After much consideration over the past week concerning my second novel work in progress, I've decided to wrap up work on the first part (1/3) and clear off the back burner until I start editing for the first draft of my first novel in October.  This wasn't an easy decision.

First, I no longer have the motivation to continue on with writing the second novel since I have a self-imposed editing deadline for the first novel,  and I didn't want to stop in middle of part two when I can make a clean break after finishing part one.

Second, since the second novel is a diversion between editing rounds of the first novel, I couldn't give it my fullest attention without impacting the first novel.  The second novel requires a complete breakdown analysis of the first part before I can outline and write the next two parts.  An extended break should help with that.

Third, the back burner has unfinished short stories and poems that I would like to finish and clear out before I start something new.  With the summer break coming to an end at many short story magazine publishers, I'm expecting a flood of returned SASEs bearing mostly rejection slips, some acceptance letters, and no money to pay for anything.  I'm always tweaking or rewriting a piece to make better before sending out again.  These admin tasks always take more time if I don't plan for it.

Maybe I'm too lazy to pound out a 400-page rough draft of a novel in three months, or maybe six months is a suitable amount of time to write a novel.  I hope editing my first novel goes faster than that.  If everything works out, I'll be working on the second part of my second novel in January.  Or maybe not.

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When I went out yesterday to run errands, I noticed immediately that there was something wrong with my car.  The radio antenna was gone, leaving behind the naked screw mount and rubber gasket.   Nothing else was missing.  The windows were intact.  The factory radio with the country music cassette tape stuck inside was still there.  All the empty plastic water bottles that would draw a small fortune for a homeless recyclable collector still on the floor behind the front seats.  Only the radio antenna was gone.

Without the antenna, my radio reception disappeared when ever I drove under a metal roof or concrete overpass, and become scratchy when driving under a power line.  Very annoying.  Unlike my Dad's truck radio that gets two stations (country and talk), my car radio only gets one station (talk a la KGO Radio).  Silicon Valley haven't had a decent country radio station since the venerable KEEN went off the air in 1992 because the land underneath that radio antenna was worth more than the radio station.  Picking up a new radio antenna was added to my list of errands.

I went to Fry's Electronics and Best Buy but they didn't have any simple screw-on radio antenna, which was surprising considering how much custom audio equipment they sell for cars.  When I worked at the Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown San Jose during the mid-1990's, the assistant kitchen manager showed off his two 18-inch speakers, the power amp and a half-dozen car batteries that filled up the trunk of his 1975 muscle car.  That combination alone cost more than what the car was worth.  He cranked up at the volume of a Mexican mariachi band.  At the time I lived a mile away from the restaurant and I could still hear the music playing when I got home at 1:00AM.

I ended up getting a plain silver antenna at Kragen Auto Parts for $16.  My original antenna was similar to that but in black.  I wasn't happy with the color or the price.  Antennas weren't a designer item like everything else for cars these days.  I was more concern about the antenna mount being exposed to the elements that would lead to a corrosion problem with the trunk lid if I didn't get a replacement antenna.  I got enough problems with the car without having that.

After attaching the new antenna, I took a close look at the parking stall next to my car.  No car has parked there for the last three years.  I found cigarette butts on the left and right sides of the stall.  For the past few months, I been finding empty beer bottles and take out trash around my car.  On a few weekend afternoons, I found a car load of teenage gang bangers hanging out and probably waiting for a friend who lived in Building M.  I filled out an incident report at the apartment complex office, and was reassured by the managers that security would keep an out for that empty parking stall at night.

Gang bangers been trying to get into the complex for a while now since nearby apartment complexes been overrun by rival gang bangers.  I often see them driving by in their 1970's era cars—cool gang bangers drive souped up Honda Civics—in front of the complex, flashing their gang signs to people who don't care about them.  The complex management has maintained high standards for people moving in, cleans up the gang graffiti the day after it appears, and run out trouble tenants when they become a nuisance.  There's an informal neighborhood watch since everyone watches what's going on from their balconies and from inside the buildings.

A few hours later, while making a cell phone call from my balcony, I noticed a car load of teenage gang bangers pulling into the parking stall next to my car.  One of them even got out to buy ice cream from a passing vendor.  I couldn't believe my luck.  After getting the license plate number and description of the car, I went down to the office.  One of the managers called the security company and the other manager ran off the gang bangers with a stern lecture.

Did these gang bangers steal my car antenna?  Maybe, maybe not.  However, since they had all four doors opened wide with cigarettes in hand, they probably did leave behind the butts in the stall the last time they were here.

