The 9th Draft

Last night I finished the 9th and final (maybe) draft of Festival Madness. The oldest date in the folder is from 2002, and I believe I actually began the writing of the book in 2004 after returning from Burning Man. Two and a half years is no time at all for me and a book.

At the time, I was still working mega hours per week. I must have had a story in mind, because I began smack in the middle of the book and wrote the Burning Man scenes while the desert was still fresh in my mind. That was a good but weird idea. After the characters returned from Burning Man, I wrote the beginning, which also started at a festival. Of course this week I rewrote the beginning about 16 times. Those beginnings are hell.

Once the beginning had joined up with the Burning Man section, I wrote the last (what turned out to be half) of the novel. I don't recommend such an odd progression, but it worked for me. Somewhat more work involved that beginning at the beginning.

I know someone who at least plots from the ending, and works his way backword, asking, what would have to happen to make this happen? Writers do it whichever way they can, the most important part being "Plant Butt in Chair."

It's always a little sad to finish. The writer has lived with the book so long, obsessing over all the details. The other problem, is "on to the next," which in my case has been fraught with wheel-spinning and indecision.

Now I have three books for sale, and although I haven't flogged Festival Madness yet, the idea of promoting one book and trying to sell three others while writing a 5th is somewhat overwhelming. And depressing.

There are two books I want to write, neither calculated to be easy to sell. "They" say"write what you love," but that hasn't been a stellar idea to date.

So I don't know what I'm doing. I thought: maybe take a writing class, but a novel class expects you to at least have a novel started.

Write short stories? Maybe. Lots of ideas.

The longer one is away from writing, the harder it becomes. There's nothing worse than picking up something that's been lying fallow for six months. Unless it's been fallow for evening longer. Is "fallow" a word anyone uses?

So "que faire?" as we used to say in French class. Come January, I'll have to decide. Not to decide is, after all, to decide.

I'm finished with crime fiction for a while. Unless, of course, I get a wonderful awful idea.

Toujours,

Grapeshot