Kevin Lucia's Blog, page 42

The Next Big Thing: Mike Duran and Dan Keohane, and Will You Like Me, Please? On Supporting....Me?

It's a day late - things got a little crazy yesterday - but don't forget to go and visit the authors I tagged in my "The Next Big Thing" post, Mike Duran and Dan Keohane. Two excellent authors - and, more importantly, people - who deserve more readers.

Secondly, we go back, ironically enough, to Mike Duran's post about simple things folks can do to promote and support authors they love.  And I have to agree - I've really been on a learning curve, regarding this. I don't necessarily expect to sign with a big publisher who will do all my marketing for me, but I always feel awkward about asking folks to "like" my Amazon page, like my book page, things such as that. Posting and blogging news about new publications is one thing, but asking for likes seems, well....desperate?

Also, here's something else...awkward, in a moment of stark honesty. Can I really ask people to like my Amazon page and whatever, when I've had folks who've asked me to "like" them....and I haven't? I mean, I like THEM, but honestly can't say I like their writing...

Maybe I'm splitting hairs. Being too picky about which authors I "like." And maybe, given that, I don't have any place asking folks to "like" me.  I dunno. But seeing Mike blog about it makes me feel a lot better about it. So - if you LIKE my WRITING - here's three simple things I can think of that would maybe help "support" my writing:

Like My Amazon Page
Like Hiram Grange & The Chosen One
Become a fan of my Goodreads page

And if you've read anything of mine and liked it, please go drop a quick review on Amazon or Goodreads.


And that's it! Now, time for me to do my part, and write some more stuff for you to read....

An Interview, and Part Two of "And I Watered It, With Tears"

First, Part Two of my serial novella, "And I Watered It, With Tears" is now available in Lamplight Magazine's second issue, at both Smashwords, and on Amazon for Kindle. Remember, Issue 1 is still free. 

Also, Kelli Owen is the featured author of this issue, and J. F. Gonzalez talks more about the history of the horror genre. Filling out the roster is fiction from D.J. Cockburn, Tim Lieber, Christopher Kelley, Christopher Fryer and Jamie Lackey.
Speaking of history, an interview over at Crystal Lake Publishing has me talking about the history of the horror genre, and why I think it's important for young horror writers to know their history. Hopefully, I don't misstep and sound pretentious, because really, I'm just talking about what I've discovered in my own studies, the past few years.

What I'm Thankful For: The Usual Suspects, and More

It's Thanksgiving, and because Abby unfortunately has to work today (because hospitals can't really close on holidays, can they?), I'm left alone with the kids to hang out in our pajamas all day. We're doing Thanksgiving at Abby's parents tomorrow, hosting it here Sunday for my parents and sister and her family, so that leaves today free for some sentimental, holiday navel-gazing on the blog.

So, of course what's on my mind is how thankful I am for all the things our family has been blessed with, and the things I've been blessed with, personally. It's important we be thankful all throughout the year - not get all weepy and thankful just on Thanksgiving, then go about our lives blithely 364 days the rest of the year - but I've never been much for "poo-pooing" the holidays. They are what you make of them, and while it IS vitally important to maintain an attitude of thankfulness every single day, there's also nothing wrong with taking a special day to really ponder what you're thankful for, explicitly.

And there's also the mass amounts of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and days of cold turkey leftovers to consider.  Can't forget all that, can we?


Anyhoo, I'm abundantly thankful for many things.  First of all, for my wonderful wife, not only because she's beautiful and smart and intuitive and a wonderful mother who does all she can to help make this family "go", but for the support she's shown my writing efforts.

See, when you tell someone during courting, "I want to be a writer someday," neither you nor the other knows AT ALL what you're talking about, really. Writing and the business of writing and even just the daily commitment to a writing schedule takes a far greater toll on a family and on relationships in general than you can ever imagine, at the outset.

