Call me a bad blogger. Go ahead! I deserve it. The truth doesn't hurt, at least in this case. Can't say the same for others and I've got the scars to prove it. But if you want to learn the answer to the universal WHY of it all, it's because, well, I've been busy.
At long last, loves, I have completed the first draft of a L-O-N-G gestating project, one that has taken me 22 mother-lovin' years to complete. In the last year, I made a final attempt to reach the finish line and, as of a week ago, I done, done, done it. Since I hand-wrote everything initially, it came down to 18 notebooks and Buddha knows how many notes of varying sorts from scribbled on scratch paper to a half dozen mini cassette tapes to who knows how many files on my laptop.
I can confirm that it was 22 years ago because I noted the date in the front notebook numero uno: June 25, 1997. (It's not called Cheap Thrills any longer) Actually, this project goes back even further when I first conceived of the story back in the late 70s. Back then, it began as a screenplay and hasn't wavered from that conceit one iota. I've always envisioned it as a film and that, above and beyond a finished novel, is the main goal. Whether it crosses that finishing line is only a matter of me.
"What's taking so long?" you might ask if you gave a fig. Once again, it's a matter of me. I could go into the whys and what-fors of what-wasn't-supposed-to-be-but-has-become my life's work, but that would be a self-confessional that you wouldn't want to read and I wouldn't want to write. In other words, boring as H-E-DOUBLE-HOCKEY-STICKS. And nothing more boring than that. Besides, it's not like I haven't done anything in all that time. I have a few books and plays under my belt. So there.
This one, however, is THE ONE. Hence, all caps to stress my point. But time waits for nobody and if I don't get on the ball, it's going to THE NONE. This last year has been a struggle. I've lost my way more than once, writing a little here, a lot there until I got near the conclusion when it all seemed to drag me down into the ground. I almost gave up, sometimes several times in one day. But I persevered and now I have something to show for it all. I've taken every opportunity I could in the past 12 months to reach this particular goal, missing deadline after deadline that I set for myself, writing whenever and wherever I could. sometimes only ten minutes at a time at home, at the library, at the library at work and even in my car. I told myself that if I wrote one sentence, one paragraph, one page, it was more than I had before.
Enough of patting myself on the back. I have to get back to work.
Oh, wait. What's the book about?
Sorry to be so bloody cagey about this. I am protecting this thing like the last of an endangered species. I'm not ready for the big reveal yet. I have too much to do until then. I will give you a few nuggets, even though I am trepidatious to do so. Let's just say it involves a low budget funeral home and the things we do for love. Can that please be enough for now?
I'll close this exercise in paranoia to say that I've reached the end of the beginning. The beginning of the end is to be continued.
Save your breath. I'll say it for you.
What a weirdo.
Needless to say (like everything else in this post)...
TO BE CONTINUED
