Hangovers

I got BLITZED last night. I usually never drink that much, and I honestly don't know how much I drank, though I know it involved Irish Car Bombs. I met up with Ben down to the pub early in the evening and I was happily surprised to see a bunch of guys from my Dad's side of the family, who I almost never see. It's moments like that when I realize a whole part of my life is missing. I grew up in a house with generations of my mom's side of the family. They raised me and that's pretty much all I've ever known; I felt like an alien a lot of the time because my interests, creativity, history, all things Irish, etc. are not theirs. But they are on my Dad's side. They're all poets, writers, artists and when we get together I feel a real sense of loss. But Ben and I hang out all the time, and maybe I can get to know them as well as I've gotten to know him.

There's a lot of things I'd like to go on about (300, the new Buffy comic) but I'm zonked from work and foggy from last night, so maybe it will wait a day. I have been writing. What I've been doing is revising, chapter by chapter, the second book of BDE (Big Damn Epic) as I prepare to start work on the third book. As my thoughts on that and the entire trilogy mature, I go back and refine the previous books to make a better whole. The first book is, I feel, I hope, finally at the point where I'm ready to let it go. It's been through five years of serious revision and evolution and it's as good a book as it's going to be. I know there are cosmetic things that will likely change, they always do, but it's ready and so am I.

The third book has been problematic in terms of structure for a while now, but the other day I had an epihany about it. I had a couple things floating around in my head; The Odyessy, and Buffy Season 8. The connection? Nothing really, other than I had been ruminating over the fact that Odysseus begins to narrate his own story in Book 9 and in Season 8, so does Buffy. Both are major shifts in narration, and that's what I realized was called for in the third book. Immediately the structure of the book unfurled in my head and I sat right down and wrote what are probably the three best opening sentences I've ever written. Since I've written the first five pages of the book, so I've been playing hokey from revising the second. But I'll go back. I don't intend to start full bore on book three - unless the mood takes me, I guess. Good lord.

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