New Focus

Many of the people who know me personally call me “the busiest person they know.”  Statements like this began an inner quest to understand my drives behind what I do and why I write.  I reexamined my priorities and my life long goals.  Over the last three months I have not posted anything new on my blogs.  Despite my desire to share my writing with others the simple fact is that my number 1 priority is to be a consistently published novelist and a consistently published poet.

When I examined the time I have to actually write per week, I was dismayed to see how little time I have—despite sleeping only 4 to 6 hours a day.  Then I looked at my writing production over the last year, including blogs and saw just how over blogged I am.  My goal, as I stated above, is to be a consistently published novelist and poet.  Yet, most of my writing time was being spent writing blogs and articles for the internet.  I was blogging nine different topics a week.  That is at least nine hours a week.  This may not sound like much to many of my readers.  However, with everything I have to juggle in my life, nine hours is often the only amount of time I have in a week to write.  Meanwhile I am working on 8 novels and 4 poetry collections.  Something had to give.

As such, I am changing my schedule of blogging all together.  I will keep my Coffee with David blog, going on a consistent weekly basis.  My others will be as I have time or a pressing matter to share.

Thank you for reading and checking this blog from time to time.  Please continue to follow me on Coffee With David as I share the “behind the scenes life” of this writer who is determined to reach his goals in life:  That goal is to publish 300 novels and 80 poetry collections over the next forty years.  I know how insane that may sound, but that is my goal should God let me live that long.

The Continuation or Discontinuation of Space Exploration—My Side of the Argument

The commanders of three U.S. moon missions warned the administration’s plans regarding space flight knocking the USA "second or even third-rate" status as a space-faring nation."    I know many who are against space exploration feel it is not worth it and that maybe we should focus more on "problems" here at home. 

I understand the President’s position and wonder if it was not a similar one that propelled those who survived the fall of Rome faced.  Their choices led to the dark ages.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/14/obama-to-unveil-vision-for-space-program/?iref=allsearch&fbid=cF0FwY5zYsG

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/15/obama.space/index.html?iref=allsearch

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/space/04/14/us.space.program/index.html?iref=allsearch

I do not agree that we should just stay home where it is safe and try to solve the problems that people cannot solve not can sustain the generational levels of political and social will power necessary to do so   Here is why:  We have to continue the manned flight program for a very simple reason.  You can ask a thousand scientist about global warming, population control, genetic engineering, and you will get a thousand different theories.    But, there are two things that all of them will agree on:  One day the earth will not be able to support the human population as the resources will be scarce or exhausted needed to maintain the race; and one day the star we know as our sun will grow cold and go out.  It may be decades, centuries or even a million years from now, it will happen.  The earth is our cradle, but like any infant there comes a time we have to leave this cradle.  For if we don’t before these events happen then we will have lost Plato, Einstein, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Michelangelo, Lin Yutang, Charles W. Chestnut, W. E. B. DuBois, Da Vinci, Lao Tzu, Bruce Lee, George Santana, Mohandas Gandhi, and all of the blood and sweat of those who came before us and all the dreams and potential of the generations that follow is . . . and all of the suffering that has been endured and triumphs that have been won . . . all of the lives we have made . . . all that defines us as human beings will have been lost.  All would have been for nothing—nothing but futile musing and an imaginable criminal waste of life—unless we go to the stars.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for information about the blogs, articles, poetry, and novels I write.

The Drive to Write

Writing is hard and anyone who is trying to make a living at it needs to be smart, determined and maybe even slightly insane.  Some would be writers dream of writing someday, but they do not realize that writing is an art and to be a writer you need to write.  While this sounds like common sense, many writers either take a break to focus on other things in their lives (marriage, kids, the bill paying job) or think that they can write a novel when they retire or have some spare time.

Writing is an art that grows through habit.  By writing every day the art form and the flow of words continues to improve.  Only the celebrities can publish a book without having tried to write one and their secret is that the books are ghost written by the starving artist who will never get credit.

Why write?  If the odds are against you and the pay is lousy, why put yourself forward as a writer?  Is it for fame and glory?  Some may do it for that reason, but there are easier ways to obtain that fame and glory is not always what it is cracked up to be.  In most writers there is a need to write that is as basic to us as the need to breathe.  We will spend our time hurting our eyes as we stare at computer screens and editing for hours on end.  We may lose relationships with those who cannot understand the drive of the art that pushes us forward. Writers who try to make a living at it are obsessed gamblers.  We do not have to play at a poker table or the slot machine.  We gamble every time we put ink on paper and submit our article, poem, story, or book to a would be publisher and hope to be paid.

Dark Medicine: Comments Back From the Editor on Episode 1

While the editor is still working on Episode 1 and I on Episode 2, I have received some comments that look to rewriting parts of the first episode.  If you have read my last Coffee with David entry, you will have seen that I acknowledge difficulties in writing romance.  While Dark Medicine is a Gothic Horror, it does have romantic entanglements in it.  These relationships are not as strong as I would like them to be. 

As a result, I am delaying the release of the other web serials I am working on to get Dark Medicine where I want it to be.  Further, there is a writers conference that I am attending next weekend and I will be taking a few of the workshops on romance writing.  I hope to come out of that with some tips that will improve Dark Medicine.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for articles, blogs, poetry, and stories I write.

The Guardians: A Break to Discover the Next Draft

The Guardians is still sitting waiting for my return to it.  While I like the premise of the first draft, I am highly disappointed in myself with it.  Why?  It reads in some ways like Star Trek.  I love and hate the series myself.  I love Gene Rodenberry’s vision , but I hate how what I write and other authors write seems to fall into the mold.  While the characters may be better defined or of greater depth, the specter still sits over my shoulder like Q tisking it away.

Maybe this is the nature of The Guardians, as it is about a peace keeping force in space.  While the technology is changed, there is still the premise and the military sci-fi aspect.  As it is not about war, per se, it can easily slide into the black hole of Star Trek-like stories.  This is something I wish to avoid.  As I am working on other projects, I will return to The Guardians to breathe life into it and hopfully find a way to break Rodenberry’s mold and break out with a better story.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for articles, blogs, poetry, and stories I write.