April 2004

Well folks, it's been quite a bit of time since I last posted an update, but essentially, the reason came down to the following two factors: One, nothing much has happened since August, and two, I changed my webmaster. Now that the site is up and runnning again, I'll be more diligent; I have, however, changed it from weekly updates to monthly updates. I found that weekly was simply too much -- not much changes in the course of a week, whether I'm writing or not. Thus, the updates got repetitive and I grew as bored writing them as you probably were reading them. Writing them monthly should hopefully alleviate those issues.

To catch everyone up since the last update in August: I spent September and the early part of October touring for The Wedding. In late October, I began working on the edits for Three Weeks with my Brother (which is coming out on April 13th), and finished those about the first week of December. I took a couple of weeks off in December to celebrate the holidays with my family, and in January, I started another novel. I got about 60 pages in and realized that I couldn't finish the story. It was simply too complex to finish in a couple of months, so I began writing a different novel in mid-late February. I got about 60 pages in again before reaching a point where I was feeling seriously burned out with writing. Thus, I took the month of March off. After I finish this update, I'm going to head down to see if I'm ready to start writing again. To make a long story short, however, there will be no novel this fall. Instead, I'll probably publish two novels next year, in 2005.

While it may be hard to understand, the last six years have been mentally taxing. I'm not, contrary to what people may believe, a natural writer. I don't find it either particulary easy or particularly enjoyable; I do however, love the feeling of finishing an original and entertaining story. Because each of my novels have been so different (different voices, different perspectives, different structures, different characters -- in addition to simply different stories), it seems as if I've had to "reinvent the wheel" with every story. While this is good for readers (because they get something new) it's much more challenging for the writer (me). Unlike most thrillers, mysteries, romance novels, science fiction, westerns, etc., there is no set structure to the story. Thus, not only do I have to come up with something new in the way of a plot, I have to figure out a new way to tell the story. Add in my other two thoughts (I'm not a natural, and it's more tough to write than enjoyable), and the past six years brought me to the point where I knew I had to take a break.

My new non-fiction book, Three Weeks with my Brother will explain all of this in a bit more detail. I'll be touring with my brother to sixteen cities, and I hope to see some of you out there.

On the movie front, The Notebook is coming out on June 25th, right in the middle of the summer movie going season. I've seen it twice now, and it's a wonderful adaptation.

Until next month. . .

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