Patience, My Pets...

I see several of my readers are looking for more Westerville Chronicles material. All I can say is be patient with me... I am writing the next installment. The problem is, quite simply, that I find them to be a bitch to write. I don't write quickly in the first place, and writing straight fiction - as opposed to political rants - usually proceeds at a glacial pace.

A big part of the problem is I don't particularly care for my own ficition. The fact that other people seem to like it doesn't mitigate. I always wince when I re-read any of the Chronicles. It is really hard getting all fired up about writing when you aren't enamoured with what you manage to come up with.

Irrespective of my own doubts, I do plan to proceed. I'll just bank on the fact that if Amanda Marcotte can get published, anyone can get published... although her sales appear to have been low enough that one could still consider It's A Jungle Out There somewhere in the realm between "Confidential" and "Top Secret".

In the meantime, let's all look at some pictures I took of the fjords of Central Ohio...

 

Above is a picture from Lake Westerville of the famed Westerville Mountain Range.

 

This is the Westerville Glacier, and behind it is Mount Indifference, which is the highest peak in the Westerville Mountain Range. Legend has it there are Yetis inhabiting these mountains, but most of us suspect what we've really got is a bunch of migrating West Virginia hillbillies.

 

This is one of Westerville's newest rescue boats for use on Lake Westerville. It's docked because nobody in the City's Rapid Response Crisis Team knows how to start the damn thing, and City Council is still reading the owner's manual...

Comments

[Surreal American]

Wow! I missed all the scenic spots when I drove through Ohio via I-80.

[Flyby Reader]

Surreal--that's because you were on I-80, not I-70 . . .

Dennis--"I always wince when I re-read any of the Chronicles." FWIW, I'm sure you know many great writers feel this way. I recall Flannery O'Connor, when asked if she would like to revise anything in her first (great) novel, Wise Blood, said something like "Revise it? I can't bring myself to look at it!" (I enjoy both Flannery's writing and yours, but, no, I can't think of any other way to compare them.)

Funny how fiction is tougher than politics, isn't it?

And "Suport Vessel"? What's up with Westerville schools?

But, yes, more Chronicles, please. I'll even send you some Xmas cookies (sugar-free, if you'd like) as a small token of appreciation . . .

[Tim P]

I think you'd better suport that local school bond levy.

[Dennis The Peasant]

I would have, but they didn't ask for one. Nobody on the school board knew how to spell "bond".

[Dennis The Peasant]

Flyby-

My prose runs more along the lines of Tolstoy, don't you think?

[Flyby Reader]

Heh. Yep. When I think of both war and peace, I think of Dennis the Peasant!