Time To Get Real

This is what you've missed

It goes without saying that I needed a minute to get over losing my grandfather, so I haven't blogged in over a month. A few days before Thanksgiving, I had the displeasure of burying my stepfather's seventeen year-old black labrador retreiver. So, two old timers are gone. It still brings tears to my eyes thinking about the two of them.

On the bright side, Thanksgiving went off without a hitch. I enjoyed my mother's sweet potato pie and the company of friends and family. Thanksgivings usually involve some kind of petty argument, but this year, I actually enjoyed myself. I ended up watching the Blind Side at the end of the night and was pleasantly surprised by the all around good acting.

On Black Friday, I decided to go back to my gaming roots and bought a PS3 gaming bundle. I've spent so much time working on my novel, and my job-that-pays-the-bills that I've forgotten about having fun. Now, I just have to make sure I'm not gaming for eight hours a day like I did when I was a teenager.

When I'm not working on Visionary, I'm working on an untitled novella involving a Disneyland-esque world of performers, set in the not-to-distant future. It's a guilty pleasure working on it.

As for Visionary, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I get inspiration for certain scenes out of order, so the hard part is to assemble the right ones in order, and fill in the blanks without losing any momentum. It's a lot harder than it looks, but it's rewarding work.

I've also been thinking about writing a parallel with Natrea's sister, Phyllis "Fee" as a main character. Fee just seems too extraordinary too leave as a secondary character. If I can write about Natrea's gift of seeing into the past, and seeing into herself, then writing about Fee's gift of seeing other people as they truely are shouldn't be too much of a stretch.

I think a new title for Visionary is in order. Visionary: Ghost Music would be an apropriate title for the first novel, and Visionary: Photo Paint would be an excellent title for the second.