• Sleeping Wide Awake

    Twenty-One

    Since BEST FRIEND died, I’ve struggled to write. There have been other things that have gone on, other discouragers that have accumulated collectively, but her death was it – THE BIG ONE. If not the biggest one. This blog was (and is) an attempt to reignite the spark in my imagination, but also the passion to write, because all of it nowadays seems largely (if not spectacularly) meaningless. (As an aside, the most recent book I’ve had published, This [MidnightSun Publishing 2023], was actually originally written in 2016, then revised periodically, with the biggest redraft occurring at the KSP Retreat in March 2020, right before Covid crippled the world.) I’ve…

  • Sleeping Wide Awake

    Seventeen

    Here’s my writing journey – and it applies to all forms I’ve written in: short stories, screenplays, and novels. But I’ll use novels as the model. I’ll write a novel, revise, submit. Rejection. I’ll submit again. Rejection. And again. Rejection. I’ll revise again and again and again. Submit. Rejection. Submit elsewhere. Rejection. Submit all around. I might get a nibble here, a request for the whole manuscript, or a glowing personalized rejection, but a rejection all the same. Rejection. Then, after getting over the initial frustration and wanting to quit writing, I’ll start a new book, and vow that this one will be different. This book will be THE ONE.…