Thursday, November 16, 2006

Frog Fish Are People Too

The cool thing about frog fish is they don't try to escape and run. They just sit there hoping you will go away. You have to be really annoying before they amble off. And amble they do. Sort of like that drunk uncle of yours during the holidays trying to get his coat out of that pile on the bed...That amble...They are good natured. They have to be. They can't dart or strike. They are not good eating.
They are just so darned interesting.
I have a lot of photos of frog fish.
You will see...

3 am and 81 degrees.
Don't ask.
I should be in bed, instead the characters in the next novel I am editing woke me up. They needed motivation. They needed a sense of place. They needed structure. So here I am warming up by writing in my blog and drinking coffee way too early in the morning.
I am out of order.
My first novel - which I still love and garnered several requests for fulls - sits in my drawer waiting until my skill matches what I need to do with it.
My second novel - which I decided to start editing next- has been screaming at me for the last few weeks "GET TO WORK ON ME! FINISH ME! POLISH ME!
My third novel - which got me my wonderful agent - was sent email to NY and is now being shopped.
My fourth novel is percolating in its third draft stage waiting for my editorial distance.
My fifth novel is still in its embryonic form at 20,000 words and sprawling structure.
My sixth novel is outlined, has a beginning and end but alas no middle yet, because each time I sit down to work on it my other works start having tantrums and I have to leave the good, quiet child to tend to the bad.
They are all living, breathing entities.
They are alive to me.
A quivering mass of words I have no control over.
I think I was going to relate this whole exposition to the frog fish.
The unexpected.
Ambling.
Frog fish.
But I won't.

5 comments:

Kimber Li said...

Cool! Loved the octopus yesterday too. We have one at the Alaska Sealife Center in Seward and literally follows people around. The amazing thing about an octopus is how intelligent it can be for something that looks like a gob of goo with legs.

I sometimes wake up way too early, as well, with characters going crazy in my head. Try tossing them a stick of dynamite next time. ;)

Zany Mom said...

I agree about the previous works throwing tantrums that it's all about them, you can't work on something new.

I'm only on novel #2 but my goal is to finish it soon. Supposed to be this month, but life, ya know, is nuts.

ORION said...

What? I'm not the ONLY one whose life is nuts?
Most of the "nutness" (I love it when I can invent a word) is my own doing...
Right now it is stress as my agent shops book 3.
(I am out of order)
Number one is sitting
Number two is being edited
Number three is being shopped
Number four is sitting
Number five and six are embryonic and fighting for position.
I feel like I have multiple personalities.

Sandra Scoppettone said...

Call me crazy but I have a feeling that number one should continue to sit, and number two should join number one. Three is out there so go on with four. I would hate to have my number one, two and three anywhere but where they belong. In a trunk.

ORION said...

Oh that is probably SO true!
But we do what we are compulsed to do!