Bookshelf Battle

Hello 3.5 Readers,

My stories are my children so I am loathe to refer to one of them as “my best” or “my favorite.”

Since I actively started blogging in 2014 (in the hopes doing so would inspire a career as a novelist) the ideas have been flowing into my head non-stop. Many of them are ideas I’ve had for years. Others brand new.

The sad part is I’m not sure there will be enough time for me to ever tell you all of them. Thus, picking which story to work on the most, or rather, which “kid” to put on display (I guess I’m an obnoxious pageant mother if we’re keeping up with this analogy) depends on a gut feeling of a) what I feel I will be able to produce given the limits on my free time and b) what the audience might enjoy.

So while I’m loathe to say one of my “story kids” is better than the other, let’s just say I have, for a long, long time now, been working on a story whose artwork really, really deserves a plum spot on the old fridge.

But…out of all my story ideas, it’s the most complex.  I don’t really want to get into the details but there’s a lot of moving parts.

I’ve tried various drafts.  It’s very complicated. There are a lot of characters and a lot is going on. There’s trickery and intrigue. It’s not all that funny like my usual stuff is but it is an idea that’ll make you think.

And honestly, it is also bizarre and unusual, so the general public might have some different thoughts about it.  Some of you might think it’s brilliant. Others may read it and think I need to be on meds.

I actually don’t think its an idea that could have been pursued a decade or two ago, what with changing social norms and all.

But…it’s so complicated that after various drafts I just told myself maybe this idea has to wait until I’m a better writer, or at least until I figure out how to approach it better.

Time does indeed help.  Sometimes you can hit a wall with a story, put it away, and after awhile, it dawns on you how to leap over that wall in a way that banging your head against that wall would have never achieved.

After attempting a number of drafts and finally, after giving my brain that simmer time, my gut tells me the story is so complicated that it can really only be told through a series of at least 7 novels.

That’s 7 novels with sort of “story arc” of their own that build upon one another until the climax in the 7th.

That’s a lot for a guy who’s never published one novel.  So ultimately, that’s why I pursued other projects.

Currently, I’m working on Pop Culture Mysteries.  That’s also my kid.

Sticking with the kid analogy, Pop Culture Mysteries is a good boy.  He does his homework and helps with the dishes and wears a clean shirt on picture day.

The other idea, also my kid, is like an emo goth kid that I have to listen to all of his problems and though I have no clue how to help him, try to do so anyway.

But enough of the analogies.

I guess my whole point with this post is that writing has made me aware more than ever about how little time I have left in the grand scheme of things.

I work.  In my spare time, I tend to life’s necessities. I have others I have to help. Then if I get an hour a day to write I’m lucky.

Thus, 1 book a year is possible…2 a year is the only way I’ll get anywhere but I’m not sure its possible.

I got sick over Christmas and stayed in bed for 2 days, binge watching TV. It’s the first time I’d done anything like that all year.  Normally, I go to work, do all the other stuff I need to do, then write.

I woke up so rested Sunday that it made me realize perhaps, just health wise, I do need to stop and goof off more.  But I hate to.  Because then that’s even less writing time.

I know.  This post made no sense.

In an attempt to make it make sense, let me say that if you folks dig my first couple of books i.e. Pop Culture Mysteries then at some point I might be motivated to wrack my brains on a very complicated, flow chart requiring mind bending 7 novel series.

That only 3.5 people will read.