Six Year Blogiversary

That's right. I starting blogging on May 26th, 2004. It was the run-up to the presidential election and my wife had heard enough from me on the subject, but I wasn't done. It's harder to blog about politics now that it used to be. I started out with the typical aspirations of the time, thinking I might develop an audience, but that was never the important part. I just had things to say and needed a place to say them. I still have quite a bit to say, but politics these days is just a bit too depressing. Writing about it just bums me out. That and I'm directing my literary impulses elsewhere.

On the brighter side, I'm well into chapter 10 of my novel - something like 370 manuscript pages (that's what BH calls them. I call them double-spaced 12pt font pages, but what do I know?). One thing I didn't expect in the process of writing was how often I'd have to go back and change what I'd already written before proceeding. By this I don't mean basic editing - I definitely knew there was a lot of that ahead. I'm terrible at self-editing and am very fortunate that Brazen Hussy is willing to read the first draft. No, what's been something of a shock is that flow of the story takes you someplace that you don't like or doesn't make sense and you have to go back and change that flow (kind of like time travel). Or you come up with a very good idea but need some background elsewhere. I suppose I could just make a note and make changes like that at the end, but I'd be afraid of forgetting what it was I meant to do. At least now I know where all those silly continuity errors I read in books come from.

So for example, I wrote half of the current chapter but then decided that it was pretty limp and lifeless. So I went back to the previous chapter, made a few changes, and then started over. I'm going to hold onto my first version (I might have a use for those scenes later), but the second one is bubbling along happily. At times I've encountered that strange feeling that the characters are writing themselves - that rather than inventing something I'm just narrating what I see. A couple of days ago I was writing about a confrontation and I had no idea what was going to happen next. It's not that I hadn't decided what was going to happen - it's that I had to keep writing to find out! Very weird stuff.

Kind of like this blog, I suppose. I never know what I'm going to write about next here either.