to extend the story and started on the fifth book. This one came out much slower. There wasn't this almost same coming from another place aspect. Between 2016 and 2019 I finished this fifth book and another 400+ pages of writing. Now I'd written over 2,000 pages, all following the same fantasy world and general story line. 

In 2019, I started Book Six...and creativity came to a screeching halt after about a hundred pages. I suspect my throwing all my creative energies into Theodora had a lot to do with it. Occasionally I would go back and write a some tortuous pages. But the big problem was I couldn't see where the story was going. In many ways I had written myself into a box canyon because of a insidious tendency to have my villains redeem themselves. Well if you keep doing this, you run out of villains. No villains, no tension/conflict and no story. So I put Book Six on hold and didn't really look at it for a number of years.

Then earlier this year, I realized, I had Theodora to a point where it didn't need anywhere near the energy I had had to put into it. So I went back to the book. I figured out a way to create a new villain, and damn it an nonredeemable one! And suddenly the creative juices began to flow. The muse was back. I outlined a massive amount of story in just a few weeks. I don't feel that same pressure to 'get it out of my head' as I had in 2014-16. But each night I am cranking out a couple of pages. 

And it is fun.

Re-Reading

It has been a long time since I've posted anything related to my long-time writing of the epic "Story'. And the reason for that is that after about four straight years of intense creative flow and over 2 thousand pages of text, I seem to have come to dry spell. I started writing the sixth installment quite a few months ago but it just wasn't flowing with the effortless creativity as before. Maybe it is because so much of my positive energy these days is going into my Ghana projects.

Whatever, I decided that I needed to get back into the full scope of what I had written. So for the last couple of months, I have been re-reading. Starting over from the beginning and getting myself back into the whole flow of the epic. I mean after you've been writing for over four years on an ongoing story that covers generations with changing characters and changing plot issues, it is easy to forget what the connecting themes have been.

So as I have done this re-reading a number of observations have come to mind.

First, I am pretty glad that I decided that this was going to just be for me because it seriously needs rewriting and editing in a lot of places and some things that were fundamental like certain names just need to be changed.

Second, despite all the flaws in it, I am pretty damn impressed with the overall scope of the storytelling and emotional character development. And as a person who thinks a lot of himself, I have to tell you it is not easy for me to impress myself!

Third, as I come to the end of the fifth installment and start-up with the sixth, I am curious as to whether I will have rekindled ideas for where to take the story. Or I wonder if I will decide to go back and make the changes that I think are needed to make what has been written so far better.

I suppose it doesn't really matter because the reason I have done this is for me and whatever I decide is going to be for me. 

The Between Time

I'm in one of those interregnums.

I have been digesting the Ghana trip, doing all kinds of follow-up, figuring out what the next steps should be, etc., etc., and aiming toward a next trip in June.

I am just putting the finishing touches on the fifth book of my epic - another 400+ pages of writing

We have finished all the planning we need to do for out next personal travel adventure (stay tuned folks for all new countries in a new part of the world!) which will begin in May.

Work, the activity that keeps my mind and heart filled in between all the adventures continues at a nice steady pace.

It is the Between Time.

It is too soon to do much active planning or work on the next Ghana trip.

It is the sad time when I've finished the intimate relationship with my latest book. To get the next one going will take a regrouping of energy and planning before I will be ready to start writing.

The next travel adventure just has to wait until its time arrives.

For a stimulus junkie like me it is a bit of melancholy period. But soon it will be followed by all the adventures that we have created for ourselves and I will be in bliss that at this stage of life we get to live like this.

A Story Update

Just as little break from posting about the upcoming Ghana epic, I thought I would talk again about my writing. (For past posts go here). When I first entered into my transitioned life, the writing of my Story became an obsession. The words flew from my mind and for a period of two years they did not stop until finally I had written a saga of four books and some 1200 pages.

With that over, there was this sad pause. I loved writing but the epic had been told with the most satisfactory resolution to the drama (in my mind...the only one that counts). I made an attempt to start a fifth book picking up where the saga ended. I had over the years had bits and pieces of how in the characters might or the story might continue to unfold.

