The Drawing Board

This photo, taken by Alec Hendrix in 2007, shows Coffeyville, KS after a terrifying flood. Some died, and many lost their homes to the flooding.

It is also the inspiration for my second novel, which I am now, after a year of working on other projects, revising. Writing the novel accomplished a few things. It started me thinking about a lot of religious and spiritual elements in my life. It got me to the top 100 entries in the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Contest. It even helped me work on some family issues.

Looking back over it, I'm grateful that it got me this far, but I also see that it isn't going to get me any farther. In fact, it's pretty much crap.

And I don't mean that in a nice, pseudo-humble sort of way. It sucks. It's overall plot is more than far-fetched, its detail and characters lacking, its ending far from meaningful. Besides a few kernels of brightness shining, like sunlight on water at sunset, it's pretty much muddy ooze.

Fortunately, I had one reader who told me so. And I also had the wisdom to let the thing sit longer than overnight--I waited a YEAR to come back to it--so that I could come back with renewed perspective and shred and reshape the novel into what it is supposed to be.

I'm off to work on my piece of crap. Perhaps, if I can replace the rotting wood and moldy drywall, I can get the structure of it back into shape. I pretty much have a blank slate, so I'll move walls, tear down a few useless rooms, add a bathroom, finish the attic properly, and put a playset in the backyard. I'll wait on the painting, shutters, and landscaping until the last, when the plan is exactly what it needs to be.

Here's hoping you have the guts to shred your own masterpieces... to carve them into their true form...

Cheers! (Now get to work!)

I Swear I am Writing... Just not Here!

I checked my blog page only to realize that, even though my life was not a whirlwind right now, I still hadn't posted a blog entry since Saturday (which has been my usual MO since I began teaching heavily in August). 

Believe me, I have been busy! And, despite what you might think, I haven't just filled my life with grading and kid homework this week--I've actually been working on my novel!!!!!

Yes, the second novel, the one that made it to the top 100 entries of the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel contest, is getting its overhaul. I've been reading madly through the draft, working to find the bad parts, the very bad parts, and the downright horrid parts, and figure out ways to make them all into great parts (or at least replace the horrid parts with not so horrid parts).

Honestly, the first half of the novel is pretty great. I was caught up into every page, trapped by the suspense I myself created... it was magnificent!

And then I reached page, oh, 167, and the bottom dropped out through the floor. Pretty much as soon as it stopped pouring (the novel is based on a modern-day Noah's ark story), the whole novel faltered. Sunshine started beating down on the boat, on its characters, bleaching out everything, gumming up the machinery, and pretty much bringing anything exciting to an absolute standstill. 

I could be discouraged. Okay, I am a little. I'd love for the whole thing to be spectacular, and for it to be ready to send to agents. Still, the first half of the novel gives me hope that the second half can be much better, as long as I recognize what worked in the first half and carry that through in the second half. 

Giving myself the opportunity to toss out whole chapters is rather exciting, too. Why settle? I have the computer memory... why not create something a whole hell of a lot better? 

I'll let you know how it goes...