And when the truth of those words DOES hit home, two things seem to happen: either relationships and families crumble and maybe even fall apart, or SOMEHOW a balance is struck, and the writing career and family can somehow survive, and for that family to survive, not only does the writer need to make some hard choices, but a strong, tolerant, loving, patient, ever-wise and did I say patient? spouse is needed. 

Abby is all that and more, and half the time, I think she's the glue that holds this family together. A capper to all this: we just survived our first Con together as a family, and more than survived: we had a good time. We mixed family and writing on a mini-vacation, and came home feeling good about it. A major victory, there.

Close on the heels of that, I'm thankful I've been able to sacrifice mostly just sleep and a social life to write, and not family. For the past five years, I've been able to get up at 2:30/3:00 in the morning every day and write for several hours before anyone else gets up. This leaves me unburdened, the muse satisfied, happy and content to spend the rest of the day with my family, leaves me content to focus on the day job, too. I've also sorta forsaken television and a social life to very often squeeze in an hour of writing before I go to bed, too. I'm HUGELY thankful for this, more than you can imagine.


I'm thankful for two wonderful children, a daughter who is an amazing little duplicate of me (which often leaves me in giggling fits, and Abby shaking her head), a girl who loves to explore EVERYTHING, which makes every venture a potential adventure (see what I did there?). I'm also so thankful that's Zack's vibrant, loving, exuberant personality - and even his rock-hard stubbornness, at times - overshadows his autism. He will beat his autism, I believe, because of these traits.

And we're so thankful for everyone who's helped Zack, from his teachers at the Institute, his first speech therapist, to his family. They've all had a hand in his growth.

I'm ever thankful for my job, for multiple reasons, but the biggest is this: I get to spend every day around teenagers who are loud, boisterous, and alive. And I get to pontificate all day long about literature. Some of them listen, some don't, but the ones who DO listen, and are changed for it? That makes it all worth it, in the end. That, and how lucky am I? I'm a high school English teacher. When people find out I write, that just makes sense to them. Plus, summers off, and spending it reading and writing actually DOES help me, a lot, as a teacher.  How that all works together is marvelous.



I'm very thankful for the moderate publishing success I've had, and am very happy and thankful that the first bunch of folks I fell in with were the "Hiram 7" and Shroud Publishing. They've been great to work with on so many different projects, and no matter where my publishing career takes me, I'll return every year to AnthoCon (Shroud Publishing's annual convention), and remember them as the folks who shaped me in my "formative" years as a writer. 



And of course, I'm very thankful for the writing friends and mentors who I've encountered along the way.  Too many to name, and I'm sure I'll leave someone out, but I've been blessed to find myself with two "big sisters" in the genre who've given me SO much advice in so many different areas -  Michelle Pendergrass and Kelli Owen - and I'm so thankful I've met people like Rio Youers, Ron Malfi, Dan Keohane, Norman Prentiss, Tom Monteleone, F. Paul Wilson, Gary Braunbeck, Maurice Broaddus, Bob Ford, Alethea Kontis, Jacob Haddon, Dickie, Mandy, Michelle & Tad, Sue, Matt Blazi, Phil Tomasso, I could go on and on...



I'm thankful for the friends I grew up with, and those summers on the lake years ago, and those goofy, silly adventures in the "devil house".  I'll never forget any of you, and all of you, in one way or another, will pop in my writing, here and there. Hopefully, you'll take that as the compliment it's meant to be. 






And the devil house? So totally thankful for that. It's why I started writing horror, after all....

I'm thankful for an amazing evening in a basement full of the most mind-blowing genre memorabilia, ever...a mile away from my school. 

I'm thankful for all the times I've gotten to sit and listen to Brian Keene talk about the genre. Because that's all I do when I'm around him, is be quiet, listen, and learn.

I'm thankful for all the emails I've traded with Mort Castle, Norman Partridge, and Rob Dunbar.

I'm thankful for this really nice evening at Applebee's with Rio Youers, when he came to talk to my students a few years ago. Here's a guy who's destined to be the next Peter Straub, and he just hung out and talked with me, for hours. Unreal.