I started writing but the same passion and spontaneous creativity wasn't there. I started a different story and for a while it was moving at a very rapid pace but then it hit a wall. Than last year, I picked up the fifth book of the original saga again. And slowly but surely the spontaneous creativity came back.

So 2018 was another year of passionate writing. I finished the first draft of the book a month ago and I am in the final editing process. This is always a sad time. I am proud to see the work finished but it is sad realizing that the friend I've spent so many nights with is leaving. Fortunately, in starting this book five, I have in fact started another whole cycle and the pieces of book number six are already bouncing around in my head awaiting to be free.

Book - Revelation

Before we left for the Asia Mega Tour, I made a decision that I would seek out an editor to read one of the book manuscripts I had written. I had certain suspicions about what I had done but I really wanted some kind of outside confirmation or denial.

Shortly after we got back, I had the editor's report. Most of the things she brought up  were not really surprises and were either in the forefront or back of my consciousness.  But she had made a final comment that she thought there was a book inside all I had written but it would take a  lot of time and money to unlock it and she was further willing to undertake that project.

My first reaction was that this was going to be a lot of work. I didn’t start writing because I wanted a job. I have a career. I could make a quick decision; no I did not want to make writing work. I write to satisfy an internal need.

What came next, however, was really transformational. During a hike/contemplation I realized that I have throughout my life been dissatisfied with the fiction that I have read or seen (movies/TV). No matter how good it was, there was always something done to a character or a plot that I didn’t like or made me unhappy. But when I write everything happens exactly the way I want it to. It really doesn’t make a difference if the writing is good, lousy, or mediocre. I know the story I’m trying to tell and it will be exactly the way I want it to be.

I truly write to give myself entertainment/story telling I can get from no one else – story telling that is literally perfect as far as how I want characters and stories to evolve and end. I am the audience and I write for me. That’s all that counts. It makes no difference if anyone reads what I write. In fact, in a lot of ways it is more freeing and comforting if nobody does.

This realization has been incredibly freeing and has given me great peace of mind.

On Hiking and Writing

The transition from aged travel fanatic to semi-retired business professional went exceedingly smooth this time. Even Wife has started to admit that the tactic of stopping on our way back overnight at the US hub of entry before we go on home to Albuquerque makes the whole process of adjusting body clocks much, much easier. We have a great house sitter now who collects the mail so we can get right on it rather than have to wait two days until we finally get it. I started sending out emails to line up work meetings a couple of weeks before we were to come home so I the Monday after we came home (a Tuesday), I had a full schedule in place.

The one thing that was very difficult this time was getting back into the rhythm of my exercise hiking. The first day I was going to do it, the wind was pretty high, though not as high as I've dealt with in the past, and decided to pass. Then the next time it was raining. That's a legitimate reason to not go - no need to expose myself to slippery rocks at my age. Finally after a couple of weeks, it was a nice day and I actually did it, and I went again a few days later as schedule called for.

It took me a while to figure out what the issue was but I think it has to do with the fact that when we are traveling, our exercise, walking, is just a natural part of our day. We get up, decide where we're going, go, and spend 4 to 5 hours on our feet. It isn't like I have to program in exercise.

That's not the way it is when we're home. I have to schedule and block out specific times to get out hiking and I have to do something special (get dressed, drive to the trail, ice down when I get back) that is specific to that activity. It's a lot easier when it just fits into one's daily routine.

However, when I did finally get my ass in gear and got hiking I remembered one of the fabulous reasons why I hike - My Story. When I hike it turns into a combination of exercise, meditation, and creative outpouring. The vast majority of my story ideas come to my while hiking. I typically start hiking and will be doing a mantra repetition. Then out of nowhere some aspect of the story I'm working one will come out. When I say come out, it comes to me in the form of full blown dialog/interaction between various characters with a high degree of emotional content. And very frequently it is characters and interactions that have nothing to do with what I'm currently writing. That is how I've ended up with material for a at least two to three more books following the four book series I'm working on.  There is no other time when the creativity flow as it does when I'm hiking. I will switch back and forth between the mantra repetition and the creative outflow through out the hike. I often consciously repeat/go over what has come up creatively as I'm finishing the hike to remember it and then will jot down notes in my various outlines on my computer once I get back.

