Tripping Over the Starting Line

First day of school. Which puts this novel at exactly two years, based on this moveable feast. Wow! Can’t say that I expected to be here still – at least not with the same novel. This novel-writing thing really is harder than it looks…

Despite possible appearances (i.e. the thinness of blog entries in the last several months…), I haven’t abandoned the project. I have been picking away at it though over the summer, including some fairly long stints the last couple of nights. I see it forming, all these gaseous ideas slowly spinning and coming together to make plotlines and themes and hooks. I’ve been rewriting, adding new scenes, chopping old ones, and rearranging events so that they’re tighter and make more sense. It really does feel like making a sculpture, except that instead of just taking stone away, I can add more stone where I need it, and even shift a bit here or there.

In other news: I have a cover design in mind (should I self-publish) and a title. Can’t share those with you yet, but I can say “soon”… Once I have a working draft that I can pass out to select readers, I’ll be sharing more of the details about the story, the title, and more.

New target date: Christmas 2012 for a reading copy. Not promising, but definitely working towards it.

So what’s left to say but Happy New Year!

~Graham