I've been busy working on the rewrite of the novel. I probably could be doing more right now.

I got some books in the mail yesterday. I'm too busy to start reading the Kris Nelscott books I ordered (Thin Walls and Stone Cribs) but I had time to read a couple of my favorite chapters from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way.

I borrowed the book from someone a couple years ago but I hadn't bought a copy for myself. Until now. It's interesting to note similarities to that book and the book on self-defeating behaviors which is on my shelf. They're both helpful but each speak a different language. It's nice to hear something said in a different way.

A self-defeating behavior like procrastination will return sometimes. What do you expect? You've had years of that behavior trudging through your neural pathways. It takes time to build alternate pathways.

In the Artist's Way, Cameron writes about creative U-turns where you have some success, whether sales or overcoming a block, and just when things are going good, that self-imposed block comes up again. It could be fear of success or fear of failure, regardless, it's natural as well as inevitable. You just have to deal with it and move on.

My biggest mistake, I think, was sitting on my novel for almost a year before attempting revision. Fear and those questions of doubt reared their ugly heads. It didn't even occur to me I was already thinking the novel was broken (or was crap) before I even touched it, and what I should have been thinking was I have this problem at this point of the novel and I should fix it the best I can at this point in my ability.

It's the little things, yeah know? Those little thoughts we're hardly aware of that get in our way.


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In other arenas, it's almost time to renew my subscription to Bruce Holland Rogers's short-shorts. For only five dollars a year I get three stories a month (based on his subscriber base). If you haven't subscribed yet, go give him a try. Here's an article from the Eugene Register-guard about Bruce and his subscription service. Article Here.