Coming Soon: A story in multiple parts

Before I dive into today's post, I want to remind everyone of a few things:

1. Don't ingest bleach, detergent, cleaning products, hand sanitizer, and things like laundry and dishwasher pods.
2. Sarcasm is not an appropriate form of communication if you're say, the president of a country addressing the public during a global pandemic. 
3. Also, that's not how sarcasm works. 

Moving on.

Back in 2014, I participated in National Novel Writing Month for the second year and the end product, Transient Suburbia, is my favorite thing I've written. I did one more NaNoWriMo the following year, but 2014 was really the best. I had an idea that I loved about music, travel, and the power of the mail, three of my very favorite things. I finished during within the one month time limit of NaNoWriMo, and worked on the novel on and off for about a year after. A few of my friends read it and seemed to like it, which was pretty cool. 

In 2017 I was about to go on a trip to Nashville, a city I've never visited, but one that was central to the college years of my main character. The trip was a research trip, so I'd plan to do so many things. A few days before I was supposed to go, my aunt died and I canceled the trip to go to Michigan for her funeral. While I was in Michigan, I was laid off from my job by the company I was working for at the time (yes, they called me while I was out of the office attending a funeral...people suck). When I came back, I put the novel away. I didn't want my grief over my aunt's death and my job situation to ruin the story for me. I felt like I would somehow taint the story if I worked on it while I was so angry and sad and frustrated. I did, eventually, write another chapter, but I don't think it's quite right so I put it away again. 

As the reality of our new world of staying at home set in, I made a list of things I was going to work on while having to stay home. I put Transient Suburbia on the list, towards the bottom, but on the list. I figured it would take me a few weeks to do some of the other things, particularly the commissioned embroidery piece I finished recently and a few home improvement projects. I also decided to make a bunch of postcards and bake a bunch of stuff, so the novel keeps getting pushed to the end of the list. While I was writing last week's post about postcards, I got the idea to post the novel here, a few chapters at a time. If I do it this way, I have to spend time each week reviewing and editing my work, and my lovely Island readers get a little bit of entertainment while staying home trying to figure out what to binge watch and, more importantly, not giving yourself bangs. We're still not at the stage of staying home where anyone who isn't a trained professional should give themselves bangs. Put the scissors down. Now.

Starting next weekend, I'll post 1-3 chapters of Transient Suburbia per week. I'll try to be consistent and post on Saturdays, but a lot will depend on my ability to edit during the week, so an occasional post may come out on Sunday. There are around 30 chapters, but since the chapters vary in length and it may make more sense to share more one week than another, this is going to last well beyond when the Virginia stay at home order ends. I'd love to hear what you think, but also no big deal if you don't want to read it or don't want to share any feedback. This is an exercise for me to be more accountable for the things I create, and to finally say this novel is finished.

I hope you'll join me each week as I introduce you to the world of Transient Suburbia. Sometime this summer, we'll return to your regularly schedule Island posts including some Lazy Movie weekends (which is everyday now), a new Ask a Cat post, and some reminders about voting.