July 27, 2017: Is there such a thing as re-beginning?

Three things to say, right here at the re-beginning: 

(Can I call it that? Kicking off a new bloggish endeavor; pulling apart and putting back together my beloved trilogy-in-progress? I'll totally call it that. The Re-Beginning.)

So, you never know what's around the corner, right? Two books have just staged a major shake-up in how I think and feel about my work. MAJOR. I'm talking revolution-scale.

1. Jim Heskett's book The Juggling Author: I zipped through this at the end of last week, and it ignited a fire in me to learn the skill of production. To learn how to produce publishable fiction, reliably, at a quick pace. I loved Heskett's practical tone. His methods simplify what I've been way overcomplicating.

And listening to him describe his process, it just felt so doable. I mean—really hard work, of course, but DOABLE hard work.

I love doable. Doable is my favorite. So now I'm dreaming big, consistent-production dreams.

2. Libbie Hawker's let-me-convince-you-outlining-is-worthwhile book Take Off Your Pants: HOLY SMOKES. If my other beloved structure books helped me understand a novel's skeleton, Hawker's approach has shown me how to create a story's circulatory system.

It's like she said, Um, you can't just duct-tape a heart on the outside of your story and call it good. Here's how you put it on the INSIDE, from the start. 

Heart, arteries, veins, capillaries, all of it. Her approach showed me how to get blood to every scene and paragraph of the story. 

3. Which means that I went into a flurry of planning. I'd already been working on rebuilding my trilogy, and then these two books sailed into my life with Better Ways Of Doing Things. 

So here I am. With all those nerves that come with digging back in, all the trick-candle uncertainties, all the scar tissue from past attempts at figuring things out, and, mostly, all kinds of hope.

Seriously, there is so much hope. Waking up before my alarm each morning, with my stomach full of butterflies. THAT kind of hope. 

Re-beginning. Here we go.