New Writing Project

I have been playing with the following phrase for about 6 years now, trying to figure out a good story to accompany the power that I felt it held, "I remember the day that I was no longer perfect." When I was working on my undergraduate degree I took a composition theory class and the teacher made this statement off handed during a class discussion on Aristotle.

I loved the quote when she mad it, and I immediately filed it away as something that I wanted to use later on. Well, the time has come for the story to be told. This summer my wife and I hit a rough patch in our marriage, neither of us have been extremely happy as of late-mostly due to a series of choices that I have made-and we started counseling and various other programs to try and reignite "the flame." For anyone who has gone through this process before it is a long uphill process that in many ways is more painful than the event that puts you on this track in the first place.

Anyway, I was sitting at work watching people wander aimlessly through the mall looking for the best after-Christmas deal they could find, and I began to think about the choices that I had made over the past year, decisions that had eventually led to the position I was in now. Almost instantly this quote that I had been carrying around in my head resolved into an entire story about choices and inter-connectivity of decisions over time. I decided that in order for this story to work, it had to be somewhat biographical but still a work of fiction. It also would need to track the events not just from the summer of 2008, but from childhood through adolescents, and into adulthood. My goal is to demonstrate how one choice can have effects reaching far beyond the here and now, somewhat of a butterfly-effect-esque tale. Since i am still living the story, I'm not sure how it will resolve, or if it will simply end unresolved like so many of the problems that we face. But I have high hopes for the story.

I also decided that I need to set up a writing schedule so that I can finish some of the projects that I have started. I would like to have at least one story completed and submitted for publication by the end of the year. The closest would probably be either the children's version of the monster box, or the Holland story. Haven and How to Become a Superhero are not progressing very quickly. I don't think I have worked on either of them for about 6 months at least. Sometimes I wish I could take a year off of work and just write. It is hard to find the time when you have to pack it in between grading papers, taking care of kids, teaching, and spending time with your wife. I know there are a lot of authors that are able to do this, and I wish I were one of them. I guess I just need to be more disciplined. Problem is, I like my sleep. Right now, where I have a two, almost three,-year-old, and a three-month-old, "sleep comes creeping slow." Any extra that I can pick up is a valued treasure. I was in bed and asleep by 8:00 last night. Good thing too, Aiden was up puking about every two hours. It is odd when you wake up to clean your kid up and it is only 10:00, or barely midnight. I could have sworn that it was closer to 2 or 3 in the morning. I love sleep, but it will mess with your head if you are not careful.

Well, I should get back to work. Papers to grade, classes to teach.

Cheers,