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Wednesday Morning Ramblings

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I don’t know if other writers experience this, but as I’m moving into the final section of my fifth manuscript (book four of the Brotherhood series), I find that as I near completion of each rough draft, I become completely consumed by the book.  All of my thoughts and feelings become centered around finishing the work, and everything else in my life becomes peripheral.  It’s not a healthy feeling, either, and is probably the one thing about writing I dislike.  I want to hear from my writer friends on this.  Do you experience this same tunnel vision phenomenon, or am I just a freak?

Over the last week, I’ve gotten to write two scenes that have been in my head for several years.  It’s an odd sensation to finally complete something that I’ve carried for so long.  While I’m glad to be reaching this point of the series, I’m also a little sad to be done with those scenes.  It’s somewhat like saying goodbye to an old friend who you know you won’t see again.  Still, I’m grateful to have reached this point.  There have been many times when I doubted I would, so I’ll say goodbye to those scenes and move on to the next.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the rough draft.  It needs a lot of polishing and shaping, but the overall story feels pretty intense to me, and I think a couple of the twists will please most of my readers.  There are still about four and a half chapters to write, and little time to write them before school starts back, but I feel confident that I can get it done.  Others things in my life may suffer somewhat, but I want to make this deadline more than I can express in words.  Books two and three went through so many delays that I need to get this one out on time just to feel that sense of accomplishment, so my apologies if I don’t write too many blog entries over the next few weeks.  For those of you who read my books, I feel confident that it will be worth it.

General Posts

Thursday Morning Ramblings

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The Galt House

For now, I’m only going to focus on the positive that occurred in Louisville.  Later on, I’ll vent about the negative.

For starters, The Galt House is a pretty nice place.  Because I had the boys and my niece with me, I got a suite with two queen beds.  Collin and Finn had never seen a suite before, and as we entered the room, both of them lit up like torches with excitement.  All weekend, they referred to the room as our apartment.  Their reactions to the room was worth the trip up there, and they had a great time playing in the pool and hanging out with Bri.

Bri taught Collin how to swim.

I also got to see many old friends and catch up with them.  I don’t want to name anyone specifically for fear of leaving out a few, but if you and I spent some time hanging out and chatting last weekend, please know I enjoyed talking to you.  I met several authors, as well, a handful of them fairly big names in the business, and enjoyed the opportunity to learn from them on panels and listen to their perspectives on the craft.  A huge round of applause needs to go to Stephen Zimmer for organizing such a robust and diverse literary track.  The quality of the track was top-notch.

Other than spending time with the boys and watching Collin pull his own loose tooth, the highlight of the weekend for me was getting to see John Rhys-Davies again and give him the new version of my series.  I had met him back in 2005 when Brotherhood was in its infancy and I was a fledgling self-published author.  He was kind enough back then to allow me to snap a few publicity photos, so I wanted to give him the new version as a way of saying thanks.  Once again, he was kind and gracious, showing genuine interest in my successes as a writer and thanking me for the gift.  We only got to speak for a couple of minutes, but I was grateful for the chance to thank him for what he did back in 2005.

Like I said, I’ll vent later.  For now, I’ll relish the positive and take solace in the fact that my sons enjoyed the weekend.

My section of the Seventh Star Press booth.
General Posts

Friday Night Ramblings

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Here’s an update on the farm.  These pics won’t really do justice to how hard I’ve worked the last three days to accomplish this, but it’s the best I can do.

The newest cabin for the mushroom grove.
From left to right, elm, ironwood, and maple. The elm and ironwood logs are from the trees that fell on the spring house. The maple ones are from the first fresh tree I cut on the hillside yesterday.
The second maple from the hillside, about 26 feet long. Should produce six to seven more logs for the cabin.
The bottom of the slope I dragged the trees down. The path goes up for several hundred feet.
A shot of the hillside. Not sure it really captures the height and steepness of the hill, but the view from up there is pretty nice.
My favorite shot of the cabins.

There are still three or four trees to get from the hill, but I started with the two highest.  I figured that would make the others seem easier.  There are two more maples, at least two more ironwoods, and one elm that are the right size for harvest.  I’m only taking out what I need for the cabins and am trying to minimize the damage to the young growth.  I want to keep that hillside as natural and unblemished as possible.  The other hill will eventually be cleared more because it faces south and should be good for certain crops.

Cutting those two trees and getting them down the hill was backbreaking work and took a lot out of me, but the feeling of satisfaction is worth it.  Once we have enough logs for five or six cabins, we’ll begin the inoculation process.  With any luck, in the spring, we’ll have fresh mushrooms ready for market.  Eventually, we plan to have about 36 cabins total, but it will take some time to get there.  Once that’s rolling, we should have a fairly steady supply.  I’m pretty excited about it.

Working on the farm and writing book four have been amazing experiences this summer.  For the first time in many, many years, I feel like I’ve found my place.  My goal is to make both of these endeavors my full-time professions over the next couple of years.  Working on the land nourishes my creative spirit, and writing feeds my soul.  I’m grateful to have had the time to do both this summer.