I'm thankful, eternally, to the small handful of people who've read my work.

And there's too much more to list. 

I'll just end it with how overwhelmed, I am, to be blessed with so much that I don't deserve.

Okay. 

Now.

Where's all that turkey....

The Next Big Thing: Billy the Kid: Down in the Dark

"The Next Big Thing" is a blog meme making it's way around the interwebz, in which authors are answering ten questions about their newest, upcoming work - ergo, their "Next Big Thing"  - and then tagging five other authors to  do the same,  creating this vast network of authors who are pimping themselves - hopefully to new readers - then tagging other authors, in the hopes of driving new readers to them.  Tim Lebbon tagged Robert Swartwood, who tagged Kelli Owen, who then tagged me. So, here we go...

1) What is the title of your next book?

Billy the Kid: Down in the Dark

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

To make a long story short, it came out of a pitch to an acquisitions editor at Harper Collins. We spent several weeks/months batting around an idea to retrofit Beowulf for a new audience. It went through several variations, but what I kept coming back to was this: Beowulf is essentially a monster-killer. If I updated that tale to NOW, I'd just have another urban fantasy "monster killer" story. Why not update it only as far as...say, the Wild West? Lots of unknown, unexplored territory back then where monsters could hide. And then, a voice whispered: "Make it Billy the Kid and The Regulators".

The editor loved it.

Her boss, however, less so. Wasn't sure if it'd be marketable, and considering that our original angle was writing something very close to the Beowulf legend and marketing it to teens and English classes and school libraries, he was probably right. But the story was so strong in my head, Billy was whispering into my ear, and with it completely outlined, I decided to dive right in, anyway.

3) What genre does your book fall under?

Weird Western. Definitely. Which makes a strange sort of sense, combining a childhood affinity for Cowboys and Indians and Lone Ranger and the Bar X Boys novels with my affinity for the weird.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

This has been tough, but I suppose I'd better figure it out, because author Bob Ford insists it'd make a good movie. ANYWAY - I've never liked the Young Guns portrayal of Billy the Kid. Emilio Estevez was just a little too goofy and carefree, for me. In my mind, he needs to be BOTH. Goofy and carefree, and yet a stone-cold killer, at a moment's notice. Anyway - I struggled with Billy, but I'm gonna go with a lesser name, cause I just can't see Matt Damon or Mark Whalberg filling those shoes:


Far left, I'm going to go with Stephen Dorff for Billy. A little old, maybe - Billy died at age 21 - but I think he could pull it off. At the very least, seems like he could do "cold blooded killer" a lot better than Emilio Estevez. And, admittedly, though I've researched, my Billy is probably a lot closer to a pulp-Western-fantasy than the REAL Billy....though no one really knows what he was REALLY like, which makes him so fascinating to write about.

Billy's best friend and constant companion was a tall, gangly - but dead-eye shooter - red-head named Tom Folliard (or O'Folliard, depending on the source). I think steady supporting actor Michael Rappaport could fill those big shoes. He's got the size, red hair, and seems like he could do the loyal-best friend thing pretty convincingly. 

Bob Olinger is the cruel, malicious jailer/deputy infamous for getting blown away by Billy - with his own gun - in Billy's famous first escape from Pat Garrett, and there was also bad blood between Billy and Bob because Billy killed Bob's likewise cruel and malicious friend, Bob Beckwith, in the Lincoln County War. Seems only natural to put them together in this novel. Anyway, far left - Ray Liotta. He's always done cruel and malicious pretty well.

Unfortunately, I've got no image in my head yet for Pat Garrett and Natchez, displaced, half-breed Apache warrior/mystic/scholar, or Dr. Hoyt, the traveling frontier doctor that the historical Billy actually met up with on three different occasions, in three different places - which is the center framing point for this trilogy. 

