Jeffrey Ricker's Blog, page 68

Twelve down…

…three to go.

The third draft needs to be done by the end of the month. The further I wade into it, the less I'm revising, and the more I'm writing completely new. When I set out on the third draft, I went from third person to first person, and an important event that happened at the end of the book moved to chapter one. Those changes rippled throughout the entire story until I've reached the point I'm at now, where most of what I wrote in the second draft just needs to be tossed out and...

When I think about pain

I've been thinking a lot about pain the last couple of weeks, mainly because I've got a lot of it. (Please note, this is not a desperate plea for sympathy or solicitation for advice on treatment–I really *have* been thinking about this.)

I'm experiencing a recurrence of the leg pain I had back in 2003 when I herniated a disc in my lower back (longtime readers may recall I chronicled that experience on an earlier blog that is thankfully no longer online because, hell, I was wallowing in...

Sign on the dotted line

The one highlight from an otherwise atrocious week was getting the contract for my story "Lifeblood," which is going to be published this November in Blood Sacraments. And that seems about as good a reason as any to crack open the bottle of champagne I'm now drinking. Another good reason would be the book I'm now reading: an advance copy of Missouri, which is coming out in May from Arsenal Pulp Press. It's a slim volume at only 133 pages, and I'm already 50 pages in. It's galloping along...