My next story...

So I finished reading Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince and I left excited but expectant for the climax of the series. It reminded me why I love fantasy and, even more, why I've got to finish the book that I've written and write the other story bouncing around in my head.

As I previously mentioned, six months ago I had to face facts and accept that I simply could not write a book, build my house, start a business, work a full-time job and be a husband and father all at the same time without going insane. So I shelved my writing with the promise that I would pick it up when my life became a little more calm.

But that doesn't mean I've stopped thinking about my stories. On the contrary, I can't stop thinking about them. Whatever I go through, positive or negative, it seems to spawn a story. Even things as mundane as my job or arguments with friends have become huge plots in my mind. I'm not tell you this to make myself sound creative or anything, it's just the way I am; I understand things and express myself best through stories.

The few people who have read my first book (Jack & Hattie) will tell you that it's just a re-telling of me falling in love with Suzanne and the struggles we face as husband and wife, albeit set in an absurd fantasy world. This was entirely unintentional, but after they pointed it out I entirely agree. Suzanne is all over that book.

I haven't even looked at Jack & Hattie in months but I really want to finish it. I finally understand the story and I need to end it.

But I'm really excited about my next story. It the one that's really stuck in my brain and it seemed to crawl out of my experiences from working in an office environment. It hasn't taken any sort of coherent form but it involves superheros, vampires, werewolves, demons, angels, the apocalypse, and office environments. If you haven't already guessed, it's a story in the spirit of geekhood.

Our house is almost finished and my work situation may soon be changing (you didn't hear that). And just I can't wait to start writing again.

I hope that I don't sound pretentious. I know that I'm not a great writer or anything but I think I'm getting better. Whenever I get discouraged at how lousy I am, I always think back to eleven years ago when I started playing guitar; I stank, I couldn't tell if the thing was in tune or not, I had a hard time pressing down the strings and I didn't even understand one bit of music theory. But it was simply a joy to hold a guitar in my hands. I couldn't get enough of strumming the strings and playing E minor over and over again. I even loved the smell of the wood. Now I'm playing stuff that I only dreamed of playing eleven years ago. But I had to be a lousy guitarist before I could be a good one.

Again, I'm not bragging but I think that's where I'm at with writing. It's just a joy to sit down and write a story, lousy or not. And I think I'm getting better.

How about you all? Did any of you have a desire to do something that at first seemed impossible or just too hard, but you couldn't stop because you enjoyed it so much? Was it playing an instrument? Or playing a sport? I'd be interested to hear.

And thanks for enduring my navel-gazing. I just couldn't bear to write another post about movie trailers.