I am such a coward.
No - really I am. Or at least I feel that am - especially when it comes to my writing.
You wouldn't guess it by looking at this blog. It's stuffed full of posts, ranging from the informative to the downright silly. I started this blog back in late September with a very specific end in mind: to somehow pave a way - or at least part of the way - toward my future writing career. Build a platform. Get my name out there. And so on.
I knew it would happen gradually. These things do take time, after all. And I should add that I've had a marvelous time building up this blog, and have no intention of slowing down. However - while I love posting all these helpful tips and anecdotes on writing (next Agent Tweets episode coming up tomorrow, by the way), it is supremely easy for me to hide behind my teacherishness and serve up little mini-lessons by the dozen.
The big omission? Anything pertaining to my OWN writing.
Now, please know - I am not changing horses in midstream, nor intend to fill this blog with my own delusions of adequacy. As Daniel Swensen so perfectly said it in his blog post yesterday - blogging is really about others, not yourself.
But part of that involves giving of yourself. In a writer's community, that means going out on a limb with those skills you profess to have.
So, after a bit of quiet and good-natured heckling from friends (you know who you are), I've decided to branch out a bit more with the writing blurbs. I've decided to at least occasionally participate in Six Sentence Sunday, in which writers are encouraged to share a six sentence blurb from the more riveting corners of their work-in-progress. I've also decided to join in the fun with Lillie McFerrin on her blog, with her weekly 5 Sentence Fiction challenges.
For the moment, however - as a token of good faith that I will not permanently use this blog as an extension of my composition and history classrooms - I hereby put forth the following summary of my current work-in-progress. Consider this a down payment of literary transparency to come. :-)
Castle 8
The Underground has been quarantined for centuries, running on the impersonal laws and mechanical system of a “big brother” tyranny that dissolved long ago. Crippled by earthquakes, mired in darkness, victimized by gangs, the Underground is on a path to self-destruction. But the Swackhammer brothers – math genius Greg, illiterate poet Errol, cannibal safe-cracker Finn and the illegally-born March – know there is something more beyond the Underground, that life hasn’t always been this way.
Severed from all history, literature, music and culture for so many generations, no one in the Underground has the least idea how to save, let alone rebuild, their world. The Swackhammers are thrown headlong into that mystery, as they scramble to escape the Underground and recover what was lost – at whatever cost to themselves.
Anyone else out there doing Six Sentence Sundays? Five Sentence Fiction?
Is the "book blurb" anything that sounds remotely interesting to you?
Let me know!
