Necessary, Possible, Impossible

This week was all about prioritizing the necessary. Mostly, that meant I spent half of my evenings in editing mode, making sure Gayla’s latest was good to go for a Thursday release date. The Wolf Fount is very different from her Discord Jones series, dealing with adult situations and the damage that can come from a lifetime of neglect/disconnect from helpful parental influences, as well as a reflection on the archetype of a hubristic leader. One reader told me today it seemed almost like the modernization (with werewolf/vampire elements!) of the Arthurian legend and his entanglement with Lancelot and Guinevere. I can see that parallel as well as other interesting themes. When I point them out to Gayla, she laughs and says her story brain is smarter than she is–she didn’t intentionally put that there. But her writer’s experience is an interesting reflection on St. Francis’ quote above, too: She has practiced and honed her various story-telling skills over time to make it possible to write well-crafted tales. Now she’s layering in depths on subconscious levels that make her characters spring from the page and reflect timeless themes in new ways that leave the reader deeply satisfied. Hugh Howey wrote a blog post about this process about a month ago. I can verify the template he laid out via what I have witnessed of Gayla’s experience, because the level of effort and commitment she puts into her writing career means that each new manuscript I see of hers is better than the previous one.

In other words: I have a lot of fun editing her work.

🙂

On the other hand, between that work and working make-up hours at the day job, I only managed slightly fewer than 400 words on The Builders this week. And we had a work event yesterday that meant my weekend wasn’t really my own either. So while hubs and I got to spend some time together, and we certainly enjoyed ourselves last night, all our rhythms were off kilter. He still found the time to send me some thought-provoking articles. The first was by musician David Byrne, who was reflecting on the polarization in our political lives. He makes some compelling points about the way we lock ourselves into echo chambers of self-reflective affirmation–and, in fact, these are some of the worries Gayla and I kick back and forth… do we like each other too much to find the objectivity to see the true strengths and weaknesses in our work? I think in Gayla’s case, the market has spoken. In mine… well. I’m several years behind her in the experience curve, but am happy to follow the template she and others have lived, and will assume that with enough work, revision, and breadth of feedback, I’ll get there, too.

This week is going to be as full, for different work reasons, so I’m not sure whether I’ll make my writing goal again. But the other article hubs forwarded, about cosmic and spiritual laws, is a handy reminder that there is balance in all things, so eventually I will resume my efforts. In the meantime, check in with my ROW80 cohorts to see how they’re doing on their goals.