Trying to Collect Robert Before His Time

Helllllllllllooooooo Otterites!

It’s been an age and then some since I posted, so I’m sure readers who aren’t listeners have been wondering where Robert has been.

Right?

Anyway… Life happens. Stuff gets in the way. You forget to post something and the next thing you know, Marty’s only able to talk like John Madden because it’s time for the NFL and all (and only) things fantasy football related. Or so it seems. Mrs. Marty calls herself a football widow for a reason.

Holy crap! I just checked and my last post was April 27th! Four months!

OK, now I’m suitably contrite for my absence.

Since that time, The Boy has left Sophomore status and is now a Junior at the local Carmelite themed Catholic High School (St. Francis DeSales). The Middle Daughter has adopted a Beagle mix 1.5 year old rescue, making Mrs. Robert and I “grand-PAW-rents” as she likes to put it. Cute dog really. Very friendly.

I think Nemo (the grand-dog) should be introduced to Francis. They’d get along famously I’m sure.

Both the Eldest Child and the Middle Daughter have gotten promotions and corresponding raises, thereby easing our minds that Mrs. Robert and I might have a moderately rat and roach free old folks home to retire to one day. We’ll see.

I finished my final-can’t-look-at-it-anymore draft of the non-fiction book so I could let Francis and Marty take a look. You need fresh eyes after a while with a text. Sometimes that means putting it aside for a bit and/or letting someone else take a red pen to it.

Frannie came back with some good stuff and I’m working on applying those to the book so I can submit it to a contest that has a final deadline next week. Frannie already submitted his first novel to it for the fiction side of things.

Speaking of fiction, I’ve been busy working on Story Gridding my fiction book first draft. I’m about half way through it, maybe a little more than that. The Story Grid methodology is just a phenomenal tool for editing your work. It’s really good at helping you see the big picture of your story and where things are glaringly wrong as well as some subtle, yet important, mistakes as well. It’s a lot of work, but I think it’s well worth it. I think I’ve probably saved myself two or three drafts of edits by identifying the big stuff this way.

As my compatriots well know, there’s an itch that needs to be scratched when you’re writing. Sometimes the itch is not as noticeable when you’re off doing other things. When it is, it’s maddening. Like trying to scratch the exact middle of your back where you can’t reach it with either hand, from the top over the shoulder or the side wrapped around your back. You want to move from surface to surface trying to find something… ANYTHING… to scratch that itch.

But nothing works until you sit down at the keyboard and start banging on the keys. There is no substitute.

That’s when you know you might just be a real writer. You still don’t know for sure if you’re any good, mind you. You can be a real writer and not be a great or even good one. Though if you write for years and remain mediocre, maybe you should study the craft a little more. Read the classics. Read the great books about writing. Take some classes. Learn from others.

That’s how you get better at anything.

Somehow I managed to go from an irreverent “i’m still alive!” post to the deep stuff again. It’s a gift and a curse to me and you, the readers. I’ll let you decide who is gifted and who is cursed.