Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Emerging from the Silent Abyss

[RL] Well, as my numerous fans may have noticed, I haven’t had a lot to say for a while.

I’m not altogether sure as to why this has been. An inability to concentrate? A lack of inspiration? Just a general case of the blues?

In any event, I’m here, making my first tentative presses on the keys of my keyboard, not really having a clue as to what I’m going to say, but mildly determined to say something.

So...

My keyboard is a black Compaq. It has an annoying “sleep” button that has the shape of a crescent moon. When I press it accidentally, bad things happen. I just haven’t had the energy to find a way to disable it. The keyboard also has volume controls, which I always forget about. I think that they’d be quite useful, if only to prevent me from over exerting myself by reaching for the volume control on my speakers.

My desktop has the top of a Slurpee cup, two neckties rolled up into neat little balls, a palm pilot, an empty Arby’s wrapper, an empty box for eye drops, and about seven dollars in change, five of which are made up the new golden dollar coins. It also has The Book of Mormon, which I can’t for the life of me remember how it got there. It is sitting on top of some papers that I used to calculate trajectories on my Cataporter and various other semi-useful and/or useless pieces of paper.

I’m still mostly dressed in my work clothes, my black wool pants now covered in cat hair as a result of a rare, affectionate visit from the household cat. We are talking about Cracker Barrel for dinner, which is food that tastes great and is even better at hardening the arteries.

I have, at long last, came up with a solid new concept for my book. The trouble is, it means that I have to throw away 9/10ths of what I have already written. That’s more than 70,000 words. Would it be worth it? Yes. But to do it would require not only rewriting every word, it would require dedication and research, and hope. And I’m a bit afraid to hope right now. Can I pull it off? Do I have the energy to do it? I just don’t know.

I remember starting and not finishing my first book in sixth grade – that would be when I was 10 or 11 years old. I’ve not finished about four or five books since then, and I’ve finished and not sold maybe 15 or 20 short stories. This particular book I started maybe three or four years ago. I submitted to two publishers before I decided that there was something seriously wrong with it.

I could probably tear off bits of the book that I’ve already written into maybe two or three other books. There are some good sound bites in there. But that is for the distant future. I have another book to work on, or not work on, which is the one I want to complete or not complete first.

And, I guess I’ve just completed this post. That means something in itself. We’ll see what happens next.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess that you win then - I only have 3 unfinished books myself.... :)

Camilla said...

"My desktop has the top of a Slurpee cup, two neckties rolled up into neat little balls, a palm pilot, an empty Arby’s wrapper, an empty box for eye drops, and about seven dollars in change, five of which are made up the new golden dollar coins. It also has The Book of Mormon, which I can’t for the life of me remember how it got there. It is sitting on top of some papers that I used to calculate trajectories on my Cataporter and various other semi-useful and/or useless pieces of paper."

It sounded liked a great photograph, but when I got up this morning, most of it was gone. The Book of Mormon is still there. I left it. I think it looks good there. But the Slurpee cup, the ties, and the Arby's wrapper were no longer there. And it was $5 in gold dollars, not $7. And now it is $0, because they went straight into my pocket for the parking garage tolls I have to pay today. Thank you! How can you tempt me with such a description, and then take it away before I can see it?

Princess Ivory

Princess Ivory

Alphonsus said...

To quote from my quote --

* and about seven dollars in change, five of which are made up the new golden dollar coins *

I did count the gold coins correctly. :-)

And I'm sorry I messed up your picture. I decided to clean up a bit this morning. I apologize. I won't let that happen again. ;)