Is There Anybody Out There?

06/23/2018

“Does anyone still manage this website, or has it been abandoned?  I haven’t seen new content here in awhile.”

I’m a huge fan of HBO’s Game of Thrones.  It’s easily the best series I’ve seen on television, period.  Not “the best in a long time,” but period.  I can remember my frustration toward creator and author George R Martin when I learned that the television series was outpacing his ability to finish his novels, and that the series might have to be placed on hold in order to allow for him to catch up.

When I become frustrated at most things in life, my default position is to step back and try to view the situation as an outsider.  I try to imagine what it would look like if I had no vested interest–if I had no dog in this fight.  The result of disconnecting emotion from most any subject is, one starts seeing it objectively.

Mr. Martin is, after all, a human being.  He’s not a word processing lump of meat who is fused to a chair somewhere peeling perfect final-draft-quality first-attempt pages from a magic typewriter, each page falling perfectly on top of a stack of other perfect pages which are ready to be bound and shipped to his publisher.  HBO scriptwriters aren’t kneeling by his feet, jotting down his scenes and dialog as his loud and boisterous voice dictates it.  And by that token, those HBO scriptwriters aren’t emailing their notes to a film crew which shoots those scenes as soon as they’re sent to them.

That isn’t how writing works, and I know that all too well.  Even without HBO’s involvement.  No, these things take time, and no two authors follow the same creative flow.  First drafts rarely represent a final product, and countless revisions lead to countless complete rewrites and countless hours of editing–and sometimes the entire process only leads to having a different first draft than the first draft you had when you first had a first draft.

It’s complicated.

Not only does that not describe how writing works, it also doesn’t describe how being a human being works.  Not even remotely.

I’m the kind of man who insists on keeping deeply personal aspects of his private life… well… private.  That said, I’m a human being.  Just as human as you, Dear Reader.  And as human beings, we share one thing absolutely in common:  life sometimes throws curve balls at us, and never at a time when we’re prepared to even attempt hitting them.  The game changes at the drop of a dime, and very often the only thing we can do is roll with it.

This year has been one of those years where I’ve had to roll with it.  It’s been a lot of rolling.  That said, the water’s calming and the storm has pretty much passed.  Myself and everyone involved are sliding into our new normal, and the winds have died down.

The third and final entry of the Outcasts saga is still in development, and I’ve got several new ideas which are begging for my attention concerning further projects.  Hopefully, this entry shows that this website is indeed still being managed.  I’m still here… and there’s a lot of catching up to do.  While I regain my footing, I appreciate your patience as well as your support.

We’ve still got a lot of ground to cover.