A large cup of Dancing Goats in my hand (should have made it two, so I could double-fist the goat-dancing caffeinated goodness), I am presently trying to get myself into a work-related state of mind - and failing, mostly. The above quote is of course from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, when Earthling Arthur Dent has first his house and then his planet destroyed, all on a Tuesday morning. Although Monday tends to draw the wrath of the general public these days, Tuesday is considered a day of ill omen as well, especially by the Greeks, who have regarded the second day of the workweek as bad news ever since losing Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks on a Tuesday way back in 1453. So at least I have company!
The writing sample below is a little bit of creative fluff that I banged out for a fantasy roleplaying game that I narrate online in my abundant free time. For a long time, the game was my only creative outlet, as I wrote with wild abandon for an audience of three to five people; and although I must have tallied up hundreds of pages of original material, all the while it didn't really occur to me that my that energy could conceivably be redirected towards other projects, should I choose to do so. After I started doing just that, I lost interest in telling the story of the game for a while, only to find myself returning to it recently when I noticed that the plot of "Confessions" was taking me headlong into the same region of my make-believe world (albeit about twenty years earlier- the young protagonist of the novel is actually a bit part in the game, all grown-up and back to the old haunts of yesteryear to exorcise a personal demon or two). Now there's a kind of synergy between the two endeavors. Whereas before I feared that writing for the game was hampering my ability to write elsewhere - and perhaps it was true then - now these little "flights of fancy" are inspiring me.
My creativity is no longer a zero-sum game. The more I write, the more I want to write, and I enjoying taking every opportunity I can now to hone my craft. And since what I write for the game would likely otherwise never see the light of day beyond my inner circle of friends and fellow gamers, why not share it here? I think I will cross-post these tidbits more often, if I'm particularly pleased with how they turned out. I do hope you enjoy them!
(In other writing news, I took advantage of a bout of insomnia last night to edit "Keeper" at long last, and "Confessions" is at 63k. Hopefully I'll get a chance to pile on another thousand words or so this evening on the commute back home after I teach my classes - that is, if I don't fall asleep on the train...)
Another thing I've been doing of late that I wasn't really doing before is reading fiction. Again, the feeling that I only had time for one activity - in this case reading or writing - has given way to a manic burst of book-devouring in the cracks of my day while I'm home with my daughter. When she naps, I read. Sometimes I can make my way through a whole book between her midmorning and midafternoon naps! This week I was able to finish The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, which I loved, even though I've read that many critics and Stephen King fans regard it as a throwaway novel. Maybe they're not Red Sox fans? After all, most of those book reviewers do live in New York City. I also voraciously tore through Isaac Asimov's Second Foundation, a cleverly-constructed puzzle of crosses and double-crosses that on this my second time through read more like a mystery novel than sci-fi; and consumed the darkly imaginative and visually stunning second volume of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, which I simply couldn't put down upon starting until I'd read the whole danged thing.
The more I read, the more I want to read; and the more I want to write as well. At this rate, I'm either going to hit escape velocity or burn up in the atmosphere - either way, at least something spectacular is guaranteed!
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