Just a bit of an update on the overall writing project. I am getting close to the end of the fourth book that I've written of the series that I'm creating. This book will actually be the first book in the story sequence. After this I will go back to the very first book I wrote (now the second book in the series) and rewrite it. Things have changed so much between what I initially wrote going back to my youth and now that it will almost be like writing that book from scratch. My writing keeps developing so I will need to go over the other two books as well. Plus, now that I have created the 'historical foundation' I will need synchronized all the other books to this initial book. I have decided that I'm going to hire an editor once the current book is done. I'm very confident in my story creating ability but I know the craft of writing is lacking. Hopefully I can find someone who I can click with. Then I think I will self-publish them. I've self-published a business book and it's really not a big deal in terms of cost or effort.

Book Report

I recently complete the third of what I have now determined will be a four book initial series. It seems that I have been writing this much longer than in fact I have. I went back to my first post related to 'The Story' and it was if February of 2015 and it dates my having started this in December of 2014. I looked at the other posts related to it and it wasn't until June of 2015 that I had finished the rewrite of the original book. Since then I finished a first sequel and just a few weeks ago the second sequel. Each one has gotten progressively longer as the complexity of the characters and their development has grown. In fact the second sequel logged in at 480 pages! Crazy.

I've now started a 'Prequel' so the original first book will actually be the second book. When that is done, the original book will require a total rewrite and change. I certainly keeps me occupied. Since i started this project I've not turned on television one evening.

Updates

Things have been going day-to-day in a nice rhythm. But this will change soon as we will be on the travel adventure path so I thought I'd just put down some status reports on various themes I've been recording in the blog.

Transition/Retirement/Semi-Retirement

After a rough period after we got back from our Fall trip where I found the desire get out and hustle for the small amount of work that funds the travel portion of transitioned life (and was given a kick in the pants by certain individuals), I seem to have gotten fully comfortable with the partially working component of the semi-retired life and have been pursuing it with great gusto. What is important is that I do each component with enthusiasm but I no long feel any need to push the envelope beyond what is enjoyable and reasonably easy to do.  That means that when I do work, I'm rarely tired or stressed which is a key part to the 'retirement' part of semi-retirement.

The Story


Writing of The Story has (as I've mentioned in the past) become my primary evening leisure activity.  Every night once dinner is over, I get out the computer, put on music, read about 10 pages of the last things I wrote to get back into the story and then write and additional 4-6 pages.

I am deep, deep into the third of four books that are going to make up the cycle of stories related to this basic fantasy concept. I'm currently writing chapter 10 out of the 20 planned chapters and as of last night I was writing page # 260. There's a lot more to go. I've definitely decided I'm not going to do anything with this until I've finished all four of the books. Then depending on how I feel at that point (which at the rate I'm going is going to be years from now), I'll decided if I want to do any of the things necessary to go beyond just writing for myself.

Travel

Stay tuned! New travel adventures on the near horizon where Captain Jean-Luc de-I and second in command Dr. Wife Crusher take the Eldership and break all of their carefully crafted transitioned life travel rules and get swept up into the vortex that is a trip organized by the Poo Lee Shah Travel agency. If we had done our research, we would have found out that Poo Lee Shah Travel is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Magical Queendom of Pulandia. For those who may not remember, Pulandia is not restricted to a particular space in the universe. It miraculously appears in various times and places bringing with it its own set of rules associated with physics, the conservation of energy, peace, quiet, and chaos theory. If we had realized the Poo Lee Shah Agency was a portal into Pulandia we would have had our eyes much more opened as to what we were getting into!

If nothing else it should make for great blog fodder.

Catching Up

I haven't posted in quite a while so I'm going to catch up the month in one post.

