I have plans, many plans. Plans involving writing, mostly. And music. But this is about the writing plans. Beyond some edits and sending the Three out again (one currently is under consideration which may simply mean under a pile of other unopened envelopes) there are two novel projects: an ambitious northern novel based on my story “North of Fury” (Ellipse Mag 77-78) and the other I’ve begun to outline.

The other is an old idea made new. What I thought would be a surreal, hyper-poetic, sensuous, deep dream-state story – which I could never get more than a couple of chapters into before the language began to mock itself (I had been reading Dow Mossman’s The Stones of Summer when I started, and mix that with a love for William Goyen and James Joyce, well welcome to unreadable…) – is now, as I redraft it, a YA adventure novel narrated by a 15 year old. Now I’m not thinking Hunger Games and MONEY but that the central idea is simple and a simpler approach is better. More Lord of the Flies in terms of appeal and accessibility. Jesus, and it might even  have an ecological theme.

I love complex sentences and I love play in fiction. I doubt those things will entirely vanish. But I also love plot, adventure. We’ll see where it goes.