I guess it was at my other blog that I wrote about reading Eudora Welty’s book The Eye of the Story. I’m having a lot of difficulty understanding the eminent American novelist. The problem—that is, if the problem isn’t the inferior mental abilities of the reader—is Welty’s writing style. She seems to have channeled the complicated prose of the Victorian non-fiction writers. I’d say that she channeled the complicated sentence structures of William Faulkner, but I haven’t really read enough of Faulkner to know that for sure. Other’s say Faulkner is complicated, but I don’t want to simply echo that without knowing it for myself.

But back to Welty’s advice on writing. The second of the book, titled “On Writing,” includes these chapters.

– Looking at Short Stories
– Writing and Analyzing a Story
– Place in Fiction
– Words into Fiction
– Must the Novelist Crusade?
– “Is Phoenix Jackson’s Grandson Really Dead?”
– Some Notes on Time in Fiction

I’m currently reading “Words into Fiction,” and finding it hard going, as were the first two chapters in this section. The third chapter, however, I found a few things to latch on to. Now, I believe she said it with complicated sentence structure that was totally unnecessary. Here’s a few key statements from this chapter.

Place is one of the lesser angels that watch over the racing hand of fiction, perhaps the one that gazes benignly enough from off to one side, which others, like character, plot, symbolic meaning, and so on, are doing a good deal of wing-beating about her chair, and feeling, who in my eyes carries the crown, soars highest of them all and rightly relegates place into the shade.

…the novel from the start has been bound up in the local , the “real,” the present, the ordinary day-to-day of human experience.

No art ever came out of not risking your neck. And risk—experiment—is a considerable part of the joy of doing, which is the lone, simple reason all writers of serious fiction are willing to work as hard as they do.

I have much more to say about this, but unfortunately my mind is spent tonight. More later, I hope.

I’m not working on any book-length project right now. I finished the spy short story, “Whiskey, Zebra, Tango”, and am waiting on cover tweaks before I publish it. Maybe that will lead to a series of stories, maybe not. I finished an article for Decoded Science, and have planned a series of articles for that publication. Last night I spent a little time outlining the next one.

I’m only two chapters away from completing a novella, The Gutter Chronicles. This is really more of a lark. I wrote most of this years ago, mainly to bring a little comic relief in the office. However, I can fairly easily finish it out as a short book and publish it, so probably will before the end of September. The two missing chapters are brainstormed, though not outlined.

So it’s time to think about what to write next. By that I mean what full-length book to write next. I have six possible ways to go. Three of these, however, I see as belonging to a future year, not now, so I won’t describe them here. That leaves me with three viable options.

1. The next book in my Documenting America series, which would be a Civil War edition. Yes, I always planned to have that as a series of books tying US history to the present day. They are fairly easy to write, the research is light and enjoyable, the subject fascinates me, and I think the books would fill a real need. The downside? My first one hasn’t caught on. I used to think there were millions of people like me in this country, who would like the kind of books I like. I’m starting to think that’s not true. Since Documenting America is selling below expectations, does it make sense to make it into a series?
2. The next book in my church history series. I could go two ways with this: write a planned prequel or write a sequel. I’ve brainstormed both books, the sequel more than the prequel. The first in the series, Doctor Luke’s Assistant, isn’t making any best seller lists, but it’s my best seller. Maybe I need to write the story about Augustus of Caesarea and his two sons, and how they help John the apostle write his gospel and Revelation. I hadn’t planned that for next, but for the sake of a few sales, maybe that’s the way to go.
3. Or I could write the sequel to In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. A book I never planned on, but which was suggested to me based on the number of plot lines I left dangling, this would be easiest to write. The characters are fresh on my mind. I’ve brainstormed it and even outlined it a little. The penultimate scene has occupied my mind a couple of dozen times, working backwards into longer and longer vignettes. The opening has done the same, moving from a snowy TV picture to focused movie. The problem with writing this: FTSP is a bust so far. Only 1 sale in about of month of availability. I offered it for free via a coupon system to a writers group with a hundred active members: no takers, not even for free. I realize it’s still early in the book’s shelf life, but still, why bother to write a sequel to a book that isn’t selling?

What to do? Write based on what is having tepid sales or on what is having no sales at all? What will be easiest and quickest to write, or what will take more research and more writing time but seems to have slightly better sales potential? Write about something I’m passionately interested in, but which must seem like operation manuals to others? At this point I really don’t know.

I won’t subject you to a lot of these kinds of posts. It’s going to take me the better part of month to make this decision. Once I do I’ll announce it here, then get to work.