I do!
First, I failed to acquire a Time Turner that actually works (these people are deceptive thieves who need a beating). I also failed in my bid to slow the rotation of the earth, mainly because I couldn't get a decent grip on the Santa Ynez mountains. Thus! Stuck with a mere 24 hours in every day and no way to slow them, I had to make a choice, and my choice was to actually get serious about The Book.
So, with the ongoing assistance of a swell development editor who promises to kick my ass, I've got the outline outline for Walk of the Night People committed to paper. I know what's going to happen, and when, and why. I've got eleven existing chapters to revise mightily, another fourteen chapters to write, and a schedule to drive me. The first draft should be complete in six months at the outside.
I still believe that maintaining an online presence is a necessity for the mod'ren author. I also believe that maintaining a balance between public writing and private creative effort is crucial. I've been out of balance, and Writebastard was siphoning off energy that I needed to pour into my fiction. Without fiction output this blog devolves from somewhat pointless to utterly superfluous. I took the first month of 2010 to decide what I actually wanted to do with my creative life, and then implemented a plan to get it done.
Now, I am so planned and implemented. I am the most planny implementarian this side of the Tigris. I am a locus of negative entropy so deep and vast that teacups broken within three blocks of my desk reassemble themselves in deference to my creative singularity. If I moved to D.C. you would soon receive notice of your free national health care coverage and a request for tissue samples so that they could begin cloning the replacement organs you'll need when you're 114.
A very exciting time, bookwise. Even though there was nothing truly surprising in the outline--the plot's been mostly set, in my head, for a few months--putting all of the pieces together on paper was revelatory: there's a shape to the tale, which wasn't entirely apparent while I was doing the mental work. A beginning, middle, and end, a proper pattern of action and character that unfolds in the way that People Who Know About Such Things say it should. That's not to say I've conformed to some standardized method of plotting a novel. But the arc of the tale I'm telling feels like a good one. I'm done with the mental heavy lifting. Now I get to write, and have fun. Watch this space! I'll tell you all about it, right here (you are so very interested, I know).
Actually, of course you are. You wouldn't be here if you weren't. That's how it's supposed to work...unless you're like this guy Günther I met in Munich who was devoting his life to the singular pursuit of boredom. I last saw him in a café on Einsteinstraße right after the Wall came down, wild-eyed and chain-smoking shitty French cigarettes, half out of his mind with the notion that his pursuit of ennui had become interesting.
Poor bastard.
First, I failed to acquire a Time Turner that actually works (these people are deceptive thieves who need a beating). I also failed in my bid to slow the rotation of the earth, mainly because I couldn't get a decent grip on the Santa Ynez mountains. Thus! Stuck with a mere 24 hours in every day and no way to slow them, I had to make a choice, and my choice was to actually get serious about The Book.
So, with the ongoing assistance of a swell development editor who promises to kick my ass, I've got the outline outline for Walk of the Night People committed to paper. I know what's going to happen, and when, and why. I've got eleven existing chapters to revise mightily, another fourteen chapters to write, and a schedule to drive me. The first draft should be complete in six months at the outside.
I still believe that maintaining an online presence is a necessity for the mod'ren author. I also believe that maintaining a balance between public writing and private creative effort is crucial. I've been out of balance, and Writebastard was siphoning off energy that I needed to pour into my fiction. Without fiction output this blog devolves from somewhat pointless to utterly superfluous. I took the first month of 2010 to decide what I actually wanted to do with my creative life, and then implemented a plan to get it done.
Now, I am so planned and implemented. I am the most planny implementarian this side of the Tigris. I am a locus of negative entropy so deep and vast that teacups broken within three blocks of my desk reassemble themselves in deference to my creative singularity. If I moved to D.C. you would soon receive notice of your free national health care coverage and a request for tissue samples so that they could begin cloning the replacement organs you'll need when you're 114.
A very exciting time, bookwise. Even though there was nothing truly surprising in the outline--the plot's been mostly set, in my head, for a few months--putting all of the pieces together on paper was revelatory: there's a shape to the tale, which wasn't entirely apparent while I was doing the mental work. A beginning, middle, and end, a proper pattern of action and character that unfolds in the way that People Who Know About Such Things say it should. That's not to say I've conformed to some standardized method of plotting a novel. But the arc of the tale I'm telling feels like a good one. I'm done with the mental heavy lifting. Now I get to write, and have fun. Watch this space! I'll tell you all about it, right here (you are so very interested, I know).
Actually, of course you are. You wouldn't be here if you weren't. That's how it's supposed to work...unless you're like this guy Günther I met in Munich who was devoting his life to the singular pursuit of boredom. I last saw him in a café on Einsteinstraße right after the Wall came down, wild-eyed and chain-smoking shitty French cigarettes, half out of his mind with the notion that his pursuit of ennui had become interesting.
Poor bastard.
I was just wondering earlier today, actually, "What was the last time Ian updated his blog?"
Yeah, I needed to step away for a bit, but I'm back now.
I see you survived 'till the next round, congradumatations! Is there video somewhere? Or should I just use me imagination?
Good for you and your decision to get serious about your writing. Don't think for a minutes that you weren't missed. Of course, after spending weeks imagining all kinds of horrible circumstances that were keeping you from posting, the reality is a bit of a let down. I must confess that I resorted to reading other peoples' blogs, hoping to find just the right mix of friendliness and sardonic wit. Kevin Smith is the best I came up with. Having said that...
Glad you are back!
I was also killed by a minivan full of neo-Nazis, who ran me off the road and down a cliff into the ocean just south of of San Simeon because of my fey looks and fabulous cycling attire. I left that part out because it wasn't really relevant.
Minivan full of neo-Nazis was second on my list of possibilities, right after held for ransom by Portuguese mafia because you mistook their Don for a bellhop, and undertipped him, on your last trip to the Azores.
I'm glad to hear that you were up to something good. I was afraid that you had been seduced by the high-flying world of competitive video game playing or that you had crawled into a bag of cheese curls and Oprah.
I can only get bags of Fritos and Dr. Oz around here. Which is odd, because I can see where Oprah lives from my window. It's impossible to miss, actually--a monolithic tower of smoking black granite with crimson windows, looming over the hovels of the Santa Barbara peasantry, with the unsleeping O high above, stabbing a flame of red southward, that horrible growing sense of a hostile will that strives with great power to pierce all shadows of cloud, and earth, and flesh, and to see you: to pin you under its deadly gaze, naked, immovable...wait, where was I? Oh yes: no bags of Oprah here. Delicious Oprah.
holy crap. i googled myself and ended up here. YOU HAVE THE SAME NAME AS I DO. we should be friends.
lol facebook uses same email. Talk ta me sometime. or dont. i dont care if i dont talk to myself. Delicious Oprah. lol
Love the way you write, i need to teach me to do that
Thanks!
Yes, there are a few of us. Recently I've managed to first-page rank myself in Google. I'm still trying to beat Sir Ian Wood, "Chairman of Wood Group, one of the United Kingdom's largest engineering businesses." I know that I'll never beat the Ian Wood who's got ianwood.com, though. Unless he suffers an unfortunate accident. Like getting hit by an exploding pelican, very sad.
(Incidentally, there's yet another Ian Wood who found me and is a "fan" on my Facebook page. I should collect us all.)
Thank goodness! I've been sitting here in a small room in Ebenezer sucking on helium balloons, chain-smoking mediocre Indian cigarettes, feeling a bit like a space monkey who has no idea how he got here or what to do next, but vaguely understanding the ride's become not much fun at all.
Nice to see you back, old fluff, with all your pelicans in a row, here to save us from boredom, restore polarity, and make nonsense of the bastage sensibility.