What if

Never ever look into the face of unexpected opportunity with anything less than clear eyes and the thought of - what if this were my only chance?

Zero in

I’m vacillating again. Not lactating (too old), not copulating (well maybe), not berating (I like almost everyone), but stagnating in a sea of projects. I get enthused about one, it wanes so I go onto another, it gets old and I’m off again. Like now, updating a post when I should be working on my eBook of columns plus their force and fallout. I’m into my third novel and still continue to query my two drawer-novels. (If I’m still querying them I guess they’re not drawer-novels). Plus I have a deadline for the column. Jeez, I wish I could retire so I could get something done.

The three most important words in writing, focus, focus, focus.

I’m off to work soon and am promising myself that tonight, after work, while the house is quite and my lids aren't propped open from exhaustion, I will pick one project and zero in. I promise.

Do you have to refocus your writing-lens often or are you spot on until 'the end'? 

fame, little f small font

I was recognized again, twice this week and this from the head-shot which accompanied my column in a paper I haven’t written for in six months.

It’s weird, I’m shopping and someone says, “...aren’t you the writer who...” or “...you write a column don’t you?”

I’ve blogged about being recognized before and while not wanting to boast or appear self-centered it’s a kick for a stranger to acknowledge my writing efforts. They always have something positive to say about my columns except for one article; it was a fun piece but the timing of its publication sucked.  As it should - tragedy trumps clever.

I wonder when people will forget, when local readers will no longer put my face and what I communicate, together as a writing package. The newspaper I write for now, higher volume more bucks, does not print a head-shot with the column. The readership, though considered by them as local - considered by me really isn’t. I don’t look my readers in the eye anymore unless I head across the Connecticut River and they wouldn’t have a clue who I was anyway. Maybe that’s a good thing. Don’t get me wrong, I love, love, love where I am now. I used to live and work over-there so I’m getting emails and connecting with folks I have lost touch with, even family members are chiming in. They don’t need a pic...yee haw, they already know my name.

Having said that, it’s still a kick though, to be squeezing cucumbers or thumping cantaloupes and someone I have never met says, “...I know you, you write. Love your column and honeydews are buy one get one this week.” I humbly said thank you and bought the melons.

Hook, line and sinker

Got my bait: morsel with a hook.

Got my pole: laptop strung strong with story.

Got my lump of lead: taking it deep, where the big fishes are.

I decided that this time, 3^rd novel, I was going to follow the rules. So I stood before my bookcase which is lined with dozens of book-backbones upright at attention.  Out of the many one shouted, lime green spine, large black letters, “NOVEL”. I pulled it from the shelf, dusted it off and now call it my hook, line and sinker instructions.

If Julie can do Julia I can follow NOVEL instructions.  

I’m not going to post the full title of the book or the authors. But, I will say one of them is a dream-agent and that fact has nothing to do with why I chose the book. My choice was based on the bright color, which made it stand out, and that the word NOVEL on the spine was the only one I could read without, getting close and tilting back my head; if you wear bifocals you know what I’m talking about.

There’s a hole in my creel.

NOVEL has been collecting dust for years. I have not opened it yet and actually I don’t think I have ever opened it. I will apply the authors’ wisdom to my latest project. Having completed two ‘drawer’ novels maybe if I had read NOVEL first they’d be on a shelf and not in a drawer.

Okay, here goes, I am stepping away from the laptop, going to sit in my reading chair and open the book. Removing computer glasses, putting on reading glasses...

Twenty minutes later. Computer glasses back on, another cup of coffee and I’m back.

I skipped to page 9, read, skipped a little more and read.

You know those fish nets on a handle, the ones you scoop the hooked fish with, well left brain, right brain netted me. It explained everything that is ‘me’ regarding writing. There I was being psychoanalyzed and loving it. That’s when I started taking notes for my left brain, while my right brain ached to sit and write my brilliant novel. I skipped again and illegally passed on the right to outlines, synopsis and queries.  My left brain over loaded and right brain became overly anxious while standing on the pier waiting to cast my line in.

Here’s my first attempt at a query-hook, (and I'm only ankle-deep at outline and three chapters in).

Think Ruth Madoff, broke, Bernie dead, no family or friends to lean on and she’s living in a welfare-motel, earning less than minimum wage but able to keep her tips.

I like it. It explains Evelyn, my main character, perfectly.

That’s my "hook".

Will update with "line" results per NOVEL  instructions. I am hoping this approach will show me the way out of the drawer and onto the shelf.

I pick things up I put them down

A little more than a few weeks ago at my 9 to 5, which is usually whenever to whenever, I had to move some stuff, a lot of stuff, so much stuff in fact that once the shit was moved I didn’t know where anything was. This wasn’t just a floor-move it was big time heavy lifting and arranging. I was hustling my ass and popping Ibuprofen Softgels like they were M&M’s.

So...fast forward more than a few weeks, I’m just getting used to where everything is and a desk-jockey, with an empty bottle of white-out for a brain, decides that putting everything back where it was, is optimum. Fuck optimum and the office chair it rides over the edge to hell on.

I hate it. I hate punching a time-clock, saying “how high” when they shout jump and most of all I hate that I hate it. I used to love my job, couldn’t wait to get to work and actually stayed beyond my shift just to get things looking right. Now all I want is to be home, write, take walks, naps, write, cook, clean and write. It sucks to live in ‘have-to’ land and yet where I’m at in life is heaven compared to some. I am blessed, I am thankful and yet as I contemplate my constitutional right of pursuing happiness, I’m still not satisfied.

What’s with that anyway?