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

On the run from the law, a demon-possessed Billy The Kid and his band of Regulators – secretly aided by an immortal King Solomon – throw down with a man-eating beast and its zombie progeny in the small mining town of Tascosa, Texas.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Not self-published, because I'm not ready for that leap, yet. I'll be done soon, and will be making pitches to agencies and publishers, so here's hoping....

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Well, when I finish these last few chapters, we're talking almost two years, now (here's a look at my process, on this one). A year and a half, maybe. Of course, this project is on-spec, so it's also been suspended a few times for solicited work, too. AND, it's turned into a Larry McCurty-type, Riders of the Purple Sage - but with monsters - Epic Western, so it's just a big story.  Of course, there's the hope that if/when it lands somewhere, and I receive deadlines to write its  sequels, I'll be motivated to write a lot faster...

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Hmmmm. This will sound strange, but I've often thought of this as the western-flip-flop of Maurice Broaddus'  Knights in Bretton Court trilogy. That's basically Arthurian Legend told through the framework of rival gangs in the ghettos of modern-day Indianapolis (a genius idea), and mine is a reworking of the Beowulf myth in the Old West.  And maybe the movie Cowbies and Aliens? Also, the weird westerns of Robert E. Howard, and though Robert McCammon hasn't ever written a weird western - I don't THINK - this crazy, jam-packed mix seems like something he'd write.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Billy the Kid himself. What an intriguing, mysterious character. Where do you draw the line between myth and fact? Here's a young man, with no father figure, who's been on his own from the age of fifteen, fending for himself in the bad old, dangerous and violent Post-Civil War Wild West, and he's really only good at one thing: killing with a gun. Simply exploring what could make such a character tick - a young man who, by all accounts was kind, empathetic, courteous to a fault, polite; a fun-loving kid who loved to dance, but who could turn on a dime and kill you dead, quick as spit - has been SO very rewarding. 

And, he got a little unhighed at the end. Maybe went off the deep end, a little. What pushed him there? What shaped and molded him? Introduce the speculative/weird west/horror elements, and there was just no doubt. I was going to write this story, publisher or not.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

Really, though I've packed monsters and magic and demons and spiritual warfare and freaking KING SOLOMON and the Knights Templar into this thing, I think the answer to #9 serves best: in many ways, I hope this is an interesting, thoughtful character study, an examination of what makes a guy like Billy tick. What pushes a man to that edge? And is he bad, evil, or very conflicted? Because of these questions, this, hands down, has been the most enjoyable thing I've written since Hiram Grange , and I truly hope it finds a home.


So, now: TAG. And, because I think this game is playing itself out, and there are few writers - that I know, anyway - who HAVEN'T been tagged yet, I, unfortunately, only found three writers to tag:

Mike Duran - blogger extraordinarie, provocateur, deep-thinking culture critic - and damn fine writer. The Telling is one of the best novels I read in the past year, and his self-published novella  Winterland is a pretty mind-bending fantasy/allegory. 

Phil Tomasso - an excellent suspense/crime novelist you've probably never heard of, which is a shame. He wrote several successful crime/suspense mid-list novels in the nineties, left writing for awhile, returned under the pen name Thomas Phillips with the excellent The Molech Prophecy, and has a new one out: a good, old-fashioned vampires DON'T SPARKLE novel, Pulse of Evil. He's also re-released a lot of his out-of-print work on Kindle. He deserves a bigger readership, so you should check him out.

Dan Keohane - steady, sure-fire short story writer who's work has appeared in Apex, Cemetery Dance and Shroud, Dan's novels Solomon's Grave - nominated for a Stoker Award - and Margaret's Ark are favorites of mine. I have his latest, Destroyer of Worlds, on deck. Also another writer worthy of your time.

And there you have it. Happy Thanksgiving! Eat some turkey. Lots of it. While reading these authors...

Billy the Kid: Down in the Dark (And how Kevin finally wrote: THE END)

Well, not yet.

Not exactly.