The major theme of November was illness. Right after the month began I came down with what seemed like a fairly minor viral infection over a weekend. I didn't feel too bad afterwards but I did notice issues breathing. It morphed into bronchitis. That's when I made my major error in that I should have gone to my alternative medicine folks then when that type of thing would help. But there were a number of times when it seemed like things were getting better so I held off.  Then it went down into my left lung and it was definitely NOT getting better. Just before Thanksgiving, I finally decided I needed to do something but unfortunately my doctor was out of town so we were doing consultation by phone. We tried some things but they didn't work and we made the decision I should go to Urgent Care and get a chest X-Ray. The doctor there said, "let's listen to you first because if it is obvious, there's no need to radiate you unnecessarily." This was Monday morning. He said it sounded like a classic case of pneumonia and prescribed some antibiotics that I started immediately and I can say within 48 hours I've seen a big improvement.

In spite of all this I've been doing a lot of cooking. We had a very quiet Thanksgiving with Cabinet Lady, Dr. Debbie (ret) and Dr. D's sister. The turkey I did was crazy good. I've been working on this recipe from Saveur Magazine the last 4 or 5 years that is an apple cider based brine with a very high temperature cook. Each year I seem to get it refined a bit better.  I also finally pulled the plug on the great stuffing/dressing experiment. My Mom always used Pepperidge Farms packaged stuffing in the bird and everyone loved it. I've tried so many from scratch recipes without success. So this year I just bought the package - less work, better results.

Wife and I are also putting on a party this weekend so we're doing a bunch of cooking for that. I decided a while ago that I'd had it with people coming to our place for meals and then saying something like, "Oh we should have you over but I couldn't possibly cook like you do." and then we never hear from them again. So I started this year to recruit people who could be my audience. My rules are simple:

• I like to cook and I need people who want to eat so I can cook
• If you come there is no obligation
• I don't want you to bring anything and I don't expect you to invite me back
• If you can accept those rules, you're on the list.

I had quite a few takers so we'll have a dozen folks here not counting ourselves. Our theme is FOOD FROM OUR TRAVELS. So we've been working on finding recipes for all kinds of things we've eaten and loved over the years. It is going to be a progressive buffet. I'm not sure that is a real culinary word but it should be. It means we'll have an initial amount of cold buffet and then start adding hot dishes but not take anything off of the buffet.  I will give a full report on this next week. I've already made a number of dishes and so far everything is tasting great. Hopefully I will take some pictures though I've been terrible about that lately.

We also cut the cable meaning we no longer have cable TV or satellite TV. We have a high speed internet connection, a Roku box, and an over air HDTV antenna. It really doesn't affect me as I haven't watched a lick of TV since before our last trip because I AM ADDICTED TO WRITING!

It's crazy. I've talked about it before but I would rather be writing every night than just about anything.  I finally finished Book #2, the sequel to my first book. Three people actually read the first book and the feedback was it was like drinking straight Coke syrup - too much going on, too jagged, too intense. In Book #2 the conflict between the original younger author and the current older author's voices was finally resolved. And things definitely stretched out. The subject matter of Book #2 was so much that I pushed lots of it off to yet another book. And Book #2 came in at 364 pages compared to Book #1 which was 187 pages. I should be on to Book #3 any day now. Then there is the prequel and the rewrite of Book #1.  It was funny when I was done on Monday because on the one hand I was "Yay I've finished" and on the other it was "Boo Hoo, I'm going to miss all the stuff and folks I've been living with these last 9 months".

The Literary Kilauea And The Drying Trend Continues

I have finished with the vast project that was the rewriting of my original book. As I mentioned in past posts it was enjoyable but a challenge as the original book was written by a late 20-year old and the author is now a mid-60-year old. Life conspires to change one's views and attitudes about at least some things that are important and impact-full (though perhaps, not that oddly, not a lot of other things).

I've also reported in the past the rewriting project has spawned a flow of creativity that has led to me coming up with ideas for a number of additional books based upon the story line. For the last couple of months I've been fully into writing the second book. I'm about a third of the way into it and have written 126 pages. The first book ended up being 178 pages total. In fact I've so much material that I've decided I will have to write a 3rd book so that second doesn't get too long.

