Not that anyone was asking, but I thought I’d say a few things about this newest project of mine, which is a novel.
I’ve written a couple of dozen books in life, and about 20,000 posts, but I’ve never written a piece of fiction before. Indeed, I’ve hardly even read a piece of fiction in my life. It was never my thing.
This would instantly disqualify me, I suppose, from the ability to write a decent novel, but by God, I’m giving it a try. It’s exceptionally difficult – – orders of magnitude harder than the stuff I crank out here day after day – – and I’ll just come right out and say that the novel doesn’t have a satisfactory ending yet. Based on absolutely no evidence, I am trusting that the muse will set things straight, sooner or later, and I’ll have something good.
That remains to be seen, of course. Just approaching the keyboard to write two or three more pages has become a near act of terror, but once I set to work, it seems to go fairly well. And yet the same terror revisits me with each subsequent visit. The writing of this very post is an act of avoidance on my part.
If and when this thing is done, I’ll probably do as I’ve always done with my side projects and try to smoke out a few Slopers who are willing to give me feedback. I’ve got a long way to go on this, but perhaps I’ll have something to share with you someday.
