Novel Progress and Archery

          Work is starting up, and the goal for this summer amidst work is finishing my book. It's not something like a chore, but it's more of a push as to what will result in the end. Something will come out of the rough draft, and something different will be made in the revision. Beta-readers will look at this for what they see and each find something different. The process is going strong, but I hope that along the way my patience doesn't shrink thin.
          A year ago, I started a novel project that had touched my imagination: what would someone do if they were being called by the dead and supposedly dying via his radio, in the middle of nowhere? EVP, or Electric Voice Phenomena, happens quite a bit in the paranormal community, with individuals finding clear voices telling them ghostly messages.
          But this novel isn't about EVP, at least in my eye. I've worked with the novel for a year, and the focus has changed from a simple question to a character trying to relive a past that he never had through his son.
          The result, as of right now, is a character lying, cheating, and even killing to get home and away from these demonic voices coming from technology. I've written over 48,000 words, and the end is coming sooner than expected, which is honestly more terrifying to me than what I'm writing about. It just can't end yet.
           I've taken time away and back to the novel to help postpone the process. Some ideas come to me easily or feel they come out of the characters themselves, but in other case, pushing through has become a nuisance of what's crap and what's not (Shitty first drafts, Anne Lammott states).  To get away from these thoughts, I've taken up archery, and I've learned that I'm okay at it. I hit the center several times this past Friday, one round being entirely of bullseyes.
          Also, the sport relaxes me. For an hour, I can shoot arrows at a wall, sweating my shirt off in a building with no air-conditioning, yet I leave feeling great, maybe even energized.It's something I look forward to each week.
          I miss the days when my novel really surprised and pushed me, much like archery is doing now.  Things felt easier. I felt more accomplished after a good session, while now I feel accomplished but drained in some form. Is it the work load of my writing(1000 words)? Is it the time of day (Evenings before, afternoons now)? I'll have to take each day in front of the laptop and word processor as a new day, and if I don't get myself going on it, hope or not, no one will.
          
         
         

Learning through Experiencing, Helping

     I finished Stephen King's Cujo a week ago, which pushed me to start The Dead Zone, another novel written in his glory days before his freak accident, being hit while walking along a road. Another novel on my upcoming list is John Grisham's The Firm, which I am very excited to read. This past year has included the most novels that I have ever read, but it's all for good purpose.
     Today, another author asked me to read a shorter piece of his. It was something different, an adult romance, and I gave it a good two hours of me commenting on it and making note of where conflict and scene goals are missing, something I myself have been missing through drafting and creating in revision.
     And that's today's focus. Reading keeps the mind loose, the muse churning even when a writer closes up shop for the night. Like artists, we writers duplicate what we like from genres and writers we love. We throw out what he don't love, and that's that. Is this necessary for one to be a writer?
     In a word: yes. Reading is just as important to writers as being bothersome is to a cuddling cat. The words we peel through in a novel, poem, or short work are what reload our own craft. Think of it like driving a car running purely on electricity, as cars these days tend to do.
     You wouldn't fuel an electric car with water. Student writers try to do this by putting a piece off until the night before it's due. You wouldn't stare at the car and say you were driving it, yet young writers say they write when they actually only think of writing. Who does that?
     A few friends and I had a good laugh, when one learned that a person he knew wrote in a genre he had never read.
     Plain as the sun beating down on Death Valley, writers learn, grow, and feed in their craft by reading, writing, and assisting others through the process. Of course, meeting others and discussing writing can and should be a part of the work. Writing is solely not an activity for introverts. But the meat of what we do, repeated throughout the course of every writing reference you'll pick up, is gained by being a writer and reader.
     Go and find yourself a good book, and start learning.