Paige Hawthorne: Blog

It's been a choppy crossing at times, but I've tethered my third story. I'll lower the bridge to SOL tomorrow and post the final chapter.

In the meantime I've been toiling away at "Winter's Eternity" and it's taking me forever to get my head around it. If I ever finish it, I'm going to follow a reader's advice and post a chapter every three days. Instead of the more frequent pace I've been on.

Sally forth!

Paige

The first time I read my stuff is as I write it. Then, I read each chapter for the second time after the story is finished and I've started posting.

In between, some odd chap, thornfoote, mumbles around and about for a while.

If I were a serious writer, if I had the time, and most especially the talent … if, if, if. (Insert something here about fishes and wishes.)

Of course I'm also distracted by sex, drugs and rhythm & blues.

Paige

P. S.

Some readers can be such pluckers of nits. One guy faulted me for using 'payed' as the past tense of pay. Prosaic misconception on his part. Erudite folks, as most in here are, will recognize the propriety of 'payed' as engaged throughout Balkan interpretations of Vedic meter. Elementary.

My own (real life) father, like KCPD Homicide Captain Dave Jennings, is a catholic reader. And I followed. By the time I was 14, I was bright enough to realize it would be a year or two before one of my short stories was accepted by the New Yorker fiction editor.

Of course I never wrote a story, let alone submitted one.

So, around 20 years later, SOL is my New Yorker equivalent. The publishing standards here seem to be a bit more liberal than the magazine's - - everything I've sent in has seen the light of day. So far.

But … fuck it. I write, people read. So there!

Still.

Paige

I recently revisited Stephen Hunter's Point of Impact, circa 1993. And currently I'm reading a new one, G-Man. Wow.

Now I don't feel bad not being able to measure up to one of the best adventure writers in the world. No, scratch 'adventure.'

But his books are a clear indication of how far I am below the talent level I should be striving for.

I guess I could drop this whole writing pipe dream. Go back to boys and booze and blunts. Except. My real life Walker and Vanessa, my son and my love.

Fuck you, Hunter.

Paige

I write without a map. My interior monologue takes me to unexpected places. Most are pleasant, some unexpectedly dark.

I don't know if it's showing up in my writing yet, but my thinking is becoming a little more … complex. Textured. The twin disciplines - - thinking and writing - - are sort of forcing me to examine life more intimately. Which is kind of cool.

This little journey … well, I'm not sure where it's leading me. But maybe, just maybe, I'm becoming a more critical thinker. Observer? Recorder? Something.

Paige