Getting Started

Sunday, March 6, 2011- Long Beach, CA

A busy day. I recorded a bunch of tests, wrote a lecture, worked out, and went over to Krishna Copy over on Palo Verde and got three manuscripts bound -and this on my day off! The reality is I don't have any days off. My work schedule is INSANE. (For example: on Mondays and Wednesdays I leave the house at 6:15 in the morning and get home around 11:00 at night, and then I'm back up at 5:15 on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.) I'm teaching so much and at such inconvenient times  that there's no way I can get my prep and grading done during the week, which means these activities swamp my weekends.

The good thing about working so much is that I've managed to stash enough money away that I can not only take this entire summer off from teaching but I will be spending at least a month in Greece. I've never looked forward to a summer so much in my life. I fantasize about being naked, tan, and fit, and simply melting into Cretan beaches. Mostly, though, I just fantasize about putting the breaks on in regard to pretty much everything in my day-to-day life. I just want to sleep well and think uncluttered thoughts. Or better yet, I want to sleep well and not think at all. I just want to feel, take in the world thru osmosis. I'm tired of doing: I just want to be.

Somehow I haven't let my crazy teaching life swamp my writing. Though I've been on a dead run since July I've still managed to finish Mother Earth*. I'm very happy with how it turned out. it's not the literary head-slam that Backwaters of Beauty** is, but it's a nice bit of storytelling that in its own way is every bit as good as its predecessor (it might even be better in certain respects). In the next week or so I will write a synopsis for the third and final book of the series and perhaps try and crank out a rough first chapter. Then I will begin the process of finding an agent for the series (no little underground press for these tales - they have far too much potential for that). I don't want to think about agents right now, though - I really don't look forward to having to sell myself to these folks. The business side of writing has never done anything but piss me off and I can't see that changing anytime soon.

*Second novel in a series I'm calling the Backwaters Saga. (See the "Bio" section of this blog for more information.)
**First novel in the Backwaters Saga.