After the Storm
Apologies for the blog neglect. Like some brooding and unavoidable storm, Winter Quarter Finals loomed on the horizon of my life for the past few weeks and then enveloped everything in a maelstrom. The shear amount of material was staggering. The reading in particular troubled me as it forced me, for the first time as a medical student, to face off with my disability. For a month or so, I had to wake up at 8am, bike into the med school for lecture/lab until 5pm, wolf down dinner, and then read and/or memorize in the computer lab until 2am. At which point I would bike home, pass out, and wake up at 8am the next day to do it all over again, 7 days a week. According to the second years, this will be the worst quarter with regard to time pressure. I really and truly hope that is accurate.
But the storm has passed, and after an Easter weekend in which I slept for 30 hours, I’m sitting her in my scrubs and trying to find my way back into writing. It seems there is _still_ work to be done on book one–either fixing things my editor/agent are fussing about or convincing them that said issues are not broken in the first place.
But I don’t think I can face book one just now. I’ve heard a lot about how traumatic medical education is, but until now I didn’t fully understand. I’ve so much processing I need to do, so much fuel for characters, I think I’ll either have to strike out for new material or go into psychoanalysis. And given the cost of the later and the state of my bank account / student loans, that means I really had better jump back into book two.
Comments
3 Responses to “After the Storm”
Jack Kincaid
7:41 pm Mar-25-2008
Busy times. The juggling must get tiring.
blakecharlton
11:39 am Mar-27-2008
ain’t that the truth! one MD i know is fond of saying, “Everyone’s juggling the different aspects of their life–family, career, friendship, etc. And everyone’s bound to drop a ball now and then. The trick is knowing which balls are made of rubber and which are made of glass”. hmmm…maybe a bit of a dramatic metaphore, but it’s working for me well so far. and how goes it w/ you mr. kincaid? if i remember correctly you’re keeping more than a few balls in the air
Jack Kincaid
5:05 pm Mar-28-2008
Always do and, of course, they’re almost all creative entities. In the case of some, the more you juggle them, the heavier they become, such as one of the books on my plate which I guesstimate is only half done at 130K words. This wasn’t desired, but that isn’t a new experience. This has happened twice before, when I have unearthed something which is much larger than it originally seemed. Long form has always been my thing, probably because I am so inherently heavy on character. In the very beginning of my ill-fated journey as a writer, in the days of trunk, one could attribute this to lack of skill and longwindedness, perhaps. So many years later, I suppose we can blame (a) the freedom of developing/operating in obscurity; (b) having still only a vague understanding of the inner machines that run things; and (c) big ambition–which, no doubt, can be pinned on another book of mine in the 40K range which is practically an *introduction* (and I have shelved, for now). I have only myself to blame for that one. It’s the sort of thing that’s never been done and that probably only a crazy person would attempt (say: me). I do look forward to taking on works that are less challenging in the future. It is to be hoped there will then be an editor keeping me in line, periodically slapping my knuckles with a ruler like a grumpy nun.
As for the game with publishing–a slow business–its disregard for usual physics can be annoying, only in that when you toss up a “ball”, you expect it to come back down, not hover. Yet they always hover. The nature of the business, though. It has its own physics.
Yes, there’s also the SOC trailer. I still have 3-4 months on that.