Poem - There is a Place

There is a place where a man may dream dreams

I know of the place
For I have been there often
Fleetingly, struggling to remain
Yet always in vain.

It is a beautiful land,
Hidden.
Somewhere between unconsciousness
And the first heavy eyelid.

I spend much time in this land
Though I’m no more than a pilgrim
How I long to make this world my own
And live these dreams forever.

It is a place where a man may dream dreams.

Can I claim to be a scholar?
Most times I only recognize a visit
Once it has reached conclusion.
Study as I may, I remain humbled.

How can a fleeting place
So hold the desire?
Never even sure I’m there,
Yet life’s futility fires the craving.

In that wistful place,
A million others stand.
A throng makes music in the fog
My muse’s call alluring

There is a place where a man may dream dreams,
Away from the tedium of proscribed existence.

I hope one day to find it.

Randall Madden

December 9, 2013

Rough Draft

In the past three days I’ve managed to add three thousand words to my rough draft. Now I can feel the lines of the plot coming together. Where before I felt the construction efforts of building a new world and all of its cultures, now I am struggling to write the words fast enough, as the actions and plots of all the characters are starting to come to fruition.

I’m trying not to even look back at this point. I’m aware of at least two plot continuity issues, so I’m sure there are many more waiting when I revisit the draft. For now I am simply jotting notes as I realize something needs housekeeping attention, and then pressing to finish the first copy of the manuscript.

It feels strange to see the end in sight, even if it is still very far away. Last June the world of Cestre was barely more than a shadow in my mind, but now I almost feel like a visitor there each time I visit. I can fully see the cities and the beautiful places in its nature, and I feel sorrowful with each death I inflict on this wonderful place.

I hope one day others will feel the same sense of enjoyment at the peoples and cultures of my world. Ultimately, sharing this wonderful place with others is the reason I write.

It's still a long way to the top, but I'm eager to know 

what the view is like from way up there.

The Best Intentions

The best-laid plans rarely survive contact with the enemy. Unfortunately, I am my own worst enemy in this case.

The last quarter of 2013 flew by in a whir, and I didn’t complete very many of my planned projects. Among these projects was the planned completion of my rough draft, which is now sitting at roughly 65,000 words. I struggled through NaNoWriMo with hardly a word written, and December went how it normally goes. With all this said, I’m sitting in a new year with an incomplete book.

In addition to this, I failed to place in any of the writing competitions I entered last year. I don’t feel the failures as keenly as I once did, but it would be a lie to say that it isn’t discouraging.

With all that said, I’m ready to make 2014 a different year. I’m not going to seek to finish my novel by a set date; rather, I will commit to 1,500 words per day. I also plan to work in each of my three blogs at least twice a week.

I’m actually feeling positive about the plan going forward. I’m committed to change my life, and the lives of others, through my writing. 2014, here I come!

Putting in Work

My writing productivity improved by leaps and bounds over the last few days. I took some extra time away from the tasks over the weekend, and today I have managed to pump out an extra large batch of materials in a shortened afternoon. I just submitted my poem to the Writer’s Digest poetry competition, and I am pretty confident in my efforts. However, I am enough of a realist to accept whatever the end result may be.

I’m incredibly driven by the route to being published, and it has hung heavily in my mind for the past several weeks. My book length is increasing steadily, although never as fast as my impatience demands. The plan is still to have a polished draft ready by the end of 2013. Following that, I’m aiming to find an agent in early 2014.

I know that any competitions I win can assist me in the process of finding an agent and then a publisher. I will continue to work, and wait for the day that my dream becomes a reality.

Running the Marathon

The past week has been a slow time for writing. Between family obligations and other planned events, I’ve been incredibly busy and haven’t been able to set aside much time for writing. I am making every effort to find more time and to block out my schedule to allow more time to finish my book, but I am unfortunately a very impatient person. My personality type demands results immediately, and I’m doubly hard on myself when these expectations are not met.

