Dragons and Badgers

 

 

 

 Ideas vie with one another like battling dragons in the ether. Or, another bad metaphor: Life is like the box for Schrodinger's cat, except it's full of angry badgers--which may be redundant because all badgers are angry, aren't they?-- and the box has a tear in it. It's only a matter of time before one or more of the live one comes scrambling out to demand attention.

First: At last chapter 21 is complete. What had been chapter 19 has been pushed to chapter 22, because once the writing begins, it must take a certain course to completion. Characters have to do what they have to do, and in their particular way and method. There are several balls in the air in book 6 of the Tomahawks and Dragon Fire Series, and sometimes the timing of the telling of each thread is relevant to the telling of the others. Meanwhile, we can't leave any thread cold too long or the reader will have forgotten the elements of the tension in that story line. I know where it's all going, but there are blank spots along the way to be filled in when I get there.

Second: The talk today went even better than I could've expected. The gentleman who spoke before me delivered a poignant talk that led into my subject, even though we had not consulted before hand. The wonderful poem he recited to begin his talk fit perfectly with my planned discourse. I was up late last night writing the talk from ideas I had been gathering for a at least a couple weeks. There were no casualties, and more than the usual number of folks commented on how much they appreciated the two talks. Although those words of praise and appreciation shouldn't matter, we all know that they do, and the way we feel about the discourse is affected by the feedback we receive. I'm grateful for all those who took the time and effort to convey those expressions.

Third: Can I write a short story? and get feedback from my team? and polish it for submission all within a week? I only found out in the last couple days about a call for short stories. The time is pretty tight, and I don't think any of the short stories I have in my portfolio quite fit the details of the call. I'll have to write fast. That reminds me of the meme I saw that said, "Being a writer is cool because it's like always having homework and then you die." I only managed a single paragraph yesterday as I used most of the time researching for the setting. I had two or three in mind, but discarded them in favor of something I had just learned about that morning.

There's a fourth, fifth, and sixth, but I haven't got the time to go into any more, and you would soon lose interest in reading about it all.

Both Threading the Rude Eye and Power to Hurt (links at the top of the page) are only 99 cents each. This is a great time to get them.