I,Q Two Final #1 6

Our rental house days are behind us and we are back in the Casa, which is about 90% complete.  All we need is a kitchen sink…literally…and a few other things…

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I sent in two new novels last week, and now I’m working on I,Q2.  What’s interesting about this book is that the publication is going to be very compressed, which means I have the opportunity of taking you through the writing and publishing of a novel in the period of a few months rather than a year or more.  I,Q2 will be out long before the other two novels even though I’m still working on it.  Confused?

I’ve had hundreds of emails from readers about this…

Here’s what happened.  The short version.  “I,Q Book One: Independence Hall” came out in September 2008.  Before I could started “I,Q Book Two: The White House” I had to finish three other novels.  One of them was “Tentacles” the sequel to “Cryptid Hunters” which came out in September 2009 (5 months ago).  The other two were “Code Red” (not the real title), and “Beneath.”   Still confused?  Don’t worry the publisher of the “I,Q” series was confused too, which is why there have been several publication dates announced for “I,Q2” Which have come and gone.

Bottom line.  I had to finish three other novels before I could get back to I,Q…

I should have the rough final t draft finished by the end of this month.  As of today I am on page 125 of I,Q2.   These first 125 pages have been written over the past year and a half in between working on the other novels.  The pages have been revised many times and are in pretty good shape.  When I get this far in a novel the rest of the pages (and the story) falls into place pretty quickly.

So what I’m going to do for the next three weeks is give you a progress report in this journal of the writing of, or more accurately, finishing of the long awaited I,Q Book Two: The White House…

I,Q2 Final #1:

Up at 5:00AM.  I walk out into the kitchen to turn on the propane stove to boil water for coffee and thought the stove was not hooked up to the gas.  So the kitchen is missing more than the sink!  I should have figured this out last night.  But because there wasn’t a kitchen sink we went out to dinner (the restaurant is pictured below…not the prettiest place, but the food was wonderful, and they played cartoons on TV as we ate).  And I loved the restroom because it had a showerhead next to the sink.  Had we cooked at home last night we would have discovered that the stove was not hooked up to the gas.

I’m working on I,Q (without coffee) waiting for everyone to wake up here so I can bang around outside and boil water on the outside grill.   It is 7:00AM as I write this, and by this time everyone is usually up and about, but not today.  They are all sound asleep thinking they are going to wake up to fresh brewed coffee.  I’ve got bad news for them…

I spent a good part of yesterday and all of today reading and revising the 125 pages.  This is necessary to get back into the swing and rhythm of this story.  It’s always interesting to me how stepping away from a story helps you to see it better upon reading it again.  And this goes way beyond discovering little annoyances like typos.  Time away creates clarity.  I see the story differently and have made several changes to the structure that will make the story stronger by the time it’s finished.

The 125 pages are now completely revised.  Tomorrow I’ll continue the story and let you know how it’s going.  Who knows…  I might even include an excerpt or two in the next few days.  Spread the word.  Let your friends and teachers know about this.  Stay tuned….

If you haven’t already done so join me on FaceBook or Twitter.  You can find  me by going to my home page and hitting the links.  When I make a new post, you’ll be the first to know…

Today’s Distractions:

Note: in these posts I’ll list certain distractions that occur down here while I’m working, but I won’t list all of them because that would be tedious.  The truth is that most distractions are created by me anyway, because I choose which distractions I let bump me off track.  Down here in Mexico (and at my real home) I have many hiding places where distractions can’t find me.  Most distractions I can totally ignore…if I choose to, but here’s a few real and imagined I participated in today…

• Coffee or the lack thereof.
  • Update on the lack of propane gas.  Seems like the stove was working all the time, but the line needed to be “bled” before it could be lit—something apparently everyone knew except me.
  • How was I supposed to figure this out at 5:00 in the morning without coffee in my system?
  • Debate on what we owe the contractor who has remodeled—actually who still is remodeling—the house.
  • Ask contractor to go downtown to the phone company and get them out here to fix the phone connection (which is now on the floor in several pieces due to the remodel).  If the phone works, the internet “might” work.  Last time this happened it took several trips to the phone company over a period of 2 weeks.  Marie finally stamped her foot, which didn’t work.  Marie’s sister stamped her foot a little differently, which worked, but now the phone is out again.  To get on the internet we have to hack into our neighbor’s signal, which seems to be connected to the wind instead of a cable.
  • Checking on the contractors (several times a day) as if they need my opinion.  Down here it is culturally helpful to have a male (even if he doesn’t know anything) show up to glower and smile at the contractor and workers from time to time.
  • Unlocking doors that have difficult locks.  Being a former zoo person with over 20 years of experience messing around with locks.  I’m the go-to guy for this.
  • Breakfast.  Cooked on the outside grill by Marie.
  • Gasoline. Drive down to the gas station and fill up the car and the gas cans for the generator in case the sun lets us down.
  • Disconnect Satellite TV box so Marie can take it downtown and ask them to fix it so her mother can watch the news in the morning…oh, and so we can watch American Idol.  We haven’t really missed TV the past several months, but we would like to get it set up for Marie’s mom before we head back north (and for the family heading down here to stay).  Sorry family.  No TV.  Outrageously expensive.
  • Flies.  Because the workers leave all of the doors open there are hundreds of them buzzing around.  I carry a Mont Blanc pen in one hand and a flyswatter in the other.
  • This Post.  It’s not really a distraction, and it didn’t take too long to write.  But to get it up on the web I had to drive to the closest internet hotspot, which is 3 miles down a dirt road (one way), sit in my car while I formatted and posted this on the blog.