The creative flow continues uninterrupted. I liken it to the volcano on Hawaii, Kilauea that just keeps spewing lava decade by decade. It's not just ideas that come out, it's full blown dialog between characters. I can't ever remember a time in my life when I've been in such a space. It totally dominates my free time. Dinner is done and I have my iPod playing music and I'm writing away until bed time.

On other fronts, the produce continues to spew forth also like Kilauea in the form of tomatoes, chiles and herbs. I dried another batch of tomatoes and chiles on Saturday and I'm going to be drying basil, Thai basil and tarragon today.

Finally there are rumbles of status change in the Eldership universe. Be prepared for updates in the coming weeks.

Nature of the Muse

I have finished the 'official' rewrite of the Book. I've actually had the courage to let a few people read it. This is particularly noteworthy as I have a clear awareness that the minute you let someone see your creative activities you are putting yourself in the 'wanting approval', ego dominating state - something that I recognized recently is really not healthy for my spiritual development.

On the other hand despite all that, I'm merrily on to writing another book. Actually it is a sequel to the first one. And I have created an outline for a third book that would be the prequel. One of the nice things about working in the fantasy genre is that you can make up your own rules for the way your world works and its history. Saves a lot of drudgery researching things to be accurate and so fits my basically lazy nature. In addition to the two books that I'm actually doing work on, I have a number of ideas for additional books that would be a natural outflow from the core story as well.

What is of particular interest to me is Where The Heck Is All This Coming From? It is true that I was pretty imaginative as a young person really all the way through being a young adult. But as the needs and drama of life took hold and the ego spider web of the career manifested, I can't say I spent any time thinking imaginatively nor did I even once consider writing for pleasure at least until I started to write this blog.

Now this stuff is coming out of me like a torrent. When I say stuff I'm talking about character personalities, development of new characters, story lines, character emotional details and interactions, fantasy world science logic, social and politico-economic conventions for the fantasy world, etc. I'm not really working at this. It isn't as if I'm sitting down with this chart in front of me and pondering the how and why something will work in the story. No it just comes. This is especially true when I'm doing my hiking work outs. I'll start out focusing on breathing and mantra repetition (my hikes are pretty strenuous - at least to my aged body) and usually within a very short period of time something related to the world (the fantasy world that is) will start popping into my head. A lot of times it will be detailed dialog and action between various characters. Sometimes it will be new character coming forth like Athena from the head of Zeus which just happened yesterday. It just comes forth. I will usually write down some notes about it when I get back home as it is all coming out much faster than I can write it. And as this is for enjoyment, I don't want write everything up too soon. That would kill the fun of writing it.

It's all very mysterious

(BTW - I am extremely disappointed that NONE of you showed up at the OPM this morning for the great Bastille Day storming. It was pretty embarrassing to be out there all by myself with my pitchfork and torch. You wouldn't believe the looks people were giving me.)

Book Breakthrouhg

I was able to block off some serious time for my rewrite of the book this week and in the process started dealing with one of the most difficult aspects of the project.  I have these two characters who in the original story are fairly prominent but not dealt with in a serious manner.  They provided a lot of the sexual humor that was a big part of the story at that time.

When redesigning the story for this project, I shifted the tone to a deeper, more emotionally focused story but still trying to keep the humor as before and with a more mature attitude toward sexuality.  I was able to see ways to make that change in most of the book but there's this one section in the beginning where these two characters meet and start their relationship that was way, way off from the new focus.  I struggled with this for months.  Finally when I did the back story work last month, I saw how this relationship could be altered to meet the new focus but retain some of the humor and sexuality. 

I just got through the rewrite of that section and have read through it a couple of times and am very pleased with how it has evolved.  It has also given me some additional story line threads to weave into later sections of the book.  So we're finished with the first confrontation and establishment of key persona and its time to make it over the mountains to the next culture and key persona.

Book Report & Smoking

Taking a quick look at the title you might think that I had gone back to school and was knocking back a pack to get some homework done in time.  Wrong.

