Summer’s Come and Gone

Summer 2012, a season of writing: Following a terrific SC Book Festival in May, I launched into the writing of Novel 2012, whose actual title is LET THE GLORY PASS AWAY, and here in mid-August—not actually the end of summer, but the beginning of back to school season certainly feels that way—I find that I am only a few thousand words from having completed a draft. This is the quickest I’ve managed to get a novel written, and was only possible because of five or six months of prep work: characters, scenes, themes, and images. All of these have come together in an almost-complete piece that I believe represents the most mature writing to come out of me yet.

And besides surfing on a wave of creativity, all my endeavor seems to be paying off: I will have my novel FELLOW TRAVELER in print sometime this fall (thank you Muddy Ford Press), my short story ‘Locked in the Punch’ is a finalist for the 2012 Faulkner-Wisdom award, and my 2010 SC Fiction Project winner ‘Heroes and Villains’ is in contention to be made into a short film! How cool is that?

To any would-be scribes out there, I can tell you that nothing feels better, or more validating, than a run of success like this. The secret? Perseverance, discipline, patience. Keep writing, but more importantly, don’t stop believing that it can happen for you.