This is going to be a rewrite year for me; DOGS IN HEAT is on its final, final stage. LAMB TO THE SLAUGHTER will get its first proper rewrite and sit pretty as a somewhat polished second draft. ANIMALS will get its first thorough read-through and its first proper rewrite.
I'm thinking any new original work will begin in 2021; a new novel hasn't found me yet, but I'm feeling some sporadic itchings, so it's only a matter of time. For now it's cleanup time. By the end of 2020, I will have hopefully found a home for Dogs, and have two others approaching the queue.
The older I get, the less inclined I am to rush my work. My first novel was nearly 20 years ago and I rushed it and it reads as such. I just wanted to be published. That was it. But I was young; part of the process of trying to find my way in this strange bubble of being a writer. Now all I care about is getting it right. DOGS IN HEAT has been a project of mine for over 20 years now, going all the way back to my Carleton days. It has evolved into what I first envisioned while working my shift that one afternoon in the Fiction section at the South Keys Chapters; that lightbulb moment: "What if God?..."
There's something to be said about the intimacy of an unpublished manuscript. It really feels like a part of you; a secret side, as intimate as the voice in your head; your other you. Once it's published, you lose that. But it's a nice problem to have. I won't complain if 2020 is the year I unleash the DOGS and set them free. They're ready, finally, and so am I.