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The 700-page rough draft of my first novel took a year to write.  I spent the last two months writing the first 130 pages of a 400-page rough draft for my second novel that I planned to get done next month before I start editing for the next draft of the first novel in October.  Except I'm only one-third done, stuck at the beginning of the middle, and uncertain what to do yet.  I been wallowing in a writing funk for the last few weeks (which isn't related to my recent birthday funk).  Recalling my experience with the first novel and reexamining a half dozen short stories that I started but abandon after a few pages, the middle is where a story can and often does die.

Writing something new is always exciting.  Unless the story is very short (say five pages or less), that excitement wears off in a hurry and writing becomes work.  That's the problem.  Work.  While the beginning and sometimes the ending seemingly writes itself with no effort on my part, the middle is all work trying to connect the beginning with the ending.  Work that I don't enjoy tends to make me want to do something else that's more exciting.

The middle of my first novel felt like stringing a rope bridge across a deep chasm by myself.  I did force myself to start writing one bloody page after another until what I written became the bridge to cross the chasm.  The structure was seven parts with seven chapters each that kept me from falling into the abyss.

The middle of my second novel felt more like climbing the high wall of an obstacle course and getting stuck on top with no one to push me over (if only to see me land on my face).  That's probably because I'm experimenting more with this novel—shorter chapters, flexible POVs, and naming all the characters—to avoid repeating myself.  Writing fast and dirty to get the main story down, but also taking care to avoid the sprawling mess of the first draft and respecting the deadline that I set.

What to do about this horrible middle?

There are several options but none will have the second novel done before the deadline.  I can keep writing until the deadline, ending the story halfway through.  I can stop at the one-third mark to clean up what I have written so far and outline the middle.  Or, stop at the one-third mark to finish the abandon short stories for the next month.  All three options appeal to me in one way or another.

Maybe I need to buy a Magic Eight Ball to decide this one.

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The last two weeks been the week before and the week after my birthday (August 7th) where I been in deep thought—very dangerous but the planet didn't explode—trying to answer the one essential question in life: What does the big four-oh really mean?  The answer: Not a whole lot.

Physically, I don't feel all that different.  Still working out at the gym and eating less to lose weight (lost  ten pounds over the last month).  I have  a compulsive desire to remain clean shaven.  I'm now shaving every day since shaving every other day wasn't cutting it anymore.  I still miss my Amish beard from a few years ago.  Emotionally, I'm still melancholy as usual when contemplating my past and my future.  All of which is tied to my work as a writer rather than growing older.

The rough draft of my first novel is on ice until I start editing in October.  The rough draft of my second novel is floundering at the one-third mark (middles are so exciting), and may be abandon when the time comes.  Other projects are dying on the back burner.  Being unemployed for six months is creating a lot of uncertainty with some days being like this or like that, and that's affecting my ability to write.  (No, it's not writer's block; I can still write myself out of a paper bag if I can find the cattle prod.)  If I was writing full time, I would be doing a very poor job indeed.

The worst part is all my short stories and poems (40 pieces) are still circulating in the slush piles, and I'm on pins-and-needles waiting for a response.  August can be a cruel month for waiting for something—anything—to arrive by mail or email.  Everyone in the publishing world is on vacation.

The next year will require a lot of hard work as I finish two novels and a short story collection before I look for an agent.  When that happens, I'll be working on my third novel and waiting for an agent to tell me that I won the publishers sweepstakes.

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Spent birthday money that I didn't have yet and still might not get next week at Borders a few days ago.  A combination of factors made me splurge the last few precious dollars that I have.  First and foremost, nearly six months of unemployment had exhausted my stack of unread fiction that all I had left was a stack of unread non-fiction.  Second, I had five Borders Buck and a 30% off coupon for this month.  Third, spending $50 USD will earn another five Borders Buck for next month.  I managed to save $10 USD and picked up a half-dozen books.

I normally don't shop in a bookstore unless I have the right financial incentives to buy locally over ordering through Amazon.  While browsing through Borders and recalling what books I had stashed away in my Amazon shopping cart, I actually found more books that weren't there than the ones that I did find.  Seems like the entire midlist of books has been thinned out to a bare minimum.  A friend told me that the CD/DVD selection at the San Francisco store was nonexistent.  Worse, the Santa Row store is doing another reorganization to make sure you can't find anything even if they did have it.

The redeeming grace was one of the clerks noticing that I had a stack of books in one hand and reading the first page of a book in the other hand, who brought over a shopping bag for me to throw everything in.  Seriously, I only intended to get a Harry Potter book when I went into the store.  If I buy a half-dozen or more books at a time, I usually order through Amazon to take advantage of the four-for-three promo and free shipping.

Here's the summer reading list.

The common thread that ties all these books together is my own writings; the rough draft of my second novel that I'm composing now, and my first novel that I'm planning to edit in October.  I want to read a wide variety of different stories and writing styles to create a magical brew to incorporate into my own work.  This stack should keep me entertain for another month or two.

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