The Long Roller Coaster

It feels like I've been down this road before. I am weary and tired and ready to just kick my feet up and relax until I realize that I've only just started.

I finished my synopsis for my novel... again... last night. This is a process that I began on my first novel that never saw the light of day. The story was entirely too complicated to keep it all in my head, so I began by writing down a synopsis of each and every chapter - working through the novel in such a way that I knew I wouldn't encounter any roadblocks while writing it. It took me two drafts of that before I was able to start writing my novel - a process that lasted nearly five years before I gave up the whole enterprise as being flawed from the outset.

Live and learn.

Or did I? No, for my second novel I finally decided to start working on my magnum opus time travel saga. Lanz Franco, to me, was going to be a story where I crammed in every time travel idea I'd ever had and yet somehow managed to make it fun and thrilling - like Indiana Jones with time travel. The somehow managed part was the bit that made me realize I needed to write a synopsis first. Doing all those mental gymnastics of cause and effect and effect and cause that only time travel stories can really play with and still trying to keep the story about a character who is in love with his wife... well, that kept me up at nights - plugging away on a synopsis.

After nearly a year of working on the time travel story I finally figured out how to make it work - but the story was so complex that I realized I would have to spread out the complexity over three books. So, as soon as I finished one synopsis I went to work writing the next two synopsees. And finally, after a year and a half, I had all three books in synopsis form and was ready to start.

For nearly a year I toiled on the novel and it was coming along just fine... until I reached the half way point. And then, casually, I realized that I needed to figure out this character's origin story so that I knew his background a little more. So I started thinking about this character's origin and... well... I realized that his origin was WAY better than the story I was writing and that it really illuminated the entire time travel saga. SOOO, painfully, I decided to scrap the story I was working on and go back and write this character's origin story as my first book.

Of course, this meant coming up with another synopsis. And then to add complexity to my madness, I realized during the writing of this synopsis that I needed two more books to bridge the gap between the origin story and the trilogy of stories that I already had synopsized. Six books in all.

Ugh! BUT the good news is that I am finally done with the first synopsis of the first book and it doesn't need to be rewritten and it only took me about two and half months to complete.

So tomorrow, I begin writing my first novel... again... and hopefully, this time, it sticks!

P.S. I should have learned guitar and written a number one Country Song, "Mama, Don't Let Your Baby Grow Up To Be A Science Fiction Writer."

Did I get my money's worth?

I was just watching the amazing footage from Kenya that I received from the Kenya Mission Group's latest journey. They returned to Kenya in February and resumed their relationships with our partners in Meru. Going along for the ride vicariously, I sent along my video camera to capture more footage so that we might continue telling our story through film. But after watching the footage, I couldn't help but start to think about the amazing investment this camera has been. Below is just a partial list of all the places and events where this camera has taken video...

Chicago (twice), Detroit, Toronto, Montreal, Cooperstown, Rochester, Cleveland, the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics (2002 Games), Philadelphia, Gettysburg, Washington D.C., New York, Boston, Goffstown, Salem, Orlando (twice), Boise and Challis, ID (three times), Las Vegas, Anaheim, Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan, Vancouver, Victoria, Marysville, Brookville, Nairobi and Meru (twice)... and countless hikes (Yosemite, Big Basin, Castle Rock, Dipsea, Boot Jack, Mt. Diablo, Pinnacles) and other events (Sister's graduation from law school, etc...)

I guess it's safe to say that I did get my money's worth... and for a Scot, that's all I can ask.

No one is watching...

I am by myself at work. There is a big tray of chocolate right across from my desk and absolutely nobody is watching. I could dash over there and have one... or two... of four. Nobody can stop me and nobody would be the wiser.

That ultimately is the problem with will-power. It is a struggle against invisible forces. The only restriction that occurs is the one in my head. I can justify that short walk a million different ways. I know. I have. And I've forgotten the number of times I've broken down and given in to those few steps of invisible restraint. It doesn't make me a better person for going over there, it doesn't make me a worse. It just means that it takes me longer to get to where I want to go. A stumble. A detour around a large rock - a large invisible rock that I just made for myself. My path becomes rockier and rockier the more failures I have. I am being bled to death by paper cuts.

So, no chocolate for me. Not now anyway. My path remains straight, my walk steady. But I see a lot of stumbling blocks in the road ahead. If only I had a lamp to light my way.