Launching an Exciting New Project + Celebrating a 30-Year Career

An exciting new project begins, and an honorable 30-year career in public service comes to a close

Writing:

I write at my desk with a huge monitor. It’s where I spend most of my days, at my funky, modern little desk in my denim blue office, daydreaming out the window, or procrastinating on the interwebz. It’s the same desk that I sat at all those hours when I was procrastinating building Fine Point. I love my office. I have a picture of my Dad on the wall from 1958, twelve years before I was born.

Recently, I started journaling about my novel and I’m finding it to be a really effective way to bring my characters to life and to game out plot ideas. I’m trying to do that a couple of nights a week in the playroom. I turned the bedroom next to my office into my personal livingroom, which means lots of colors, art everywhere, piles of books and magazines, bluetooth speakers, crayons, colored pens and pencils, and no TV. All snuggled up on a winter night, some twinkly lights on, candles lit, maybe some pot, and good old-fashioned writing with a pen. I am obsessed with good pens, which is a story for another day. My brain engages in a different way when I’m writing with a pen instead of typing. It’s more exploratory and discovery flows smoother for me. I tend to get some pretty cool ideas this way. I finally have enough of the plot outlined to start writing. I have to be writing TO something and I can see my way through Act 1. I don’t have to know everything, but my systems-building brain values efficiency, arguably more than an artist’s brain should.

My fledgling novel is at a wee 2,700 words. Most novels are 80,000–90,000 words. But it exists. And it’s funny. Yay! The first draft’s only job is to exist. This is my shitty first draft. Sending a prayer to the universe and to my Brigid to help me write with joy and daring and not fear or caution, with thanks to the great George Saunders for those perfect words.

I’m going to tell a kickass story.

I’m trying to write a satire/mystery/thriller haha. I think satire is the highest form of fiction. And I like to try hard things. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I decided I’m going to…