From the Fiction Desk

The art of juggling time management is a constant struggle—especially when the priorities of one job you do is at the discretion of not only the company you work for but State and Federal bureaucrats and politicians. As I have written, I truly believe in O’Toole’s law: “Murphy was an optimist.” I thought I had accounted for it when I set my deadlines for all my work. It looks now like I was an optimist as well.

Of course, I did not plan for sweeping changes in the bureaucratic systems that I deal with nor did I take into account possible computer hardware problems. As a result, I am resetting many of my internal deadlines. Over the next 8 months, I am going to be mostly focused on getting my novels Dark Medicine and The Guardians into rough draft form. To do this, some of my other writing projects will be put on the back burner. Admittedly, I am not sure of the wisdom of my decision and it goes back to the old question: Which should a newbie writer focus on—Novels or short stories? I am going to continue to work on both long and short fiction, but over the next 8 months, the primary focus will be on long fiction.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for the latest information on the articles, blogs, novels, poems, and short stories I write.