more about wrting

So, I started this blog so I could talk about my writing, and I guess I've done that. I think I need to do a bit more of that, at least that's how I feel today :)

It's ridiculous to think that I started writing "The City" nearly two years ago. I actually got the idea for the novel from a short story I wrote around that time. When I started it, I was extremely happy if I wrote two pages in one day... maybe once or twice a week.

I got about ten pages into the story, when a good friend of mine said something along the lines of, "Well, that's just a lot of bollocks. You can't write this whole story from first person, at least not the way you've done it." Yeah, I stopped writing for quite a while... Then, one day, I went back to it. I read what I had done, and realized that my friend had been right. The whole ten pages were filled with me tripping over the story, due to the point of view.

So, I changed it, fixed it, rewrote the whole bit. It was a start, and I was writing again :)

I "sprinted" through the next month or two, and reached something like thirty pages. It felt good. I was moving forward, and that meant that I was moving toward something. So, naturally, I stopped writing. Can't remember why, or if there was even a reason, but I stopped... for months.

Then I moved. I was having a hell of a time trying to find a job, so I spent my mornings playing with my computer :) When I ran out of fun stuff to do on the interwebs, I found my story again. Why hadn't I been writing? Where had the time gone? Imagine how far along I could have been, if I hadn't stopped. Oh well, too late to wonder now. And, I got back to work.

I was moving forward again, I even decided to set my own word count and work on this blog. It was good. I did some short stories and started some comic ideas with friends. Writing became something more than just a thing to do for me. Then my mom got sick...

Three months went by before she passed, I didn't write anything.

Three more after her funeral, I didn't write anything.

I came back to Idaho at the beginning of January, (literally, I got here on the first) with the purpose of finishing what I started. When I looked at my manuscript, I realized that I had 100 pages done. That was huge for me. I went back to work :)

And here I am now. Still not as far as I'd like to be, but I can see the end of this book, and have already started the next in my mind... and maybe even the third, which actually takes me back to the short story where it all began :) Anyhow, if I can keep from slacking, (feel free to yell at me randomly, assume I'm slacking because I'm good at it) I think that "The City" will be finished by the end of this month. (the first draft at least)

There ya go :) It may be a very choppy blog today, but now you know a bit more about my writing... or at least the story of my writing... I don't know, I think I've even managed to confuse myself :)