Where's Dolphins Dance, Second edition?

Where is Dolphins Dance?

Dolphins Dance, Second Edition is taking a long time for several reasons.

First, I think it's because I'm in a very relaxed, comfortable, state of mind and body at the moment. I have posted that my wife no longer works full-time, so these days she's my full-time caregiver. This has helped my mental and physical health considerably. It's hard to quantify or describe, but it makes a difference to my writing style and process.

I'm not as rushed. I take more time looking over the words, the phrases, the sentences and the overall structure of the scene that I'm working on. I think that before, when she went to work every day and she constantly worked late into the night, and I had a variety of caregivers – some good, some not – take care of me, I would write five or six hours a day just to escape my world. I forced myself to write because it was a way to escape reality, my disease, my anxiety, my fear of death, my stress, my depression, etc.

So, in some sense, the stress of our situation over the last several years has been good – there may be a "silver lining" after all. I self-published twelve stories in four years, and I have at least three or four partially completed stories in my "get to later" folder. I just rushed to get them done, to develop my voice, to learn the craft, to see the completed project, and to feel a sense of value and accomplishment.

I'm sure I could go back now and rewrite each of them – I may, or may not.

Dolphin's Dance was my first fiction novel – while my memoir, A Remarkable Life, lived by an ordinary person, about the first 25 years of my life, was my first self-published work, both were written in 2010. The dolphin story was foolishly published with a vanity press company, PublishAmerica. I told you about this mistake before.

Anyway, so now, going back, I feel like the story is quite good, but the writing style, grammar, voice – well, I'm a much different writer now than I was five years ago. I've learned a lot. I think I've improved. I'm a better writer...I'm enjoying fleshing out the story, adding description and changing language. I don't feel rushed. I don't feel anxious or afraid. I feel like a real, well almost, real author (there's always doubt).

Writing is still therapeutic, it's still a form of escape, but it's not a necessary form of escape like it used to be. I write stories because I want to, not because I have to.