However, I have finished the last of my in-flight edits on Billy the Kid: Down in the Dark (there's your tentative title), and have reached a threshold: I now have only 7 chapters left to write (longhand), before this beast is done. 

And when I mean "done", I mean, of course, the first draft.  




Because in something this large and epic, there's continuity issues to sort out, plot lines that sort of spontaneously died or merged or shifted that need to be cleaned and rearranged, whole scenes that need to be deleted, and lots of other minute details - because this is so mythic - that need to be aligned.

But I'm there.  Standing on the threshold of finishing my first novel.

And I'm terrified. Of jinxing it. Of stalling.  Of finishing it in a rush and a whirl, only to discover that some key element doesn't work, that I'll need to realign everything, once again. However, I have one HUGE thing going for me.

I outlined this thing.

I have the ending outlined. I know how it's going to end. 

I'm not sure if it's a good ending. In fact, I wonder if the ending is a little anticlimactic (I think that, for better or for worse, my stories will always be more about their journeys than their endings. But those are my favorite kind of novels, so that makes sense).  But, here's the OTHER amazing thing: I've not only crafted and outlined the ENDING to my first novel....

I've crafted and outlined the ending to the first novel in a proposed trilogy, and I didn't write the "cliffhanger ending."  The story's cycle is closed, the plot's conflicts are resolved, and I could easily pitch this to a publisher as a standalone, while still dangling tantalizing, intriguing plot threads that will hopefully make readers and editors want to know MORE.

That, for me, is huge. 

Now, I'm still rolling the trilogy around in my head,  batting ideas around, but really, I'm just focusing on this first installment. I figure, once the first book is done, polished, ready to send out, then I can get down to the nitty gritty with the trilogy.

Or series.

That's my dream, really. For Billy to be allowed growth past three books, become a Weird Wild West "Repairman Jack" or "Jack Reacher."  We'll see. I'll just be delirious if the publisher I covet for this project will take it, in the first place. 

So.

Getting close....

May I Die Before My Voices - Ray Bradbury

Today's writing inspirational thought, (from today's nnonfiction essay critique in Honors English) from Bradbury's forward to The October Country:

So, the first ten of my writing years were dumb stuff, hardly worth filing away as proof of my blind attempts to be something I could never be.  Imitation was my way of life, so true creation couldn't raise its fine head.

To put it another way, there was an Undiscovered Country behind my medulla oblongata, but I never traveled there. Shakespeare's Undiscovered Country was Death itself. Mine, when I finally charted it, led by my voices, was the territory of ideas, concepts, notions, conceits, all immensely personal, nowhere to be found in Burroughs, Baum, and Verne. I had to learn to reject them as models, keep them as loves, yes, but stop trying to live like John Carter, Tik-Tok, or the Nautilus' mad captain.  

Post AnthoCon Reflections - The Experiment's Success, Release of an Anthology, and More

First: Anthology: Year One, containing my story "Lament at Sundown", is now available on Amazon. Go forth and order.

Second, my new segment of "Horror 101" is up at Tales to Terrify. Now, on with the blogging. 

On Thursday, I blogged about "The Great Experiment" - mixing a writing convention, AnthoCon, with a family mini-vacation. Back home, unpacked, I can look back and say this past weekend was one my more rewarding Con experiences.

It's hard to say "best Con EVAH", though, only because I'm finding that's just a hard thing to say about any writing convention. Each convention experience offers something so new and unique, it's hard to duplicate - and new things happen with each convention. For example:




- my first visit ever to Borderlands Press Writers' Bootcamp, before I'd ever attended a Con. Gary Braunbeck, Mort Castle, F. Paul Wilson, Elizabeth Massie, Ginjer Buchanan, Tom Monteleone, Doug Winter....all there, to school ME? It was a mind-blowing, eye-opening step into the world of professional writing, one that can never be topped. Wasn't even equaled by my second - though just as valuable - trip to Borderlands. 

