So there’s been some great news. Secret Project A, that sweet little thing I was working on for a portion of last year, that thing that took me by the seat of my pants and kept on fricking expanding, and just wouldn’t do as it was told…well, I guess it knew what it was doing, because it just sold in a two-book deal along with its sequel, which is yet to be written. Details on how this came to be shall follow once it is cut and dried. Strange expression. Cut and dried. Are we making beef jerky?

In ogni caso, I’ve just heard from my editor via an email sent to my agent that they plan to publish in hardcover first. Crazy. I’m going to be in hardcover? Or at least that is the plan? When I think hardcover I think of established authors who I love so much I can’t wait around for their newest work to come out in cheapie paperback. I think of Bret Easton Ellis. I think of Milan Kundera (though his work is not exactly hardback length these days).  I think of Anne Rice (not so much now, but once upon a time). And now, me? My little Secret Project A? The world spins in new directions.

For those of you who are yet unaware, writing is largely a process of waiting. Waiting for replies from agents. Waiting to be read by editors. Waiting waiting and more waiting with a side of waiting in beurre blanc sauce. Each of these types of waits is a separate kind of hell (with the exception of waiting on a contract, or waiting on an advance check…if you complain about that, I’ll happily hand you your ass), and it’s hard to say which wait is the worst. Waiting on getting agented, or waiting to see what an editor thinks of your work is bound to give you fresh ulcers, just like every time we put our tender, beating hearts on someone’s plate and are idiotic enough to hand them a pointy fork. But I’m going to make my case for the other wait, the creative wait. I’m talking about waiting for the next book to come around. For it to decide that yes, it wants to butt to the head of the line and be the thing on your mind, that it is awake enough, frisky enough to compel your fingers across the keyboard. This wait is filled with doubt, because what if it doesn’t come? What if there isn’t any more? Just where the hell do these be-frigged stories keep coming from anyway?

And so it goes with my new project, which used to be called Secret Project C, but that sucked, so will now be re-worked and re-named, Secret Project S. I want to write this novel. Really, I do. But what I begin today will be the fourth attempt at it, after three hideous false starts. Okay so they weren’t that hideous. But what they were was fundamentally wrong.   It took ages to see what this novel wanted to be. It took three times to find the right tense, the right voice, and what I hope is the right direction. If this isn’t it, I swear I’m going to beat this project like a red-headed stepchild.

Non-writing news: FOX’s Fringe is awesome. It’s starting to fill that X-files shaped hole that existed in my deepest soul, and let’s face it, we all wanted Pacey to be a whole lot more interesting and smart than he was on Dawson’s fricken Creek for all those years. Last night, Dylan and I completed the triumvirate of Wayne’s World, Wayne’s World 2, and So I Married an Axe Murderer. The Wayne’s movies are of course hilarious, but the first one gives a better feel for Aurora, Illinois, and I missed that in the second one. And watching Mike Myers in elderly makeup and a scottish accent making fun of the kid with a giant head is priceless in Axe Murderer. "That was a bit off-sides, wasn’t it? He’s going to cry himself to sleep on his enormous pillow." Priceless.