Where Has the Time Gone?

Where the hell has the time gone?

It's been nearly six months since my last post on this blog, and it pains me to admit that. Thanks to the rapidity and chaos of living daily life, six months has flushed away from my life without producing anything, creatively, over that period of time.  I have been reading voraciously, but my writing has suffered.  Although, I believe that reading is a integral part of writing.  The act of reading the works of others allows you to explore different perspectives and styles, while also forcing you to review your current projects from new points of view.  That is exactly what has happened to me over these past six months.

Inspired by the HBO series "Game of Thrones", I found myself reading the Song Of Fire And Ice series by George R.R. Martin.  The depth of the characters and the world created around them drew me wholly into the series.  Mister Martin succeeded in using words to create a world filled with characters that I found myself truly caring about.  I quickly finished all five books of the series, and am now lamenting Martin's notorious time gaps between new books in the series.  As an aspiring author, I noticed more that just the story being told in these books, I saw a style of writing that forced me to review my own opus-in-progress.  The simple exposure to Martin's style of storytelling led me to discover a better point of view from which to tell my own tale.

I am currently sixty thousand words, and two chapters, into the ongoing experiment that I call "The Book".  With over a dozen primary characters being introduced within those two chapters, I found that my chosen point of view was quickly becoming cumbersome and clunky. I was hitting walls with translating the story from my mind and attempting to mold it into a single, albeit omniscient, point of view.  Mister Martin's five books in the Song Of Fire And Ice series offered a crash course in possibilities of altering perspectives from character to character.  George's words also offered me the chance to see the benefit in keeping a linear timeline at the core of the story, whilst peppering the flow with numerous loops back to covering a pivotal time period from numerous perspectives.

Changing view points, throughout the series of books, offered the reader a beautiful rhythm with which to dance through the tale.  Changes in tone, through the viewpoints of numerous characters, offered a tempo that blended splendidly with the rhythm. When the notes of each of, the numerous, main characters are added the reader is greeted to a song that is intoxicating and addicting. That song leads you thru the first three books of the series in a marvelous dance of emotions and adventure.  The last two books split that song in two and, masterfully, covers the same time period twice with the views of the numerous characters constantly the changing the pitch and tone of the composition.  Simply put, this series of books was a symphony to read.

Now, I didn't come back to my blog, after a six month hiatus, simply to gush over George R.R. Martin and his tales of dragons and thrones.  I came back because, quite suddenly, I realized that I need to exercise my mind regularly to maintain my sanity.  I need to let these thoughts of my skull, lest they fester and consume the last threads of sanity to which I am clinging.

At an informal get together, right around the turkey day holiday, a couple of friends inspired me to get back to making my fingers dance across the keyboard as my mind provided the symphony to drive those fingers forward and on down the page. Well, maybe I've rambled on too long to go into that story tonight.

I will continue the tale of my six month hiatus in my next post.  Until then, I am vowing to myself to post several times a week.  I'm hoping that this will help exercise my fingers, my mind, and my creativity.