It’s been a generally good few weeks, now that my father is out of the hospital and on the road to recovery following his heart attack. He is still carrying his pillow which he has to hug to himself whenever he coughs, thanks to his mending broken ribs, but there’s only a couple of weeks left in that. He’s looking forward to being able to drive again. I bet he’s also looking forward to getting some fearsome hugs from the grandkids.
At my end, I’ve been keeping busy. I now have a couple of editorial commissions thanks to connections from Storywell. My column for the Kitchener Post continues apace, and I’ve made a number of additions and improvements to the Transit Toronto website. Truth to tell, it has occupied a fair amount of my creative output, and it has reached some milestones that I’m fiercely proud of.
It’s not fiction, though. I’ve been struggling along with a story called The Sun Runners, and recently passed the 10,000 word mark. It’s slowly coming together. I have, I think, an interesting setting and some interesting premises, but I’m still finding the characters. The plot could still go in any number of directions. When I do make progress, it’s not a big number: about 300-400 words or so — a far cry from the “sticker me!” performance that Erin gets whenever she puts down a thousand words or more in a day.
It has been a while since I’ve been at this stage in a new book, though. For the past few years, my focus has been on revising and rewriting older works, like Icarus Down and The Night Girl. They started slowly too. Still, it can be frustrating, though I feel as though the wheels can start rolling at any moment.
Next week promises to be a busy one, as Erin heads off to California for two weeks of work promoting The Scorpion Rules. The kids and I will be joining her in San Francisco on Friday, and then heading to Fresno to spend some time with Grandpa Wendell and Grandma Judy. We’ll hopefully see the sequoias again, and we’ll be back after a couple of weeks.