Interim Musings

Hi.

Still hard at work on chapter thirty. This final outing is going to be quite a beast. I believe this is the first chapter I've ever written that has required its own outline.

Why was an outline necessary, you ask? Well the scope of what I'm attempting is a little broader than previous chapters. I have had two to three part chapters before, but this one is five distinct parts. I actually contemplated splitting this one into three or four chapters, but I liked the idea of having everything under one banner "Lost in the House of Endless Dreaming". I love the title of chapter thirty so much, I nearly renamed the book after it.

In other news, I have become very tired of my job. Mostly because I want my job to be writing. I wake up every morning, get to work on something, then have to leave it way too soon to be at Best Buy.

I've been realizing lately I'm really out of touch with the writing world in a lot of ways. I was thinking about my favorite books from 2010, and like every year they're all Ted Dekker books. In all other ways, I'm not really keeping up with current trends at all.

I haven't decided if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I worry sometimes about my stories being seen as rip-offs of pre-existing work, through no fault of my own, simply because I didn't know this story or that already existed. But at the same time, I have no desire to be affected by what sort of stories the rest of the world is telling. I want my craft to have as little influence as possible, to create purer experience, more "me".

It's a fascinating conundrum... but in the end it's got to be a happy medium. I can't be fully sheltered from the world, nor do I entirely want to be. I love to experience others' stories, and sometimes I need them to keep me going. When I get so into a book I can't put it down... it reminds of what I'm looking for in my own stories, that breathless experience that can't be put into anything other than a carefully constructed house of words.

As I near the end of my nine month (and counting) journey writing That Hideous Slumber, I must admit sometimes I wish I could sequester myself away in some far off house on the beach. However, I'm also glad to be able to labor in coffee shops and bookstores and libraries, and my little desk in my bedroom. I am surrounded by all the things that make our daily lives what they are. Work, family, friends, 3D movies, traffic jams, crowded restaurants, netflix, mutinies, cute baristas, rebellions, personality clashes, beer, card games, misunderstandings, victories, prayers, coffee, celebrations.

All some of things that can make a story so fascinating. Little moments and details, and massive world changing events all intermingled into a ridiculously difficult to get the hang of hodgepodge that no one ever fully figures out.

The beautiful, confusing mess we call life.