Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

So…that went well…

The Free Book Promotion for Unraveling Time was a rousing success. Over 1100 copies were downloaded. I hope you all got your free edition. (If you missed it, I’ve modified the regular price and you can now get a copy for only 99¢.)

The downside? Well, first off, Italy and I are no longer on speaking terms (no copies to the .it site), and then, obviously, it’s over, so the book is no longer on the Top Ten. Thus…back to obscurity. The promotion begat some interesting conversations about the value and future of e-books (or, to be more precise, the value and future of hardcopy books), the value and methodology of this kind of promotion, and other topics that I’ll cover in future.

Now, though, it’s time to shift gears. I need to quit screwing around. No more blah-blah-blah (if you get that classic TV reference, let me know) and lots more “On, you huskies!”

Yes, it’s time to start writing.

“Writing,” for me, is more than actual pen-to-paper writing. There are many things that go into the preparatory phases of projects I undertake. For example, my recent analyses of Hoffmann, Cortazar, and Marquez were preparatory work. I will also have some research reading to do, to help flesh out my settings.

The danger with these preparatory phases, though, is…well, it’s fear. I’m always afraid at the beginning of a new writing project–that’s a given–and it is super-easy to just keep reading, keep researching, keep “percolating” about the project without actually getting underway. If I let them, preparatory phases can go on for months and months as I delay facing the thing that frightens me: Failure.

Fear of Failure keeps a lot of us from doing a lot of things, but not starting dooms me. I fail before I even start, without even having tried. Yoda’s mantra of “There is no ‘try,'” is a false dichotomy. There is “try,” and it’s worth a lot. In order to “do,” you must “try,” and I learn as much from the “do not” as I do from the “do.”

Okay, this Yoda thing is bugging me. Enough of that.

The point is, I need to face that fear and start active work on this project, or I’ll “prepare” myself from one fallow season to the next.

Next up: Outlining.

k