by the Night Writer
Last year at about this time I announced that I was going to step back from regular blogging in order to see if I could apply the discipline and habits of more than three years of almost daily writing into something a bit more ambitious. The problem was that while I knew something inside of me was raising a rumpus to push myself farther and test my skills, I didn’t have a clear idea of just what it was I wanted or needed to do. Write fiction? If so, short stories or a novel? Research and write articles and commentary and try to sell these to print or on-line media? Compile the “Fundamentals in Film” series into a more polished curriculum?
All were good ideas but nothing really grabbed me as experimented with a few things and waited for the inspiration. As time went on, those blogging habits re-asserted themselves and I found myself drifting back into almost daily posting, and eventually even re-engineered the look of this blog. The desire, or inner unction, to do something never went away however and now I’m about to step out again, but with one big difference: I know what I’m going to do.
Over the past two or three weeks an idea has kept coming back to me, with additional details each time, and I started to see how a number of different things I’ve done over the past year or so that seemed unrelated now actually fit together. The ultimate fit, I think, will be a book and I’ve got a workable, even exciting, outline in mind to follow (and yes, Hayden, it will involve that particular post you’ve been waiting for). The only objective right now is simply to do it and leave the fate of those words in the hands of others, or just one other.
I can’t and won’t step away from this blog, however. I’ve seen that I need this fellowship, the interaction it offers, and the “laboratory” it provides. I’m thinking I may only post about once a week here as I spend my evenings mainly following my outline where it leads. I’ll still be reading a lot of blogs and commenting regularly to stay in the groove and I hope to put chapters of this larger work here for feedback. And while I’m excited to start a book, I’m already behind Tiger Lilly who has already finished writing one and has started at least one other (that I know about). I’ve been proof-reading her first book for her and offering observations on the inner logic of the world she’s created, but leaving the story, words and character development entirely to her. I need to get my work on her story finished as well.
As with my announcement last year, the lights will stay on here. I’ll post shorter things occasionally in response to the events or thoughts that interest me and where I think I might have something to add. Tiger Lilly will continue to offer her weekly cartoons and perhaps other written streams of red-bull-induced-consciousness. The Reverend Mother has expressed a desire to do more posting, and who knows when the Mall Diva will go on another cupcake-posting jag or some other flight of fashion or fancy. Meanwhile, the Son@Night may go neck and neck, or word for word, with Sly the Family Rat whenever one of them can find an unused keyboard. If you like this blog, and if you haven’t discovered this already, the RSS feed is your friend and you should sign up.
We have all been blessed and encouraged by the readers who come by here and my hope is that you will continue to visit regularly and comment abundantly.
Really? That idea is spawning a whole book? That’s…amazing! I’ll be the first one in line when it is publishes.
Glad you’re pursuing the book, NW. I suspect it will be great. You have plenty of talent on the blog so I suspect content won’t be a problem.
@ Hayden – it may well have been the impetus. It is one of several posts that I had started that were difficult to finish because I what I really needed was to create a context for where I was coming from and how it all fits into a larger world-view that many may find politically, spiritually and socially unorthodox (or not). That’s difficult to do in a single post. As these uncompleted expressions started to pile up I finally had the “ah-ha” moment when I realized the issue and the opportunity. I don’t think the end result will be shocking to regular readers, but I hope if will be more cohesive and less episodic. We’ll see where it ultimately ends up; I think there’s an element of Doug Adams’ description of how to learn to fly in play here — i.e., throwing yourself at the ground and missing!
@ Mr. D – You’re right, content shouldn’t be a problem; bringing it under control will be! (I think I may feel a bit like Annie Lennox in her “Little Bird” video).
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