Dreaming of Athens: The Greek Novel Revisited

Street sign in Athens

Yesterday, my agent sent me notes on my Greek novel--a list of things that are working well and other things that could be working better.  There's rewriting to be done--one key character in particular isn't quite coming across the way I meant him to--but the good news is that my agent thinks the novel's already in pretty good shape.  

Seen on the Acropolis

While I've waited for the notes, I've kept busy by doing some preliminary work on two other projects, both too tentative to say much about.  One of them is collaborative, so its fate is largely out of my hands.  The other's a solo effort, but a bit scarily different from anything I've done before. 

photo by Shawn Krahmer Heal

Both projects are so new that even as I've been typing away at them I've wondered whether they will ever amount to anything, whether my summer might be better spent lazing at the beach or chasing rock stars from venue to venue.  Maybe neither project will add up to anything but a summer's worth of lost hours.

But I felt the same doubt about the Greek novel as I was writing it.  And now I've learned that I was on something like the right track after all.    

At any rate, for a little while, I get to take a break from the scariest part of 
the writing process, the part in which I'm feeling my way through a darkened room waiting for my eyes to adjust.  

I get to revisit someplace sundrenched and bright, a place that has grown familiar--in this case, Greece.  I can enjoy a brief reunion with a handful of characters I've grown attached to.  Characters I've missed.

I get to tinker and polish a work that's already mostly on the page. I think I'll consider it a summer vacation within my summer vacation. 

Graffiti in Athens