Writer's Block

The veracity of the above statement may be debatable, considering how often I blog now in comparison to months past. After all, blogging is writing. But it's not the only sort of writing that I want to be doing.

The Friday right before my Jersey trip I met up with my friend Caleb for the first time in almost a year. He's been traveling through South America having a grand old time while I graduated USF and came out here. We could only get together for about two hours because of my schedule, but that was enough time to go to a little coffee shop in Cambridge and catch up. He has some amazing stories about his travels. And, somehow he was productive at the same time, coming back here with drafts of short stories and novels, character sketches and plans for more books. I've got to admit, I'm kinda jealous. My first book has been done for quite some time now and is still being rejected (I got another rejection two weeks ago from an agency Dianna suggested), but for some reason I have been unable to get any momentum going on the sequel. And I don't have anything else to work on, either. It's a total dry spell. Sometimes that bothers me, and sometimes I figure getting through grad school is more important anyway, so I shouldn't worry about it.

I started writing this post ages ago. I meant to publish it before I went to Jersey, but that obviously didn't happen. And guess what? I got another rejection letter today. That makes 13 official rejections so far and about as many who just never responded. At least this one came on nice stationery. And now I get to find a new agent to be rejected by. On the bright side, not having an agent means nobody is pushing me to get the sequel written so it's ready to go when this first one proves to be wildly popular.

I've actually been thinking lately of moving in a different direction. Since coming out to Boston I've encountered the seeds of a few ideas, but they're more of a sci-fi bent than fantasy. Still, it would be fun to try. If I every get spare time again we'll see how that works out. I've decided to do my reference final project on the science fiction and fantasy genres, which should give me a chance to do personal research in the process of completing the assignment. We're supposed to create a "pathfinder" for our chosen topic and share it with the class. Essentially, this means finding every resource in the library related to my topic and creating a snazzy list, as well as using library resources to choose new books that our library doesn't have but should consider purchasing to provide more coverage on the topic. It's due on the last day of class, so there's no way I'm starting it yet--all my other big projects are due before Thanksgiving. Still, it's something I could do little by little. And when I'm checking out the sources to see how much information they provide, I'll be taking my own notes on what is already out there and just how my new idea would fit in. Perhaps by Christmas I could try writing something? We'll have to wait and see.

-Kim