Quiet Times

You know, I don't write on this blog (which serves as my official website) nearly as often as I should. Part of the reason for this is because I have a lot of other things going on, and frankly, there just aren't that many of you reading it. Not that I don't want to provide some updates and content for my fans, but honestly, there just isn't a lot going on in my world that's worth writing to you about.

For example, my sales have flattened out. There will always be a fluctuation in sales, and right now I've got nothing exciting to tell on that front. I'm hoping that when I finish "Beautiful", that will change. It's a book written for a more popular genre, so if I'm lucky I will see a nice bump in sales. Given the total lack of success of my debut novel, I'm not holding my breath. I will hope, but not expect.

"Beautiful" is coming along, but very slowly. My original plan to write the main body of the book in less than two months was foolishly optimistic. I know that authors like Stephen King have said that unless you can dedicate four hours to writing every day, you might not have the dedication it takes to do it full time.

With all due respect to Mr. King (and I am a big fan of him as a person and as an author), he doesn't work a full time job other than writing. I do, and it sucks. I come home mentally and physically exhausted every day, and my days off are just periods of recuperation between bouts of work. Because of this, as well as being ill for the majority of January of this year, my work is coming along very slowly. "Beautiful is just about halfway finished and is clocking in at about 42,000 words. I'd intended it to be at around 100,000 when finished, but the story just doesn't need that much wordage.

You might think that revising my total down by almost 20k words means that I'm cutting out a lot of story. In one way, that's true--I've gone from enough material to fill one novel to enough for six. Easily six. It's possible that I could write many more than that, but I have the first three planned out in decent detail, and the three after loosely planned in broad strokes. I'm pretty excited about it.

If I could take a year off from working full time, I would be able to write so much more. I think I could crank out a novel every few months, and that's while still writing Living With the Dead every day. I've got so many things I want to work on.

If I only had the time! That's what I'd ask the wizard for, were I to find myself in Oz.