W.T.M.B.a.w.c.k. EXCERPTS #1-6

W.T.M.B.a.w.c.k.:  

MY NOVEL-IN-PROGRESS

240+ pages and counting...

Published Excerpts #1 - 6

My Vintage Underwood Typewriter

Gifted and photographed by Vaysha Hirsch

I've released these random excerpts from within my novel as tasters.  These are from the outskirts of my inner world, as mysterious puzzle pieces.  No plot-points from my emerging book are touched on.  No key characters are revealed.  No true notion as to what sort of story I am writing, can be gleaned.

What I do share, are examples of my writing voice from the novel, my first steps toward making contact with eventual readers of the finished work.  Little tidbits of cathartic sharing from this author.

There is an artful limitation to the 140 characters of a tweet, and creating quality sentences in full, non-truncated words, is a challenge; The bite-sized structure, influenced choosing these pieces.

I have collected the six excerpts here on My Indie Book preceding the eventual arrival of the rest...

It can be frustrating, writing through a long and complex novel, not being able to share the words with other readers or writers for a great stretch of Time.  I know there are writing groups, but, it is not my usual way.  Having been a professionally trained actor has helped, for the practiced facility of speaking written words and listening to how story sense with dialogue plays together.

It can be doubly frustrating that Time is so precious, and for me these days, so limited.  To toil and create with disciplined patience, is testament to the classic novel being one of the longest art forms.  Reaching one's final page just won't happen, unless one commits to the continuity.  The longest process is where trust comes in.  I can only guess at what's to be my novel's overall effect with readers.  Problem-solving tiny details...weaving creative order from a tangled web of connections...is the work.

There is honestly, a euphoric reward far out-balancing these tensions, in those irreplaceable pages that I have collected each writing day.  Irreplaceable to me.  Whether just a single page that works, or a lucky span of five or more, I found the reason for writing.  Few accomplishments validate my days more, than discovery of story resonating with my aspirations, touching or haunting me to the core.  When I know that my words are wending and flowing with my hopes and dreams, I suspect I may reach others with these feelings.

There are only a few people I can count on one hand, whom I asked to select random page numbers, and hear me read the words aloud.  That was it for sharing, then back into the quiet well...

Over the years, my filing cabinet filled up with the hard copies of spoken word poetry, concepts, novellas, short scripts and screenplays, in various drafts of completion.  Completion is Everything...

A writer must commit to a number of tested drafts before the polish, when a book or script is ready to share.  A writer must commit to becoming a good writer.  That committed intention sometimes requires a purgatory of renewed efforts.  To comprehensively grow one's truthful voice.  Apart from a few option/development deals for screenplays with independent film companies, my body-of-work has remained "in progress."

This progression also includes collaborations, top screenwriting contests entered, and film option deals earned, co-writing with the creativity of Vaysha Hirsch.  After Vancouver Film School's Screenwriting Program, a growing number of our stories eventually collected on file, for differing reasons; maybe some projects seemed to be about "writers' process," or options on our screenplays did not move forward to full production, or else some stories simply didn't prove to us that 'their Time' had come.  Yet.

The truth is, any one of our stories could have made contact on various levels, but we have been cultivating ourselves to become better writers.  Eventually though, one must decide to step into the arena and see...

Having acknowledged struggles of solitary process, I have had the greatest fortune of Vaysha Hirsch being in my Life, as my ever-reliable partner and mirror.  We spark each other over story structures, and then laugh uproariously at each other's spontaneous humors.  She challenges and surprises me; I challenge or surprise her back...to dig deeper for our unique offerings...for our combined quality. I wish every sincere writer such a partner as I have been lucky to have, making all these struggles to grow as a person, worthwhile.

One particular book out of them all, has persisted inside of me...has pushed up to the committed forefront. The one that will be my first full-out publishing.  The one you may decide to read.

PIECES FROM MY NOVEL:

Excerpt #1: 
"I consider all the souls of the deep past who took refuge here, on their ways up or down the vast highway."

Excerpt #2:
"Our background was a high iron-wrought fence, and peeking hill-top of mausoleums, stony-winged angels, crowning headstones."

Excerpt #3:
"Unity is beyond the rock which sits solid in my hand, and yet this unity is the rock and my hand together."

Excerpt #4: 
"This is not where the wildness dwells, I think to myself, where once was, there is wild no more."

Excerpt #5:
"Each strange transition this night blurs into the next like ephemeral illusions fluttering wings across my mind."

Excerpt #6:
"Time's liberty running in a younger skin, now a tougher skin...leads me back inside...back to when I was dreaming."

That's it, for now.  A more in-depth consideration of what I am writing may be read on an older post from this blog, "The Next Big Thing."  I reveal slightly more about the structure, genre, and plot.

I look forward to that near-future day...when I may finally say to myself, "There it is."