Well, I finished the story finally. It is, for now, called "Except the Weather" and is just over 22 pages long. Yikes. I have not posted it to the website because it is really really rough and because I may hate it. Perhaps I'm just a bit prejudiced because it took so much of my time. Also, it dredged up some memories (not in the story itself) that have made me pause to think.

So then I didn't really feel like writing for a couple of days and whined about it in my journal. Then last night, I started making some notes for the e-book I wanted to write about writing (this for my students). I realized that I had been putting that off and that I'll be back in school in less than a month. I'm am looking to put together a short (hopefully) book that is part how-to, part encouragement, part my philosophy about the art and importance of writing. Many of the "chapters" will be made up of handouts and presentation materials I've already done for my class. Anyway, I had hoped to have something put together for my students when classes began, so I could put it on the class webpages and refer to it through out the semester. Today I wrote about five pages on it. I worked on an introduction, a chapter about the general practice of reading and writing and part of a chapter about active reading. It is all draft stuff, really rough, but it felt good to get it out.

The good news is that I also wrote over 700 words on the novel, finishing the eighth chapter. I was beginning to feel that I might not get back to it. I even jotted a couple notes about the next couple chapters. Now, if I can only get back to a regular schedule!

But alas! Tomorrow we go to Six Flags for the twins' birthday. But I'm not going to be discouraged, at least not today.

I have been a having a bit of frustration writing lately. I probably have written more this summer than last, but I just am not where I want to be. I was writing each morning on the new novel, but got sidetracked. Sadly, much of the writing was by hand and I still need to type it in. But somewhere in the middle, perhaps because I was getting stuck on the novel, I started working on a short story. This dang thing should have been drafted in a day or two, but I'm still on the tenth page and haven't finished the draft. So I'm a bit crazy trying to get it done.

Have been writing a lot by hand and typing it in later. This is good, as I said before, for revision, but is lousy for time.

Speaking of time, I need to get back to it.

Well, it has been over a month since my last blog. We finally have a computer at home and so I am hoping I can be more productive. Have written most days, but much has been my hand. The means I have to type in what I write. That has been great for revision, but tough on the carpel tunnel.

Have been working mostly on a new novel. I'm in chapter eight of the draft, but have run into some snags. Things were steady but very slow for a couple of days and I ran into the some conflicts with my writing schedule. So I haven't really been back to the thing for several days. In the interim -- and I suspect this is a problem -- I decided to write a short story based on what my family calls "The alligator story." Thought I could whip out a draft in an afternoon, but the problems with the hands made it very difficult. Now I have typed what I had done by hand and I'm up about the ninth page, but have still not gotten to the alligator itself. I suspect I will have to take a great deal of time to revise this story.

I did revise a story and it should be posted to the site pretty soon. (Tried to update the site today, but only managed to upload the darn thing.) It is called "The Box" for now. I really think it should have another title, but so far nothing. My wife likes the title. The story is one of several I want to write about my Wilson Bell character during the time before my novel about him is set.

Have been trying to be very aggressive about submitting work for publication. Last week I probably sent, either via email or regular post, a couple dozen poems and several stories and essays. Got news today three haiku of mine are now on the web at Emoments. That's pretty exciting in that it really is a first to me (though a haiku sequence of mine --not all that good-- was published several years ago) and I like the stuff I've read on this site.

Well, better go for now. Peace. "He who will not work shall not eat" (Saint Paul to the Thessalonians).