Kevin James Moore

I was almost finished with the novel when I tried going to bed at 2 am, but every time I put my head on the pillow sentences kept popping into my head. I did the only rational thing. I turned the lights back on and let my pen fly across the paper. There is something special about writing late at night. It seems when everything is dark and silent outside you become in tune with whatever drives your imagination and creativity. It feels really awesome to see a project and a dream through to the end. I’m going to miss my characters.

Now comes the hard part, I guess, getting the novel out so people can read it.

I haven’t blogged in like a decade in dog years, because I tend to keep getting myself caught in these spirals. The good news is that the book is almost done. I know I write that every post, but this time I mean it. I plan on being done in the next two weeks, which is really awesome since I’ve been working on this for almost 3 years. I’ll probably explode when I finish, writing a book has been my goal since I was like 14 and now 15 years later it’s happening.

I’m less than 90 pages away from finishing my novel. I’ve been knocking out pages lately and completely committed to finishing the book by the end of the month. I know it’s going good because I’ll put on CD and not even hear anything while writing. So I’m either in the zone or going deaf, but the book is getting finished. I think I might owe much of this great run lately to ‘The Sun Also Rises’ I read it this week and it made me realize that finishing the book is better than writing so elaborately. I haven’t extracted all the colour from my writing but the scenes have become streamlined and more real.

I thought after selling one article on my first try that this freelancing gig was going to be easy. I’m finding out it’s not. I consider my second article to be better, but finding some one to publish it is more difficult. The article is about the Asian Elephant stepping on landmines, but it doesn’t really fit any publication. It’s not topical enough for newspapers and not enough magazines deal with animal conservation. It’s really frustrating, because this article deserves a home. I don’t doubt that it will be published, but it’s going to take more work. I guess I’m going to have to use some of that elbow grease I’ve been holding back all these years. Don’t worry elephant article I’ll find you a home.

I started a new site which will have all of my published work. http://www.kevinjamesmoore.com/

I’m toiling away on my novel. It’s hard work - not to be discouraging to others - but why does every one think writing is easy? I’m finally writing some parts down that I’ve been storing in my brain for over a year, just waiting to get to certain parts to get them out. Today I’m doing editing, rereading it out loud and seeing if it sounds right and catching mistakes. (There are always new mistakes.) Sometimes I send out pages I’ve just written to get some feedback. Some people are against this idea, but I find that a few good words keep me motivated. Even though I still have much to write, I am still sending out query letters because it might get picked-up, you never know. Overall, writing has been a blast and I’m letting the story lead the way. It’s good to get back to writing after a week long vacation on Cape Cod.

My novel is far from being complete, about 150 pages short. I still send out query letters though every now and then, because you never know. I’ve been asked for more pages a couple times before the agents ultimately passed. I actually think I’ve developed a sadistic fetish for rejection letters, there is something about them I enjoy. So, here are a few basic form rejection letters (maybe I’ll just keep updating this list):

Thank you for your recent query but this does not seem right for me so I’m going to respectfully pass on looking at more material. Best of luck.

Thank you for your recent e-mail.  I regret to say that I don’t feel that I’m the most appropriate agent for your work.
However, opinions vary considerably in this business, and I wish you the best of luck in your search for representation.

Thank you for your recent query regarding representation. Having considered this, we’ve concluded that LMQ is not going to be the right fit for your project but of course wish you all the best with it.

Dear Author:

Thank you so much for sending the Nelson Literary Agency your query. We’d like to apologize for the impersonal nature of this standard rejection letter. Rest assured that we do read every query letter carefully and, unfortunately, this project is not right for us.  Because this business is so subjective and opinions vary widely, we recommend that you pursue other agents. After all, it just takes one “yes” to find the right match.

I’m going to pass, but it’s an interesting premise and I appreciate the look.

Little David is the first title from The Modern Gent Press. I produced this tiny book myself by converting a previously published short story into its own book. The book is about the same size of a pamphlet, a standard piece of paper folded in half. It’s cool to have it in a tangible form though. If you would like a copy email: moderngentpress@gmail.com or leave a comment and I’ll send you one. 

Muse

Esther was a girl who would grow-up to have a very important role, but who would never have an occupation. She would become something that no boy or man could ever be, and something only a few special girls ever get to become and never realize it. Esther would develop into a muse and be completely unaware of the fact. She would impact the world through her subtle ways, and only a privileged few men would experience the heartache caused by her being and it would inspire them to create great art and influence culture. These privileged men would only experience her love for a brief moment. She would come and go, a spec on a timeline, but her image would stay with these men throughout their lifetime and she would last an eternity through the things she inspired. A muse, something culture needs to exist, but they often become forgotten: the real Mona Lisa, Madame X, Edie Sedgwick, and Nadja.

This would be Esther encapsulated in perfect moments. The time she seemed oblivious to the rain. She just stood there, clothes soaked, just smiling while everyone else ran for cover. She was a Cinderella living a string of surreal moments that only a few special men had the ability to capture.

The tragedy of her life, like every muse before and after, is that Esther would die alone. Muses are lightning bugs you catch in your hand, the one that shines so bright it induces knowledge in your gut that this one doesn’t belong in the jar. This lightning bug should go and glow and illuminate the night sky and challenge the moon. It never rests. It just goes on glowing day and night ‘til its light goes out.

This was Esther’s destiny.

   Whenever I’m in a manic state a myriad of incongruent thoughts race through my mind. Psychiatrist and psychologist are always asking my explain how it feels and I tell them all the same thing, “It’s like a thousand different movies playing all at once on a single screen.” This is when the shrink like to nod and scribble in the notes. But this is how it feels to me. I also learned from being in psychiatric hospitals it is better to say anything, anything at all, than “I don’t know.” If you say “I don’t know” when they ask you a question you keep buying yourself more days, because they think you can’t express your feelings and that you aren’t making progress. Sometimes those thousand movies are good and other times those thousand movies are horror films. It frustrating not to be able to control your own thoughts. It will make you lose sleep for weeks.