Mid-Episode Rumination

I am mid-episode, and it is midnight. Seems like a good time to pause for a moment and make a blog post.

(I like blogging. And I miss blogging. And because I want some gentle way to keep in touch with the world, especially during my upcoming trip, I think I may use blogging more. We'll see.)

I'm halfway through episode 3 of "Rocket Johnny". This is the final part of three-part opening story. It's a bear to write. I'm not enjoying this episode, I may as well tell you now, and I only enjoyed the last three pages of the previous episode. This one is such a slog.

But I'm plugging away. Writing serials is mostly about faith (I suppose it applies to lots of other writing too). I continue to not enjoy myself and work on this slog of an episode, keeping faith that somewhere in the future will be an episode that will shine, that will flow from my fingertips as if the gods themselves are channeling it. An episode that can do no wrong. Keeping the faith means that THIS episode is a bear...but maybe the next one, episode 4, will be that episode. And if it isn't, well, it might be episode 5...

We humans are a great one for faith. The next lottery ticket, the next votive candle, the next job application, the next girl-asked-out, the next story...might be the big one. And if it isn't, then there's the one after that. It's probably survival instinct. Or hilarious, to whatever cosmic entity is watching.

And if this post makes no sense to you, well, it's a little past midnight now and all the sensible and non-fiction-writing parts of my brain have gone to bed. (I mean the parts that don't write, not the parts that write non-fiction).

...

I am still reading The Best of Michael Moorcock and New Tricks by John Levitt. And I am feeling increasingly guilty about both. They are both being read to review on SFSignal.com, and it's taking me a long time to read them. Partially because I got sidetracked by a series of seven Star Trek articles.

But partially because the Moorcock book is just slowing me down. I don't want to really talk about it, because then what's the point of a review...but I'm not really keen on it. Which makes it hard to focus.

Especially when I have a book called The Physics of Superheroes whispering to me from the table. It's fantastic and funny, the thirty pages I've read so far. And very, very useful.

Okay. Enough bloggerel. Time to get back to writing. A couple more scenes before sleep happens, I hope.