Here Goes Something

This week I’m writing a review for The Review Review website. I finished reading a book I plan to review for this blog. For the last couple weeks I’ve been working on five or six stories, trying to narrow them to three, and getting those three into shape to hand out to my writing group. And I’ve been working on this here blog. Not that the blog takes a ton of time, but everything adds up and so I wonder when I’ll get back to what I need to be doing: writing a novel.

Saturday night Liz and I attended a movie night at Rex Art’s crib. Rex was one of my gracious and honest and encouraging readers of "A Little Disappeared". When we were leaving (after a heady cocktail of Cadillac Records and The 40 Year Old Virgin) he asked me when I’d have something else for him to read. It took me years to finish "A Little Disappeared" (and if you’re one Ms. X, would argue there’s more work to do). So the chance of another novel popping out any time soon is nil. I shrugged off the question, grateful that a past reader wants to be a future reader.

It also means it’s time to get off of my ass. Since the first of the year I’ve done some outlining and planning on a proposed new novel, although that’s currently stalled. I also came up with some good revision ideas for the last novel I workshopped with Mr. X, called "American Standard". The plan for the next six months or so is to start working in earnest on a novel to 1) hand out to the writing group and 2) eventually workshop in Ms. X’s upcoming summer session. That means I only have a few months to kick it up a notch, to go from 0 to 60 in under six months. Here goes something.