NOW UNDER PSYCHIC CONSTRUCTION

NEW EPISODES BRIEFLY ON PAUSE, BECAUSE WORK ON THE NEW BOOK HAS BEGUN!

Photo by Jahanzeb Ahsan on Unsplash

Dear everyone –

HI! Just letting you know that I’m gonna wait a week before putting up new episodes of THE ONE LONG CONVERSATION. Not that I don’t have ‘em – there are actually 17 in the can – but I gotta put all my concentration in one place this week. And possibly longer.

When next you see me here or on the YouTube, you’ll notice that all the colorful Post-Its have been stripped from my walls and doors. That’s because they were devoted to (gulp!) that nice movie I was working on for most of last year. You know, the one that (WOOPS!) just got killed.

And honestly? Leaving ‘em up was starting to feel like hanging onto a bunch of rotting floral arrangements, weeks after the fucking funeral. I mean, they were lovely while they lasted, and full of good intentions. But now they were just taking up a whole lotta real estate. Plus, they looked kinda sad, and smelled funny.

So now they’re gone. But the great thing is – once the old notes have all been filed and/or tossed – there’s alllllll this rooooooom. All this wonderful empty space, just waiting for the next cool thing to happen.

So now the walls and doors are slowly filling with clusters of characters. Fascinating characters I can’t wait to explore. Some old friends, and a whole lotta new ones. Some very good ones. And some very, very bad.

I’m breaking ‘em down by geography, by social grouping, and by scene. Populating the world I’m building, and the story I’m telling, piece by piece. Lining ‘em up with the incredibly detailed and specific outlines I already have.

And getting ready for the official writing of this book to begin.

So please bear with me on the podcast, okay? There are six fun episodes up, awaiting your enjoyment. And once I’ve blown through the logjam of the opening chapter, I’ll be ready to cruise full-speed.

The thing is, as a writer, you gotta get that first chapter right. It sets the tone for everything that follows. It leads you into the adventure to come. And if you don’t get it right, a lotta people aren’t gonna stick around for the second chapter.

I’m the kind of obsessive son of a gun who has been known to write thirty-seven drafts of an opening chapter, complete with multiple false starts, before I know what the fuck I’m doing. You try shit out. It works or it doesn’t.

But every single one of them brings you closer to the thing it needs to be. Even the ones that are completely wrong-headed are successful at showing you what NOT to do.

And once you’re in the flow, the story knows just where to go. The people know who they are, and how they’d honestly respond. The right surprises reveal themselves, at just the right times. The boulder is rolling, and you just have to keep up.

That’s where I’m going right now. And the second I have it, I’ll share it with you.

So until then, have a beautiful time with all you do! Or AT LEAST AS CLOSE AS YOU CAN GET! I’ll see ya on the flipside! LOVE YOU!!!

Yer pal in the super-excitable trenches,

Skipp