- my first Con, Mo*Con, put on by the Indiana Horror Writers Association. Again, my first real introduction to Cons. I was a nobody, mostly, on the sidelines, but it was my first step "out."

- my first NeCon was also amazing. I attended alone, drifted, attended panels, wrote, drove around randomly and ate some great seafood...and just dreamed of being big. What an awesome, idealistic time.

- my first trip to Context, because it was the first time I met fellow Hiram Grange writer Scott Christian Carr and Shroud-folk Danny Evarts, Tim Deal, Johnny Morse, and Mark Wholley; it was the first time I really participated in a Con, first time I ever served on a panel.

- my first Horrorfind, in which, again, I was a relative nobody, but met Brian Keene for the first time, got to hear him hold court, and first met some of my best writing buds. I've enjoyed much greater involvement as an author and sold more books at the following Horrorfinds, but that first one was special, different in a way those others can't ever touch.

So, I really try to avoid comparing writing conventions, saying "this one" was better than "that one", because each experience offers something special and unique. This past weekend, however, was something I could share with the whole family, affirming my idea that taking my family to a writing convention would be a good idea, that this can be OUR journey, not just my journey.

Of course, the kids mostly just enjoyed being in a hotel and swimming in its pool twice a day, (though I did get to sign two copies of Hiram Grange in front of Madi, and told her later that was a book I'd written), and unfortunately Abby didn't get to mingle with my writing friends as much as we both would've liked, because, well - Madi is 7 and Zack is 5. We really can't leave them in the hotel room at night by themselves, and they're really too young to mingle, too.


But the whole venture was a success, a step in the right direction. We all had a good time, visited "The Children's Museum" in Dover, ate out, and I had my weekend with fellow writers.  Didn't get to hang out with them quite as much as I've been able to in the past, but having my wife and kids waiting for me in the room at night more than balanced that out, and, again, I figure - if we attend AnthoCon every year - eventually, the kids will get older, more self-sufficient, allowing Abby to mingle more with the rest of the grownups.

Or, maybe I should watch the kids one night and Abby can go hang out with Kelli Owen next time....

New episode of "Horror 101"

Blogging from the iPad for the first time, and I've got the next episode of "Horror 101" for you at Tales to Terrify, in which I discuss Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and "The Beast", "The House", and "The Ghost". Also featured on Tales to Terrify, fiction from Weston Osche. Enjoy!

http://talestoterrify.com/tales-to-te...

Mixing Family and Writing: Now THAT's genre blending....

So, I'm a little nervous about this year's AnthoCon. Not because of a reading or panel appearances or anything like that. I'm trying something new, blazing out new territory for me in the field of Writing Cons.

I'm bringing the entire family with me. Abby, and Madison and Zack. Mixing writing with family for a combo mini-vacation/writing convention. 

And again, I don't mind admitting I'm a little nervous about the prospect.

But this was inevitable, I think.  After about four years of moderate Con travel, I've come to realize a very important thing: as much fun as they are, as refreshing and renewing as it is to hang out with writers all weekend and talk shop....

There's a danger, there.

Of getting caught up in "convention life." (such as it is) Of drifting, a little (and maybe, over time, a lot), from home and family and things that are far more important than writing and even writing colleagues.

About a year ago, Abby and I had a good, long talk about all this. It was  a good talk, and we both communicated our feelings pretty clearly. Abby expressed her honest fears about being left behind in the mundane, pedestrian grind of daily life, worried that - even though I'll never be a bestseller or anything like that - I'd succumb to the allure of being on the road, hitting Cons, rubbing shoulders and elbows with other writers.

I confessed my same fears, and also reiterated the real reason I attend at least one or two Cons a year is to stay in touch with my colleagues, friends, other writing professionals and to meet new people.  And she agreed with those reasons as being valid.

But....

