Saturday, October 12, 2013

Of Endings and Having Completed Projects

by
Scott D. Parker

Again, not a huge week of writerly things to pass on. I'm still making progress on the ending of my second book of the year. My major Lesson Learned to come out of this project (and I'll write more on it later) is this: know the ending before you start. The events that I had planned out when I started this project is going to end up being the epilogue. Yeah, really. Sheesh. So, this week, I laid down the tracks for my ending and my locomotive is lumbering over them. The good thing is that I can now see the ending, but I ain't there yet. Next week?

My wife is a jewelry artist and we attended the opening reception of the new program at Hanson's Gallery situated smack dab in the middle of Houston's Galleria shopping district. Naturally, conversations are had between random folks and I engaged in a few. As always, I really enjoy showing my pride at my wife and her work, but this event had a little something for me, too.

One of the folks who work at the gallery started talking to me and, naturally, talk turned to work. I did my usual thing: I'm a tech writer during the day and I write fiction at night. When prompted about what I've written, fiction-wise, for the first time, I was able to say "Actually, I've written three novels and nearly a dozen short stories." (I figured I could 'round up' and say I'd finished the third novel; shhh, no one need know I'm not quite done.)

You need to realize two things that fed directly into that conversation and the sheer positive tone of the conversation. One is the year 2013. This is the year in which I've learned what it takes to produce content on a regular basis. It is liberating and oh so joyful. The other thing was a conversation I had with some of my wife's family back in 2010. That would be the middle of my non-writing slump. When asked about new work back then, I had to come up with some stupid reasons why I had *not* written anything. It was pretty humiliating, so it was nice to have the opposite occur. Now, I need to get cracking and get this content out there because I'm being asked about it on a regular basis or else I'll have a different type of explaining to do. Please know: I'm working on it. When the rollout happens, everyone will know.

Fun Things


Bill Crider has a new pulp story out: Among the Anthropophagai! A Story of Gorillas and Gasbags. Seriously, with a title like that, how can you not spend the dollar to read this really fun story? It's a blast.

The Making of Return of the Jedi by J. W. Rinzler arrived in my mailbox this week. Rinzler's in-depth coverage of the making of all three Star Wars films is now complete. I've glanced through this tome and boy, is it drool inducing. As always, the concept sketches are the great alternate reality. Can it really be thirty years?

Breaking News


With this morning's writing, I have reached THE END on my second novel of the year! 72 days, 115,500 words. Definite Lessons Learned, but I'll get to them next week. Tonight, pop the champagne and celebrate! Question now is: do I continue the writing streak or let it break? It stands at 138, every day since Memorial Day. Tune in next week to find out the answer.

3 comments:

Photographe à Dublin said...

Many congratulations on your current success.
Only people who have not tried writing would probe a writer on lack of productivity, or so it seems to me.
I know better than to ask novelists how things are going...

Dana King said...

Congratulations on completing Number 2. (Wait, that didn't come out right.) Whether you continue the existing streak or take a few days to catch your breath, you now have a much better idea of what you need to sustain momentum. That may be as valuable as completing the book, in its way.

Scott D. Parker said...

Photographe à Dublin - Thanks for reading and the praise. I visited another jewelry show with my wife today and was able to say "I just finished my second one today."

Dana - Agreed on the knowledge. And my list of Lessons Learned with #2. Been thinking about the next story...which will be shorter! Got a new character I created back in May and I want to see what he does next.