(keep in mind that i am going on day five of wintry sequester. i've been typing out reams upon reams of my next novel while my son drives his big wheel across miles of carpet and tile... er, wait.)
anyway, i navigated through a page that i often (as in every single other time i pass it) ignore. however, at this particular moment i decided to give it a gander.
159.
that's the number of page views i have had in the past month! and, as any budding novelist daydreaming in the mirror about his conversation with Oprah would do; i freaked.
159. that's like more than the number of people i know. that means the real world is out there looking in. and here i am posting worthless banter and undercapitalized compositions!
egads man! why didn't somebody tell me i looked ridiculous in this blog?
so, there you have it. my fifteen seconds in the spotlight and i spent it ruminating on how badly my rumination looks in the spotlight.
the flip side is that i can't go anywhere but up now, right? i mean, if i can get 159 people to look at this stuff, then what would happen if i actually got my act together and started really writing? who knows? i might even get up to 160!
***
in other news, i have started a new short story. typical of most writing that i start, the story takes a life of its own on and i find myself two chapters in wishing i had a different beginning. i am planning on rewriting what i have so far, mostly because now i actually know what's going on. the other reason i am going to edit the fledgling work is that i have been reading (i know: crazy, huh?) a book called "how to write a sentence"*.
oh, har har, i get it; it's about time, right? well the truth is the book spends almost no time on grammar, but rather waxes eloquence on the gestalt of the sentence and its multifaceted--
why yes, as a matter of fact, i am a nerd--thank you very much.
anyway, the book inspired a new take on my story. which, i am glad to say, was an improvement on the current prose. here's a peek at what i had, in case you're interested:
The summer rain
soaked the driveway slowly with timid, yet relentless, drops. This rain had
persisted through the year. Like a bad set of curtains way too much money was
spent on; it was always in the background, nagging, reminding.
The grey hue of
the rain seemed to muddle everything. Its drab color muted the mood of everyone
in Derrington. No one could quite remember when the rain first started. In
fact, no one really talked about the rain. At least, not the way you would talk
about the surprising number of birds in the air, or how odd it was that no one
says hello when passing on the street anymore.
The truth was
that the rain was everywhere in their
speech. Phrases and idioms were sprinkled through their dialect. What the
residents of Derrington spoke was saturated with “wet-talk”. But, just like the
rain itself, the ubiquity of something made it invisible. Even the constant
drone of the rain on the paved walkways and tin roofs throughout the town
became nothing more than a cacophony of white noise. It was just loud enough to
ignore but too quiet to forget.
Tyler pounced
the particularly irksome puddle that had taken up residence just outside her
doorstep. Stopping for only a moment, she lifted her foot and removed the maple
leaf plastered halfway up the side of her knee high boot. She flicked it out
into the soggy yard as she lifted the overworked metal of the door handle with
her thin white fingers. Pausing only long enough to glance at a cat running
from tree to tree, she pressed against the oak door with her shoulders as if
nestling into the arms of her mother.
The new direction will lose a huge amount of the description and disseminate it throughout the rest of the story. This might prove to be a worthy story after all. i am thinking of it as book three of the Wonder Series (not that that is overly branded or anything...) but i do have a new take on the WS. or maybe a new way of saying what has always been the point of it: it is a series of stories that follow the trajectory of my writing life. the first two were written ages ago. this one is obviously current. but they all have the same quasi-mystical element that revs my creative engine. hopefully the complete series will end in a reanimation of my writing talent (dormant or dead, depending on who you ask) and prime me to be ready to entertain my 159 readers more effectively.
either way, it's a good way to keep me from chasing down my family in a snowy maze.
*lo, is that a real link? why yes. yes it is. that's right, folks: the first legitimate link here on terribly witty. and to think you saw it first on, uh, well...on terribly witty... man, i suck.
