Artwork tonight is freaking awesome – space bunnies! They look worried. I hope they’re okay. They probably are. Animals worry all the time it seems to me, so it’s probs just their default reaction to any noise. We have Greg Winters to thank for the wonderful weirdness.
It’s also weird that I’m writing tonight’s entry from my computer. ‘Twas a late night of work, dear readers. Long day. Late night. Continue to be shy of the daily work goals I’m setting for myself…but it’s really a function of the mantra “quality over quantity” and actually paying some goddamned attention to really good work other people are doing…and decoding that shit for myself. Breaking it down. Learning it all myself. That takes a little time. I ain’t scared. Once I figure shit out, I can be pretty fracking productive. Ira isn’t missing any deadlines, you feel me?
Not sure why the blog tonight is so sassy. I was really concerned that staying up late last night was really going to derail my day, and it did slightly in the morning, ie- I woke up a good half hour late, but I rallied!
Guys…today was a huge day on the writing front. First off, not only am I working solidly through 90 minutes straight of writing…after I stop and take a break, I’m itching to keep writing. This whole “set a routine” shit actually works. For reals. ACTUALLY. WORKS. Struggling with doing something consistently? Pick a time you know you won’t be interrupted, set a timer (low at first…I started, no joke, at 30 minutes), and force yourself just to do it for that tiny time at first, add more a little bit by little bit…and a few weeks later, you’ll be programmed. It’s automatic now. I FRIGGIN LOVE IT. Can’t start my day without it, and there’s literally no trying to get myself warmed up or “in the mood” – I’m there already.
Anyway…not only THAT…but I finally finished the rewrite of the first scene. I was procrastinating and tinkering, just knowing deep down that it wasn’t quite right. BUT. I *do* have my first page thesis. My quote that really kind of sums it all up. At least ONE aspect of the story. It’s about more than one thing…it’s about two. And I’ll tell you the one that (I think) I have figured out…
“Let no man stand between me and the stars.”
And fuck it, I’ll tell you the other one: “Family First.”
That’s it, y’all. Those are the two pillars of my novel. As Javi Grillo-Marxuach would term it, the “emotional core.” It’s been really important to me to have those pinpointed, I’ve realized. It’s where my plots and characters come from. The emotion comes first for me, and then everything else comes from that. For my next novel, for example, it was a specific scene that will eventually be boiled down to something like “but, I don’t know who I am if I let go.”
So, yeah, first scene rewrite is done for now. I have two more passes on it before I can let go of it (speaking of letting go). It feels significant because I get to go back to the written manuscript and mark up for a while with a red pen instead of rebuilding something from the ground up. And maybe on the way I’ll find a different way of tackling those sections that need fundamental rewrites, but for this first one, I just created a brand new document and started from the beginning. We’ll see what happens. All of this is for the first time. That’s definitely a theme of my life at the moment. In multiple aspects.
How much of our lives do we do that, right? Like, a lot. Doing stuff for the first time. Granted, there’s a lot too that we do over and over again, and I know there are things I’m doing right now for the first time that I hope to become a “master” at, which means I’ll have done them a ton…but at the same time, we are CONSTANTLY doing stuff for the first time. Like, new jobs, new places to live, homes, travels, bad things too like health problems and deaths, getting old, good things like finishing a novel for the first time, saving money, hearing music…every fucking day is a new frontier.
And by that I mean…maybe it’s not just a passing “phase,” this feeling like so much about my life is new…maybe I’m just paying attention.
‘Night, y’all. Today was a good day.
Finally…this little guy was too small to be the banner image for tonight’s entry, but it’s so friggin dope, I have to include it here. May not be the most successfully executed film in SciFi history…but, guys. That MARKETING DOE. Holy shit. If I were alive at the time, I’d have been SHITTING myself.
