Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Back

Hello, everyone. How’s your summer been?

In case you’d been following along and started wondering what happened to me, I decided to take the summer off from doing this. Of course, I didn’t announce this fact, and I apologize for not doing so, but I figured it was time for a hiatus. There’s nothing wrong, I’m perfectly healthy, nobody died – that’s a switch! – and I’ve had a halfway decent summer, all things considered.

One thing I have been doing is a lot of writing, although I’ve learned to temper my enthusiasm a bit when it comes to working on non-fiction projects. I’ve run into a few dead-ends in that department, and this has taught me something very important about the process of writing a book. Specifically, subject matter is something you have to put a ton of thought into before you commit yourself. Having some guy in a bar say, “Dude! That would make a great book!” is not a good enough reason to run around telling people you’ve got a bestseller on your hands.

When you think you’re onto something, only to start writing and realize that you only have 5,000 words of quality material, you have to switch gears and call it what it is: a magazine article, and not a book.

That’s okay, though. I had to spend the summer working on the infrastructure around here – my life, I mean – but I’m good to go at this point and I’m actually hard at work on something else that’s a little more suitable to what I’d like to do with writing. The key to everything is the luxury of several good, solid uninterrupted hours of work time, which is something I’ve managed to secure for myself of late by dint of turning off my cell phone and staying away from the internet.

So, long story short, I’m back in action. I hope everyone’s had a great summer, and I’m looking forward to posting some serious f-bomb action here soon.