It is Finished. (... And So It Begins ...)

My Plan for the Foreseeable Future

Wednesday, I took a vacation day from my job. It was my 49th birthday. It was also a personal deadline.

Several months ago, inspired by a prompt Mark Boss gave at a writers' conference, I was finally able to get back to my lifelong writing project, collectively referred to as "Caliban."

>>(I wrote about the origins of the project here.)

With the help of a group of local writers (Mark, Ruth Corley, Rich Kevan, Carole Lapensohn, Marty Sirmons and Milinda Stephenson, otherwise known as "The Cheshires") I have taken my 1994-era version of the tale and brought it into 2013.

Wednesday, I wrote somewhere around 3,500 words, finishing the last segment of the story that remained.

I've been in a daze ever since. (Mark told me at lunch on Thursday that I had that "1,000-yard stare.")

I'm now working my way through the book using the Cheshire's notes on early chapters to weave together dangling threads, enhance descriptions and motivations, explain the inexplicable, and otherwise polish this thing to a glowing sheen.

I'm calling it "Giants in the Earth: Book One of the Caliban Chronicles."

When I complete this part of the final edit, I will be sending it to a friend who is considering representing me as a literary agent. And I will write a novella (or maybe just a long short-story) about one of the supporting characters in this story (Working title: "The Case of the Invisible Vampires")

And post a collection of my zombie short stories to Amazon just in time for Halloween and the return of The Walking Dead on TV.

And begin work on the direct sequel to this story. (Working title: "The Moon Made Blood")

With more to follow.

I was floating in the neighborhood pool yesterday as the sun set, and I had the most pleasant positive mental state wash over me.  I felt like I had crossed a threshold of some kind.  Reached a personal plateau that revealed a clear path to even higher elevations.

It was a trick of the mind, of course, but I'll take it.

Hope is a good thing to have, especially when you doubt yourself as much as I do.  And finally having a sense that you've accomplished something worthwhile -- and that more good things are ahead -- is such a wonderful new experience that I can't even quite grasp the enormity of it.

I'm just gonna go with it while it lasts.