Or...?

I been so busy with working on my novels that I have been thinking of closing up shop here. I haven’t the time and what little I have I have to husband carefully. I have reached an age that forces me to maximize resources. My last entry was in February for God’s sake and garnered zero comments. So no one will miss me. Well, maybe a few furtive souls who happen on my blog by accident, then shy away as they note the inactivity.

I have not even installed a counter, because I didn’t want to know how many didn’t visit me. But then I started the site largely for myself, didn’t promote it or invested time in calling attention to it. I use it as a dumping ground for random thoughts, produced by the backwash of some intense effort I needed a break from. Even in the midst of a writing jag, part way through some novel, pressure builds for extraneous thoughts to accumulate at the periphery that have to be bled off. This blog is a repository of such. And then there are times between projects, that the lull produces a desire and need to write, then again this is a good place to unload.

I’m lucky for writing comes easy to me. Once my main character is established, he and I set off on a journey together, neither quite knowing where we’ll end up. Sometimes there are negotiations, diplomacy, and other times, when it is plain, brute force. At the very least a tug-of-war, where he and I fight for control. Yet, I must give my heroes credit for their contribution to all my works, and that’s why I went public, to get recognition for their own selves not just to harvest glory for my self as the author.

There is, or must be, a machine in my head that spin out tale after tale, and it is always a surprise what I find and end up with. I have 15 books, or 16, and there would be many more if I didn’t have to constantly interrupt the flow to polish something that I had written into a publishable form for outside consumption. I’m interested in the mainline plot, not about grammar and punctuation. It’s the progression of ideas and events that I find fascinating. When I write I gallop, not looking back until I have reached the end, then revisit and fix the fallen pieces or round out the fragments. But its the speed of the first run-through that’s exciting, when things get nailed down. The second pass is intriguing to fine tune and balance things out. But from then on, the anal fixation of editing and rewriting quickly becomes a chore.

Oops. Straying off topic again. I started with trying to decide whether to shut down... or...?