Subdivided We Stand Meets Marathon Man: Cerealized Fiction

It's been a long time. Been a long time. Been a long, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely...time.

Yes, it has.

With no excuses other than to say that I haven't had a single original, imaginative thought to express in ages...and I'm not altogether certain that I EVER did anyway...

I'm back to contribute something/anything to Bob's long time solo blogging act. And make it a duo once again.

As Bob has reported, I'm in the market for a new career after finishing up a brand new masters degree, this one in the exciting, timely, crowded field of international relations. While I'm at that I'm also in the midst of writing a new book...actually picking up after one that I cast aside a couple of years ago.

I've done that quite often: cast aside a book idea or a work in progress. I read where Stephen King has called these "trunk" novels. Books that he has written and then with dismay or dissatisfaction stashed away in a trunk. Only to open the trunk many years later and publishing the rediscovered books under the Richard Bachman moniker.

I haven't been keeping old books in trunks. There are some legal pads with indecipherable scrawl piled up in boxes. But there are also old files of stories and false starts in folders on an external back-up hard drive. It's in one of those electric files that I've picked up some notes and beginnings of the book that I'm currently working on.

In trolling around the old files I also came upon a fairly substantial part of another book, a kind of film noir homage, that I wrote around three years ago before we moved to South Carolina but almost completely forgot about. It was a story that I first wrote as a screenplay years before to zero attention and even less acclaim. But it's a story that stayed with me and after setting it aside for awhile I'm surprised that unlike most of the rediscovered stuff I've written in the past this one still seems fun and entertaining. It's set in South Carolina, written before I actually lived there. And there's enough of it written already that it wouldn't take much struggle (I think) to finish it (I hope). The added experience of living in the locale might also help in sharpening the book's focus.

So...here's what I'm thinking, and Bob has graciously agreed: I'd like to roll it out as a serialized novel on this here blog.

Silence.

Okay. This sort of thing has been done before. And it's not the favorite way to read a book. But with nothing to lose, and with no other plans for the story, I'm going to give it a shot, shoot out a couple of installments a week (on Tuesdays and Thursdays), and see what happens.

The book is called Blacksmith's Girl. And we'll be kicking it off very soon, perhaps as soon as...

As soon as Bob gives me the go sign!