Okay friends and neighbors, your humble narrator actually buckled down and got some difficult work done today. Really. After the workout and the laundry and everything else, I managed to put the old nose to the grindstone and churn out a full chapter (7 pages single spaced in Word). Now maybe that doesn't seem like a big deal to you, but let me tell you that "writing" writing (as opposed to "songwriting" writing) is almost physically painful for me, and it's seldom that I sit down to it willingly (with the exception of these missives, of course). But the need to pay the bills and put food on the table is an amazing motivator, comrades, so your intrepid narrator put the pedal to the metal and made it happen.
My first and best editor is my lovely bride Pixie, who encourages me in all the right ways, without forgetting to tell me where I've gone wrong. She performed such a service this afternoon and the result is a pretty dandy first chapter about which I felt good enough to send off to my muse/Mother of Mercy (more about her in future posts). You know that old jazz thing about not just playing the right notes, but knowing which ones NOT to play? Well, your working boy Lance is jamming with Coltrane and Davis tonight, and if it's unseemly to mention it, you might consider that years of abject failure in attempting to tell this particular story have created a scenario in which the tiniest modicum of progress is greeted with joyous Alleluias all around. The clouds part for the radiant sun, the heavenly horns bleat blissfully, the angels' voices fill the hearts of men with unspeakable joy, etc. Creativity is 99% failure and 1% success, so to those who would condemn my public display of self-affection for my admittedly minor accomplishment, I say go suck an egg.
I'm not entirely happy that I have to fulfill a long-standing commitment over the weekend that will preclude any more work tomorrow, and that the arrival of a houseguest tomorrow evening will only complicate matters, but I still feel that the bull has been grabbed by the horns and the horses have left the gate, so starting Monday morning, I expect to be back in the saddle. Whether it shall be as the rider or the ridden is anybody's guess...