Sunday, August 26, 2007

Has It Been A Month?!



Golly, it seems a month has gone by since my last posting! That is probably my longest break yet since I started blogging. Well, I needed the break, and it's done me good.

I'm still on break, by the way, just stopping by to greet the world. I also visited some of the blogs I normally read, to take a gander at what all I've been missing out on. So much has been happening with those whose blogs I normally read (except I haven't the past few weeks). I'm amazed.

I guess a lot has been happening with me, too, during the past few weeks, but I'm such a tight-lipped individual when it comes to personal matters so I'm not likely to blog much about it. What is important and relevant where my blog is concerned is that I'll be getting back to work soon, on my blogging, and more importantly on my writing, and also trying to get word out about the Parallel Writing Project to see whether there is sufficient interest in it to establish an official start date.

Although I've been engrossed in many other things, I have kept my two novels in progress firmly in mind and have continued to reflect on them and seek answers to remaining plot questions. I think I'm almost ready to tie the last major issues down in THE REFLECTING STONE. The existing drafts address the various turning points and possibilities ... I just have a few options that I still need to choose between, mostly to do with narrative structure rather than actual plot.

I like to take the approach of thinking that a difficult question is actually a "no-brainer" and I look as quickly as I can to find the obvious best solution. I then spend additional time scrutinizing that solution and all others that presented themselves, looking for the pro's and con's, weighing things, until I can finally buy in to one or the other answer. That process can take a while, even if it starts out quickly. Usually by the time I make the final decision, I get back to "no-brainer" mode and tell myself whatever decision I make that it was a no-brainer all along and I really should have seen the answer clearly first-off and saved myself all the extra deliberation.

Well, the summer has definitely been a summer (and it's not over yet), which is nice because it contrasts with the winter, which was definitely a winter. The hot weather has been a welcome change after a nasty winter that seemed to drag on and on and on, and to kick back into gear for another storm each time it almost looked like it was turning into spring. I don't miss that. The miserable summer weather, however, has been little better, so I'll be happy when autumn rolls around. Guess I haven't liked the weather this year very much, a little too extreme for me, and with the recent flooding in the mid-west, worst in a century, it may not simply be my impression that the weather is getting a bit out of hand.

Best wishes to all those working on their novels. I'll be back at it, too, soon, in earnest, with a lot of catching up to do.

Adrian