Things have always been a bit slow around here, I will admit.
A large part of that is due to the fact that I, myself, am slow. I have a regular, 40-hour per week job that eats up most of my life, then there is family, then there are the myriad hobbies which jockey for turns in claiming the couple of hours or so I have each night before bed - a time that, like some creeping, time-gobbling glacier, inches earlier and earlier into the evening every year. Team Fortress 2 has not helped at all, and that is an understatement.
The short version is that I jump into a lot of different projects and they rarely get finished before another project comes along. At least projects offer the potential for in-progress updates and content.
What do you do when the project being worked on does really exist until it is finished? A story, for example?
I began writing what I thought was going to be a short story. Nevermet is putting together an anthology of short stories and, like with almost every other project they announce, I tried to get in on the action. But the story kept going ... and going. And going. It now currently sits at 15,467 words (shooting for at least 20k) and I think I'm halfway done with it.
I won't have the 50,000+ words publishers want to see for a novel. It will fall somewhere in or around the category of being a novella, depending on who you ask. A young adult novel, perhaps, though the content may not lend itself that demographic.
But what can I say about it? I don't want to give away plot or characters or anything that might be worth stealing - I'm paranoid like that - but I do want to draw in any potential readers' interest.
I read somewhere online (Peter Shallard or Lifehacker, I think) that if you tell people what you are working on, you are less likely to finish it. That the act of sharing some how equates to the act of finishing in our brains and gives us enough of a 'rush' that we grow bored or impatient with having to continue working on it and move on to the next project.
So why the heck am I writing this post? Have I shared too much? Does letting the few of you who know this blog exists what I've been up to put the whole story at risk?
I think (hope) it obligates me to finish.
But really, I'm writing this because, in my mind, I think I'm staying relevant. I feel like, by saying "I'm still here!" the few you who have this feed bookmarked (or whatever) will stick around to see what happens next, that this isn't just another exercise in vanity someone started and let fall by the wayside.
I WILL have something to offer. I just don't know what. Or when. So ... see you around?