I committed the three day Memorial Day weekend to working on my novel.  During the trip to Europe I had done extensive work reviewing the book and coming up with a long list of pre-rewrite projects in order to clean up logical inconsistencies, answer backdrop questions that the story brings up put doesn't provide any frame of reference, and research certain things that are part of the fantasy world to ensure accuracy.  I've been thinking about these issues for some time and in my own mind I had answered them but I'd not gotten it all written down.

I'm happy to say that I was able to get all the major back stories written and figured out.  I'm pretty happy with the logic of how things work and the sequence of historical events that lead to the situation I'm writing about and the workings of the fantasy world.  I still have one tricky relationship and scenes related to it that I have to work out.  Initially it was done in sort of an adolescent humor style (think Ferris Buehler's Day Off) but I've made the relationship much deeper and I've got to change the scenes accordingly.  But there is also I humor component I need to maintain.  Oh the trauma of it all!

The smoking refers to my ongoing attempts to master my Yoder Smoker and create real BBQ.  Wife loves pulled pork.  Last time I tried I ended up with tasty roast pork but nothing close to pulled pork.  This latest attempt was fraught with challenges.  I took my meat out Friday night with the intention of doing it on Saturday.  However Saturday morning arrived and it was still solid!  Pushed the attempt to Sunday.  Got up early.  Started the machine.  An hour later I figured out it had not ignited properly.  Trouble shot the problem.  Got it started but this cut out a couple of hours from the time I had to get things cooked.  Still cooked it for 10 hours.  This time I was closer.  It was like good sliced pork BBQ but not done enough to get pulled pork.  But at least we're making progress.  I think I need to put the heat up a bit and aim for 12 hours for a 5 pound piece of meat.

We Interuprt Our Regularly Scheduled Programing For A STORY Update

One of my goals for semi-retirement/transition and for doing during traveling is working on the re-write of my book.  This has been a complete success.  I've been having great fun with it.  I've resolved all kinds of character and world issues (logical consistency of fantasy world that is).  I've been doing a lot of reading of stuff written by women so I've been able to start dealing with the overly testosteronic aspects of the book.  I'm building more depth and complexity to numerous characters and I've started building out numerous back stories to give the context more depth.  That in turn has given me the outlines for two more books - a sequel and prequel which is great since the purpose of all this is the joy of creating.

I'm almost three fourths of the way through the book noting all the things that will need to be worked on.  I will then tabulate all those things into a list and start the re-write in earnest.

The 'STORY'

Once upon a time when I was much younger, with much longer hair, living as a child of the 60's/70's, I wrote a story.  Actually it was the draft of a book.  It was a fantasy book that reflected a lot of things I was experiencing at that point in life.  I took it a long way.  I had some artwork done for it.  I actually submitted some briefs to publishers.  But I didn't really pursue it.  I had three children and I needed all my energy to just deal with growing up to being a real husband, father, and career person.

But I never threw the book away.  The manuscripts and the maps were carefully saved through all our moves over the years.  I remember about a decade or so a go, taking it out and reading it and feeling a bit horrified at some of the things that were key features of the book.  And yet there were other parts that I thought were really pretty good.  At that time I couldn't see any way of reconciling who I was today and my values now with what I had written before.

Fast forward to December of last year.  I'm now the transition/retired person and I'm taking on new and different challenges and interests.  I had also been rereading a bunch of science fiction and fantasy from the 70's that I have in my library.  I was kind of taken with the fact that a lot of these books I loved then really weren't that well written.  So I decided to get out my story and read it again.

After that rereading, I felt that it really had a lot of good character development and plot development.  And I found that maybe the values it promoted really wasn't so far off of what I was feeling especially after all my realizations related to transition and retirement. 

I've decided that I'm going to rewrite the book.  As it is only in a typed paper version, this has meant I have to key the whole thing into the computer.  I'm not quite half way there as it is around 220 pages. This is a good process, as it is giving me lots of ideas of how it needs to be altered, added to, changed to make a tighter more solid story.  And since my latest revelation about my the demon of 'proving something to somebody', I realized that I don't really care if anyone ever sees this or not.  It seems to be something that I'm motivated to do simply for the joy of doing it. It's such an unusual, unique and joyful experience to me.