I suppose discipline and perseverance are two traits I’m learning while writing a book. It isn’t too difficult to write a blog piece. Often you can finish it in one sitting, and the short length means the task never seems all that challenging. With a novel, however, you have to shift this mindset. The novel writing process has shown itself to be a marathon, and it is not ideal for sprinters like myself. I’ve been training myself to avoid crunching my weekly word count into a Friday afternoon, as the quality and my enthusiasm will flag long before I’m finished.

I’m also finding as I write that the characters and the settings take on a life of their own. Some of my characters are moving in directions I never intended, and it is opening new routes to further the plot that I never saw on my own. This organic part of the writing process suffers as well from sprinter writing. A slower, steady pace helps this process to fully develop as I delve deeper into the plot.

After a little more than two months of writing I’m up to 50,000 words, and the word total I set for myself as a goal is now within reach. It seems strange; when I set out at the beginning of this journey I was worried I wouldn’t have enough to write about. Now that I’m immersed in the world I’ve created, I’m beginning to wonder if I can fit in the story arc without writing an Encyclopedia-length piece. Considering I’ve already planned four to five books for a series, it may require even more to get everything in.

Ultimately the question of an agent and a publisher are issues I will not allow myself to address now. Above all, I’m just looking at the final event, planned as a closing curtain for the first book nearly a month ago. I’m pressing the threads of plot towards that point, because an agent and a publisher do not matter until I put the last word to paper.

The process can be exhausting, but I always find myself struggling to go to sleep after a good evening of writing, wishing I had more time to stay in my own created world before returning to the dull monotony of a sustaining job. It is a dream that few achieve, to write a novel and be published. However, I am fully committed to seeing this through to the end, and to becoming a full-time writer. The dream can never come true without the required effort, and I am determined to do whatever it takes.

False Beginnings

I’ve never been good at introductions. Beginnings always seem patently false to me, as we are all in the process of experiencing the story of life. I usually feel the same way when I introduce characters in the development of a story. I’m taking this imagined human being and pitching them into a story, usually picking up right in the middle of each character’s life. Here I am, suddenly introducing them in the midst of the daily grind, pausing in a normal conversation with coworkers or fellow warriors, people they’ve spent their entire lives with. Their strands are woven together in the tangle of existence, and I suddenly pluck one out and hold it under the microscope for all to see.

So this is my attempt to do the same for Randall Madden, a player on this crazy stage known as life. I have a wife who loves me more than I deserve, a woman who supports my craziness and tolerates my eccentricities. I have a wonderful son who helped to spark the dying flame that was my creativity. He exposed my inner child once more, covered up by scar tissue from years of hurt. It has been a painful process to resume writing, but it has been a worthwhile pain. I’m living in the moment now, drawing my creativity from a wellspring left after years of neglect.

I am an unpublished author, but I have a new desire to see those two ugly letters pulled from the front of that phrase. Currently, I am working on a fantasy novel which I hope to spin into a series. I’m sitting at 40,000 words right now and plan to have the initial draft completed by the end of November. I’m also working on short stories for Writer’s Digest Competitions. I currently have a draft I am somewhat happy with for the Horror entry, and I’m working up drafts for the Fantasy/Sci-Fi entry and the Short Short Story Competition.

This blog, along with the other two I author on a semi-regular basis, is intended to help polish and refine my writing style. It also helps me to work with deadlines and feel a sense of accomplishment as each piece is finished. Writing a novel is a daunting task; whereas blog posts and journal entries can be knocked out quickly and (usually) easily, the novel is a marathon process. The hardest thing to do is to continue pushing forward and moving that word count towards the end.

For now I am content to let this blog be my personal progress report for moving the ball forward. Growing as a writer helps me to grow as a person. It is sometimes a daunting task to balance writing with all the other hats we wear in this life. Through self-discipline and mercy when I fail, I hope to achieve my goal of becoming a professional writer.