The IP address of my server has changed. Why dwell in technical matters two days in a row? Because for a brief time today or Thursday the site may appear inaccessible. Up without incident since September 20th I hate to see anything tarnish the run, but it’s out of my hands.

Should the site not work – have faith. Nothing is broken. All operations will resume. I promise. This is only a test. Had this been a real emergency…BEEP. Cue the color bars. 😉

I’m considering a writer/agent workshop this June. My main hesitation – can I finish Velocity by the session date? If I’m to spend the entire day in a conference room with bunches of agents and hundreds of writers, I intend to pitch a finished product. At present, the biggest obstacle is the 2 page per session barrier. Cohesive until that point, every third sentence beyond that mark, sketchy. Lord knows, I’ve tried forcing more to the surface. A review of the “additional content” reveals all the usual defects: lack of focus, excessive attention to useless details, and repetition. Three deadly sins.

Thursday I’ll try split sessions, one in the morning, one in the evening. Maybe I can fake it out of me.

On Friday I attended a conference in South Jersey. Among the participants were members of a very exclusive government agency. Think FBI, only way cooler, especially as far as Velocity goes. Gee, hows that for a teaser?

The principal objective for attending: a shot at meeting one or more members of that particular agency. My study in fumbles ended once the Wife took over.

Working together – mostly I watched the Wife work – in just over sixty seconds we had two names, a business card an offer of an interview for the book. An interview! Man, I can only dream of being this smooth.

So that’s why there was no blog yesterday.

These days writing sessions remind of Jan from the Brady Bunch, only instead of “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!” it’s “Velocity, Velocity, Velocity”.

Unlike the endless nightmare revise, discard, draft, revise, discard ( repeat three more times ) of The Ridge Runner, this novel is a much more ordered beast. Hemingway said it so eloquently, “First drafts are s***”. Oh Papa, have I been there. Been there and done that dance way too many times.

I don’t mind revising, even guerrilla-style revisions, but I have tired of top-down-throw-out-the-baby drafts. For this project I borrowed a tip from Dean Koontz. He works on a chapter until it’s exactly how he likes. Only when he feels it is ready, does he approach the next one.

The advantages:
1) Tighter writing – the method forces all the focus on the moment. Staying in the moment with the story and the characters is my biggest problem.
2) Streamlined quality control – the revisions consider fewer pages than a top down assault. A chapter runs 2-10 pages, an almost bite sized chunk.
3) Lower frustration levels – there’s really nothing worse than finishing a draft, turning to page one, and discovering it’s still horribly f*****.

Disadvantages:
1) Page count grows more slowly. Gone are the 5 page caffeine induced seizures.
2) Projecting an end date is impossible, because each chapter is complete when it’s complete. Might take 1 day, or it might take 11.
3) Stokes the perfectionist streak. The more time invested in a given chapter, the blurrier the line between nit picking and a judicious edit.

In sum – if working more slowly means I don’t have to rewrite 6 times, I’ll live with the downside. At least for now. Who knows what the process for the third novel will be.

John Lennon once said, “a conspiracy of silence speaks louder than words.” From the deafening response to the last blog, there’s enormous interest in international crime and justice blurbs among readers. Right? Perhaps I’ll just keep this hobby to myself. 😉

I’m posting half of a short story early next week. It has nothing to do with Mike Brody, or any other writing project. Stylistically it differs from those projects and the writing on this blog. The official plan: post in a blog entry, allow comments, then revise based on the comments. I’ll post the corrected first half and everyone can comment again. If it works, then we cycle through the second half. This way anyone can read it and only those who register can comment. A fair and workable arrangement.

I’ve promised this before, but it meant finding the right story, one that interested yet didn’t consume me. There’s only room for so many obsessions in my life. This semi-detached approach lowers my defenses enough so that I can receive the comments.

Hopefully this works out.