[Low Odysseys]

Apologies for the dust. Life has this way of insisting on being lived, and the blog tends to collect the most dust.

The great Querying effort of ought-ten continues with some bites.

I have far less gray in my hair than I expected at 35. Less lines around my eyes too.

The big shock was the realization that I hadn’t written one novel but two; that they are YA novels wasn’t so shocking but more of a shrug and a “huh”. An Agent, Michael, had put the idea of The Novel possibly being YA into my head back in November. Nova fed fuel and fanned the idea, pointing out instances of “edgy” writing- violence and sex- in YA lit.

One day I looked at the end of Part 1 of The Novel, and said: “Shit, this isn’t an overly long Adult novel, this is two upper-YA novels.” Book 1 has a terrific ending. Book 2 feels less like a wandering afterthought (which it did, to me, before it was Book 2 when it was still Part 2) to the more tightly plotted Part 1 when I realized that it was a different story set in the aftermath of the story of Book 1.

There is still the whole genre question, but I like to call it contemporary fantasy. Some might call it urban fantasy, but since the stories are pretty rural I’m not sure about that, and I feel like it is important to make clear that this isn’t a period fantasy world, but ours distorted through funhouse mirrors.

So there is that.

I miss the desert.

My son grows like a weed, he is all sharp angles and wild curls of strawberry-blond hair. He shows no fear of rocks, wolves, giants or spicy foods. He is a little leery of Wampas, and dogs that aren’t Daisy (of Detective Agency fame).

My daughter laughs with her entire face, her milk-coated tongue rolls in her mouth like a mirthful little sea of white. She sleeps deeper in my arms, it seems, than anyone else’s. I like to think I feel solid to her, substantial, strong and comforting. Or maybe I’m just warm enough and she likes the way I smell. Either way.

My wife gives birth to ideas for yarn and words like a feisty snapdragon. The yarn she works with, the words she often gives to me. What, you didn’t know that snapdragons bore ideas? Obviously you haven’t spent enough time in the garden.

I love my friends. As I get older, and look less like Sam Shepard than I had hoped, I value the friends I’ve kept more and more. I’m, honestly, terrible at making friends. I am great at cocktail chatter, at being friendly, but actually maintaining friendships is somehow beyond me. My wife picks better people than I do, and then she generously shares them with me. I’m pretty lucky like that.

As I get older, and look less like Sam Shepard than I had hoped, I enjoy the little things more, worry about the big things less, and keep writing, loving, reading, cooking, learning and eating.

And sometimes, I get out to the desert.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 at 8:55 am and is filed under Raising Demons, neither hither thither or yon..., as the story is writ large-. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.