Head buried in a project
Coming up for air
Hi everybody!
Let’s see, what day is it? Where am I?
After getting back from Texas last month, (did I mention this already?) I decided to start a Sci-Fi book project of a story I have been thinking about in the back of my mind for about thirty years. Maybe I should say the back of my mind has been thinking about it. I have put bits of it to writing in the past but the story got pretty complicated in my mind. I have never done anything like a novel before so I didn’t have confidence that I wanted to tackle something like that. I figured it would be a failed waste of time distracting me from my main tasks. But I guess I have been listening to my own advice on Creative Lifestyle and decided that, with the internet and AI, the time might be right, the technology finally in place and my own self discipline and relatively good organizational skills in hand.
So, I thought before I got started on it I would schedule a number of articles for the Touchonian and then take some time to see what I could do. I notice I have run out of articles.
Well, let me tell you, I have had my head buried in research and figuring out how to organize a story that will need to be at least a trilogy or in other words about 1,500 pages long probably. So I have been also doing a tremendous amount of writing and experimenting and figuring out the tone and style and what all of the parts are and who the players are and what they are up to and where and when it is happening and for what reason and what’s the conflict, and what’s the point and all sorts of other things like world building and I have been at it from morning till long into the night for weeks.
I am not a avid reader, I read very slowly and get distracted by thinking about the story instead of just reading it then I set the book down and then I forget what I had read when I come back to it. Hence I don’t read too much, I like movies. But once I started this book I thought I ought to catch up on science fiction and see how authors actually write their books and I discovered I could listen to audio books. So I have listened to probably 15 sci-fi books this month as well when I am not at the computer such as when I am out walking or at the gym or driving somewhere or shopping or cooking or eating something.
Then I talked to my son Zach while I was out for a walk and he made me tell him the beginning middle and the end of the first book in short phrases (because he writes a lot of stuff) and he wrote it down and sent me the basic timeline of the book. That set me free. He sent me the list and I developed it into a framework then that allowed me to do the same with the second book and then I noticed the third book and the forth.
So now I have a roadmap. Now I can turn myself loose and just start plugging things in as they come to me and put them where they are supposed to be. Today I formalized a detailed timeline for the first book and I am confident I can fairly quickly lay out the timeline for the other three as well using my son’s idea of laying out the story sequence with a list of one liners in the right order and then explain each line and there you go Bob’s your uncle as the English say.
In the art business, last year was pretty slow on the sales which often happens during a presidential election year for some reason. I guess everyone is waiting to see if they are supposed to buy blue or red or something. I remember when Trump ran in 2016 one of my dealers said “I started the year of 2016 with my credit cards empty and my bank account full but ended the year with my credit cards full and my bank account empty.” which I thought was a great line. Luckily that statement is not true for me this last year as I am not a big spender but it was slow never the less. The bright side of that problem is that I have plenty of inventory out on the market which gives me the space to work on this book idea for a while.
Maybe I have ADHD or something, probably I do, but it is typical of me, when I start something unknown that I can’t find the edges of, I tend to bury my head in it, to jump in with both feet and get immersed. That seems the only way to get down to the good stuff from an imagination point of view. But you can only keep your head under water for so long and then you have to come up for air and get your feet back on the ground. I think I am just about to that point.
So here is me in the middle of an actual state of immersion as mentioned in the most recent article. (see below) and what that feels like. Coming out of it can be disorienting and you can lose your bearings and lose track of time. Plus the people around you - such as your family - might start wondering about you. So that is the down side of it. That is where establishing routines come in handy. That helps for maintaining balance.
Anyway, that’s what I have been up to now that I have come up for air for a moment.
I’ll be trying to write a few new articles soon, I think there are 360 posts at touchonian.com, It is well populated at this point consider stopping by and reading through some of them if you missed anything or if you want to refresh your memory. Many of them are definitely worth a second read.
And leave a comment! Would love to hear from you.
