I have managed to get some critical progress done on Shadows and Stars today. I have a few major plot holes in my first draft. My goal over the weekend was to fill them and add a significant amount of words (though still keeping the work concise) to the text.
I forget what I did Friday evening. If I recall correctly, I work on finding book reviewers in library journals. Libraries buy a lot books. I became familiar with the process of submitting a book to a library journal for review and what the major journals are.
On Saturday, I mailed off a copy of Nocturne… for review. I ran some errands. I was stymied in coming up with ideas for Shadows and Stars. I got a few words written, but couldn’t get the creative juices flowing all that well. I fell asleep on the sofa.
On Sunday, I woke up on the sofa about 6:00 a.m. I went to bed, but had an idea, though not relation to Shadows and Stars. I had been thinking about Nocturne and that I still have a few poems laying here here and probably some at home in Kentucky. On the spur of the moment, I decided to create another volume of poetry. I decided to call it Remnants (of a Life). I would put in it some of my early unpublished poems that I could find here, and maybe some prose shorts, and maybe some stuff from my things in storage in Kentucky. Eventually, I decided not to use the prose. I went through a few dozen spiral-bound notebooks dating from way back, some dating back to the 90’s, and pulled out a few unpublished poems. I started typing those into a draft. I decided to put together a collection of 365 poems of varying lengths, though I would have to write most of them. I chose 365 so that the book would be relatively thick and because 365 is the number of days in a year, the basic cycle of human existence. That consumed the morning. I did find about half a dozen poems that I decided to include in another edition of Nocturne. I will also gather whatever poems I can find in Kentucky that are suitable and include them in that edition also. All that took up the morning. The poems will be primarily observations on life. Some will be on past relationships.
Other than that, I stayed home, but still had problems with the creative juices with regards to Shadows and Stars. I got a few words written though. I spent a lot of time staring into space. I went over a lot of my past notes on Shadows and Stars trying to see if I had had a suitable idea in the past that I could use.
Today, I spent at home. I went over my notes again. I came up with ideas to fill two of the major holes. I did not type up text, per se. I typed up some rough ideas of the plot for those two sections, refined those, and typed them up. That made me feel real good. Now, I can write those two sections and have my details covered. I am now checking for other plot holes and I took care of a few small ones today. I think I can make some decent progress this month. I have been trying to overcome these plot holes for a couple months anyhow.
The end is in sight. Thank God.
I would write more, but it’s late, and I have to go to work in the morning.
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Hasta luego.
Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher 