Again with the whining and the excuses (or, Starting a new novel, revisited)

Well, that didn’t last long. Just a mere three weeks ago, I was basking in the glow of having finished a draft of OTHER THING.  I had nothing but time on my hands, which I happily spent trying not to send myself to Happy Acres Sanitarium by fretting over whether those 48,000-ish words were ickier than a pile of half-chewed, ant-covered movie popcorn on the theater floor.

Heck, with so much time on my hands, I even spent an evening idly writing a ridiculously long post about how I draft a book.

And now, here I am, thinking once again that I should probably warn you that Puddintopia posts are about to become less epic that usual.

Right, because, “epic” is totally the first thing to spring to mind when you think of my ramblings.

Ahem.  The point being that, well, if you look to the right at the progress meter for OTHER THING you’ll find that it’s no longer the progress meter for OTHER THING.  OTHER THING is mostly out of my hands now*, having been blasted off to the powers-that-be (aka, my agent) like an ill-fitting novelty T-shirt from one of those awesome-sauce pneumatic cannons they use to terrify small children between periods at hockey and basketball games.

Now that I’m no longer (allowing myself to be) worried about OTHER THING, it’s time to move on. I am thrilled, then, to announce that for the next couple of months, whatever paltry powers of the mind I might possess will be focused on my next book. Although, admittedly, after a full day at the office and an evening trying to keep the kids, you know, alive and not excavating a hole to China in the back yard, those “powers of the mind” sometimes focus about as well Mr. Magoo on his fifth martini.

As of this yesterday evening, said novel has been designated Project Macaroni.  Why “Project Macaroni”?  Well, because why not?  Also, everyone loves it.  Macaroni that is, not necessarily the book.  I mean, I certainly love the idea of the book, sure, but it’s barely even an outline yet. That’s like expecting a perfect stranger to love your imaginary best friend, Wilhoit.

What do you mean, you don’t have an imaginary friend name Wilhoit. Doesn’t everybody have one? I know I have an imaginary—.

Uh, yeah. Moving on…

I’ve already done the song and dance post about hovering over the edge of the precipice that is Starting  a New Book. If you want to know what’s going through my head at this point, then, that’s the place to look. And yes, don’t worry, there’s an anti-bacterial gel station at the end of it to get rid of whatever ickies you might pick up while wandering through my head. It is a pretty disturbing place.

Please ignore the clowns.

I can’t give you too many details about Project Macaroni because, well, I don’t wanna. Sekrits is fun! What I will say is that it’s the first adult book I’ve started work on since Famine, and, no, it’s not a sequel (we haven’t reached the bridge to ford that river, yet).  With that in mind, I’m guessing Project Macaroni will come at roughly twice the length of Longshots and OTHER THING (which were both about 50k). The point being that I won’t rip this thing out of my brain in a month.

I’ve given my self two, instead.

Thus, if I’ve become a shivering, stinky heap of muttering and self-loathing come Labor Day, that’s why. But with any luck, when Labor Day does get here, I’ll be able to shower the writer’s funk away, shave my embarrassing neck beard, reacquaint myself with my wife, and toast another completed draft.

In the normal course of things, this is where I’d offer warnings, prognostications, and portents heavy with implied meaning about my blogging scheduling and how posts around here are soon to become more rare than an NFL player with a clean rap sheet.  But, you know, I think we’re past that now.  I think it’s safe to assume for the foreseeable future, I’ll be working on a book.  Always.  In perpetuity.  And while I’m doing it, I’m going to do my damnedest to keep up with the blog as well as I can because I love writing both things equally, different as they are.

So, long story short, puddintopians, I’m starting work in earnest on Project Macaroni this weekend. I’d love it if you wished me luck, but you don’t need to say goodbye, farewell, or even bon voyage.  Because, yeah, I’m going to be busy, but, nah, I’m not going to be dead.

I hope.

Pud’n

*which is not to say my work on it is done. I’m sure it isn’t; but for now, for me, it’s out-of-sight-out-of-mind.