The writing life can take an awful toll on family life. This, I've seen. And while LIFE is hard for everyone, there are some hard roads I'd like to avoid entirely. And I KNOW I'd never be able to keep up this writing gig if it weren't for Abby's support, if weren't for my family. And I've come to also realize that while Cons are awesome fun and important at some point, they AREN'T writing.  

So we decided to try this - bring the family to AnthoCon. Of all the Cons I know, it's the most family-friendly, with a relaxed, laid-back atmosphere (I don't think Abby or Madi is ready for the wonderful freak-show that is Horrorfind). Plus, the folks of AnthoCon have very literally become a different kind of family, so it only makes sense that the two families meet, finally.

But I am a little nervous. Not so much about having the kids and Abby around. I'm not a partier, honestly, so it's not like I have to act completely different. I will need to tap out earlier both nights, simply because Abby needs me to help put the kids down, and I don't want to wake them up, sneaking back in the room at 2 AM, and that wouldn't be fair to Abby, besides.

I just hope it won't be...crazy. That the kids will react well, listen, and not be TOO disruptive. That Abby and I won't be frazzled, and we can enjoy the experience, as a family.

Because that's most important. Family. And a balance needs to be struck, somehow, between writing and family. Which is not to say I feel things have been OUT of balance, but that I've become much more focused on intentionally maintaining it the last year or so, because - just like with cars - preventative maintenance is far wiser, easier, and less costly than repairing unnecessary damage. 

So, we'll see how the Great Experiment goes.... 

Learning A Hard Lesson

So, I'm in the middle of learning a hard lesson. One which I thought I'd learned already, but apparently, because I'm stubborn and hard headed, I'll need to re-learn several more times before I finally get it.  But, that seems to be the way I am about a lot of things, so what can I do?

Anyway, for most the last year and a half, I've been working on a genre-blend featuring Billy the Kid and monsters. It's gone swimmingly the whole way, because I outlined it first. I was loving it, really enjoying myself and the writing process. I took a break to  write "And I Watered It, In Tears" for Lamplight, and "On A Midnight Black Chessie" for Crystal Lake's upcoming anthology, For the Night is Dark. This made for a very productive, enjoyable summer, and left me ready to dive back into Billy.

But an opportunity came to write a novella for a very esteemed small press. I jumped, because I had an unfinished novella I thought wouldn't be hard to bang into shape. And a novella wouldn't take long at all, I figured, and I'd be right back into Billy. 

Three months later, the novella sprawled into a novel because it felt "incomplete", then, after finishing a REALLY ramshackle first draft, the same thing happened that's happened A LOT to me when it comes to writing the novel:

It totally fell apart. 

I've been working on it pretty doggedly the last two weeks, trying to save it, brainstorming, rerouting the plot, redrafting characters....and coming up with nothing but a big hot mess. I've got a ton of decently written, disparate threads that won't gel, no matter what I do.  And I had to admit a very shameful thing to myself, this morning.

It's not working, not gelling, because I'm not writing a story that's DEMANDING to be written, I'm trying to take advantage of an opportunity, deliver like a professional, and write a story to get published by a really good publisher. 

Maybe I'm splitting hairs.

Maybe I'm acting like an amateur, when I should just "man up" and write something that this publisher will consider.  But I'm afraid that if I write something that I feel less than passionate about, ham-hand it, that could be even worse.

Bottom line: the last three days I've slept in. Haven't bothered to get up and write, and that's a bad sign. That means I'm not excited about the work, I'm not driven by the work to finish.

And, let's be honest: this was an opportunity, but there was no contract. Nothing official, no signatures on any dotted lines, just a "I'd love to read something by you."  Given that: if this thing isn't working, and I'm not excited about writing it, then I need to shelve it and turn back to something that's calling to me, something I outlined, that I feel passionate about.

So. I've emailed the editor, apologized, hopefully not looking like an idiot.

And I'm back to Billy the Kid, at long last.

And I'd like to say I've learned my lesson, finally. About only writing things that I feel driven to write. But, as I've said, I'm a slow learner....