Edge of glory

As I edge ever closer to completion of IMAGINATION, I’ve finally reached the climax weeks (yes I said climax weeks) of novel writing. The book is complete from first sentence to last, and all the plot details, settings, and characters have been worked out and are complete. Now is when I can fully enjoy the novel writing process. Because now, I get to paint all the mental pictures that in my opinion sets my writing apart from normal storytelling. You see, I started my writing life as a young poet, writing and publishing my work back in the early 1990’s. Many of my poems can be read on my Authors Den page. http://www.authorsden.com/neilostroff Writing poetry trained my style and allowed me to perfect the art of creating what I call mental-visuals. This is where a sentence is written in such a poetic style that the reader distinctly sees the words as pictures in his mind. Here is an example from the book, a scene where one of the main characters dies.

 

     Roger’s lungs would take in no more air. His heart stopped beating and he heard the steady whine of the monitor announcing his physical was gone. He comprehended everything. His body was deceased and he knew it!

     His consciousness disengaged completely from his mortal mechanism and awareness floated like a buoyant bubble up toward the ceiling. He looked down at himself. Saw the deep wrinkles of his forehead, his hollow cheeks, his fixed eyes, his absolute pale skin. Tension in his face had dissolved leaving his body looking like a clay model.

Even this scene can be tightened a little, but you see how the scene is complete regardless; the point comes across. The fun for me is now reading each scene and tweaking them to perfection. It’s almost like play for me after the last ten months of intense writing, and trying to tie all the subplots, histories, and concepts together into one solid piece. I still haven’t decided what to do with the novel once it’s complete. There are a few minor league literary agencies that have connected with me through Linkedin and have seen my other books and are showing interest in seeing more. But as I’ve blogged many times over the months, in this day and age I’m a little frightened about sighing away the rights to my stuff to anyone. I guess I’ll have to see what interest is generated when I announce that IMAGINATION is ready to go. My other books continue to sell well but I still haven’t gotten that pop like I did last month. Also, my U.K. sales have been in the gutter this month. I wonder why?