Yesterday, I began a series of posts examining my novel in progress, Housebreaking the Muse. As I noted, the manuscript has hit a kind of critical mass, so I’ve begun analyzing it for clues concerning the work I'm trying to accomplish and how I'm going about it. As I said, I prefer the work of…
More than 200 pages into my novel Housebreaking the Muse, I’m starting to look for clues concerning the work it’s trying to accomplish. You see, I try not to force themes, but rather discover them as the work unfolds, then refine my ideas through the revision process. I know the notion is likely not much…
Another glimpse into the first draft as it emerges: .... Could it be that I, poor ghost of a thousand fragments clustered in the suspect ectoplasm of the vaporized artilleryman, the failed shade imprisoned in the sliver universe, a misty specimen trapped as if between glass slides of infinitesimal thickness, pliant panes that allow only…
But how can I be sure of anything in the state in which I find myself? I feel as if extracted from someone else's dream, as if I--the would-be poet--were nothing more than a failed verse written in crabbed script, left adrift in the wake of a passing train, skimming the platform of a deserted…
This summer has been regrettably saturated, disruptive, and shambolic. Pulled by life in too many directions, I've been operating in a fog where everything gets some of my attention but never the amount it deserves. It has been, for me, a failed summer. And, oh yes, the world seems to have gotten even madder (are…
Ed Desautels' Maximum Fiction 