General / Literary Fiction
Date Published: July 18, 2015
Maxwell Ruth, a cantankerous, old high school history teacher falls down his basement stairs and soon thereafter starts hearing “The Words” over and over again---endingtimeendingtimeendingtime. His life is changed forever.
In this story we learn about the lives, loves, and losses of Max, Hargrove and Gwen Stinson, Beth and Bob Hazelwood, and Constance Young. They are lively, funny, at times; a little bit lost or wounded, yet resilient and hopeful. They are wrestling with life’s most challenging issues, including, abuse, loss, infidelity, aging, secrecy and what gives life meaning. And, like all of us, they would like more, more time to find the answers to life’s most important questions. The clock, though, is always ticking and time is always short.
In this story we learn about the lives, loves, and losses of Max, Hargrove and Gwen Stinson, Beth and Bob Hazelwood, and Constance Young. They are lively, funny, at times; a little bit lost or wounded, yet resilient and hopeful. They are wrestling with life’s most challenging issues, including, abuse, loss, infidelity, aging, secrecy and what gives life meaning. And, like all of us, they would like more, more time to find the answers to life’s most important questions. The clock, though, is always ticking and time is always short.
My Writing Process
When I start writing a new novel, I never know how it’s going to end. I trust that the impetus to move forward, usually a feeling that is difficult to articulate, will be enough to get the journey started. Although I am on the road, so to speak, without knowing exactly where I am going, I am not traveling blindfolded. I write character profiles in advance and I put characters together in challenging situations that I hope will make the reader think, “I wonder what’s going to happen next?”
In the process, I discover what themes I am working on. This may seem counter-intuitive, but I often don’t know what I’m writing about until I start writing. The writing process is always one of discovery. And this purposeful not-knowing gives my writing an energy and serendipity that is remarkably generative. I feel like I am not just the creator, but the created, changing through the writing process as much as my characters change.
When I sit down to get started, I am always excited to know that for the next 14-18 months (sometimes longer) I will sit alone with these characters, wrestling with issues, dilemmas, and conundrums that are important to me, and, I hope, to the reader. The beginning phase feels expansive as the characters develop and their options are wide. Somewhere near the midway mark, though, those options narrow, as it becomes clear that there are some things the characters would do and some they would not. In a sense, the characters exert as much influence over the story arc as I do. I have an intuitive sense of the story’s ending many pages before I actually know what I am going to say and how exactly the story will end. Often it is not until the last fifty pages or so that the end takes shape and words coalesce into final scenes, paragraphs and sentences.
Of course, that is not the end. Editing before publication may go on another year or more. The drafts get shorter, tighter and more to the point.
In terms of my writing routine, I don’t write every day, which is to say I don’t sit in front of my computer every day. But when I am working on a novel, I feel like I am always writing; that something is at work in my mind even when I am not trying to put it down in words. I often edit as I go, reworking sentences, paragraphs, scene choreography, even characters. I like to have a well-crafted chapter before I go on to the next, even though the whole thing may change later.
I rarely have writer’s block. I think this is because I have accepted that I not only don’t know where I am going, but I don’t have to know, in order to write productively.
When I start writing a new novel, I never know how it’s going to end. I trust that the impetus to move forward, usually a feeling that is difficult to articulate, will be enough to get the journey started. Although I am on the road, so to speak, without knowing exactly where I am going, I am not traveling blindfolded. I write character profiles in advance and I put characters together in challenging situations that I hope will make the reader think, “I wonder what’s going to happen next?”
In the process, I discover what themes I am working on. This may seem counter-intuitive, but I often don’t know what I’m writing about until I start writing. The writing process is always one of discovery. And this purposeful not-knowing gives my writing an energy and serendipity that is remarkably generative. I feel like I am not just the creator, but the created, changing through the writing process as much as my characters change.
When I sit down to get started, I am always excited to know that for the next 14-18 months (sometimes longer) I will sit alone with these characters, wrestling with issues, dilemmas, and conundrums that are important to me, and, I hope, to the reader. The beginning phase feels expansive as the characters develop and their options are wide. Somewhere near the midway mark, though, those options narrow, as it becomes clear that there are some things the characters would do and some they would not. In a sense, the characters exert as much influence over the story arc as I do. I have an intuitive sense of the story’s ending many pages before I actually know what I am going to say and how exactly the story will end. Often it is not until the last fifty pages or so that the end takes shape and words coalesce into final scenes, paragraphs and sentences.
Of course, that is not the end. Editing before publication may go on another year or more. The drafts get shorter, tighter and more to the point.
In terms of my writing routine, I don’t write every day, which is to say I don’t sit in front of my computer every day. But when I am working on a novel, I feel like I am always writing; that something is at work in my mind even when I am not trying to put it down in words. I often edit as I go, reworking sentences, paragraphs, scene choreography, even characters. I like to have a well-crafted chapter before I go on to the next, even though the whole thing may change later.
I rarely have writer’s block. I think this is because I have accepted that I not only don’t know where I am going, but I don’t have to know, in order to write productively.
Contact Information
Website: www.davidbseaburn.com
Facebook: david.seaburn@facebook.com
Twitter: @dseaburn
Purchase Links
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/more-more-time-david-b-seaburn/1122339181?ean=9780991562237
Savant Books and Publications: http://mkt.com/savant-books-and-publications/more-more-time
I want to know what the words mean.
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