The Novel Idea

I’ve been asked about my writing a lot lately. Many of my friends are trying to convince me to republish my first two books that are now out of print and finally publish the sequence to my first book that is finished, but not edited as of yet. Some know of another project I was working on a couple years ago that I placed on the back burner.

I admit that I do feel guilty for not keeping up with my novel life, but this blog is serving me as an excellent outlet for my writing right now.

Writing for me is a ritual; an all consuming ritual. I can hammer out a blog article in a couple minutes and then it’s over. Some days when I have the time and the inspiration I can write five or six articles and then I can go about my life.

Writing a book on the other hand is a different story. I can relate to Philip Roth in his book The Ghost Writer where he said he starts writing after breakfast. He doesn’t like what he’s written so he re arranges the words in the sentence. Then he puts them back. Then he replaces some words and then rearranges them. When lunch time rolls around he crumples the pages with the sentence on it and throws it in the waste basket. After lunch he begins the process again.

For me to write fiction again I may have to rent an office away from home. I may have to sequester myself there like a veil. I need just a small room with me, a comfy chair, a computer and maybe a cat. That’s what it may take for me to get back into the fiction business.