Back To It

So I've been ill, lazy, distracted and all kinds of other time-consuming things these last few weeks.

Better get back to it then...

Lifebringer is underway once more. Not much has been done, but I've identified what was slowing me down. The characters are currently travelling from one place to another, and by the time they arrive I need to have established some stuff stakes-wise, set up a few things character-wise and kept the progression of these characters moving steadily forward. Thing is, there's no particular time they have to have arrived by. It's not like I'm sitting down going 'in 5 chapters they'll be there, so I need to get this done in 5 chapters.' It's more like 'I need to get this stuff done, but I'm not sure exactly how, so I don't know how long it will take.'

I've heard it said that if you need things to progress, make something happen. Characters tend to not just change for the fuck of it, something external needs to bring about, accelerate or complete that change. So I need to figure out what sort of things need to happen for my characters to grow from where they are to where I want them to be.

I could have them just... arrive. But then they'd be so unprepared, and it'd be a terribly unfulfilling read.

I'll figure it out...

In other news, film school is an ongoing tragedy. After last terms' demoralising grind of studio shows and the hurtful barrage of 'feedback' that accompanied them, I decided I wanted to get a little more out of this term. There's 2 pieces I needed to shoot, and the first fell through. I'm still not even sure why, but at this point there's no use causing friction trying to get to the bottom of it. In the interim, I've missed out on every single other project happening during the term because of what I can only call blatant favouritism.

This is what $10,000 bought me.

I'm really questioning how quickly I'll go into the industry after this year, seeing as I've been fairly soured by my experience so far. Sure, I expect things to be a little different out in the industry (read: less disappointing), but I'll need a break.

So I've been weighing up other options. There's a lot of things I love doing, and a lot of things I'm good at doing, so I've started putting those things together and working out exactly how I can make a career for myself. Because at the end of the day I've put myself on an unconventional path in life, and I shouldn't expect to follow someone else's example in order to reach success. I have to make it for myself.

I'm officially at the point where I get my transport reimbursed when I shoutcast live eSports events. It's not profit, but it's zero-cost. That's a hell of a lot more than I was getting for it last year.

And I've realised writing can take me all sorts of places beyond the 'write-and-publish-a-novel' path. I still want to write and publish novels, but fiction writing skills can get me work doing things like writing for video games.

Now just to go and do it...

A Lot of Nothing

Yep, I've been doing a whole lot of nothing lately. Or at least nothing in terms of my ongoing projects. What I have been doing is a lot of scriptwork and, well, taking time off. Allow me to elaborate.

I'm exhausted. Lifebringer has slowed down, and I need time to ruminate on it before I can comfortably move forward. Such is the way with projects sometimes. Maiden Voyage has gone unedited since receiving my (first) rejection letter. Ambervale still needs a Part 3, and then there's a whole load of work to be done editing-wise. Beyond the Horizon is also lying in wait for other projects to wrap up, and has been for some time. I'm not really working on much of anything right now, save for schoolwork.

So why am I exhausted?

Well, in the simplest terms I did a lot of work (relatively speaking) in a very short amount of time. In the space of about 4 months I wrote 50,000 words of Lifebringer, edited all 65,000 words of Maiden Voyage, wrote 20,000 words of Beyond the Horizon and wrote 10,000 words of Ambervale. This all on top of starting a new qualification in a totally different field to what I've previously worked in. I need to recharge the batteries.

And that's fine.

For the first week or so of getting nothing done, I was seriously beating myself up over my lack of progress. I hated that I hadn't touched Lifebringer, or revisited Maiden Voyage, or even so much as written a 500 word piece. I hated that I wasn't making progress, even though I had no motivation to write.

Then I got off my own back, and I realised I'm allowed to take a break if I need one. No-one is paying me to do this. I'm under no contracts, have signed no deals and am not leaving any fans hanging. If other things get busy and the writing falls by the wayside that's fine. If I just need some quieter months where I'm not working at my limits every day that's fine. If I need to put more mental energy into learning the new form of writing my chosen qualification requires that's fine.

I'm doing fine. I'm allowed to take time off.

I realised a while ago that one of the things I love about writing and the idea of doing it for (most of) a living is that there will be times when I can just stop. I don't have to call a manager, I don't have to get a doctor's note. I can just go. I was driving to school, headed northward, and I realised that if I really wanted, I could just keep driving. I could drive until I reached my family's beach house, and I could just pause everything and stay there a few days. I want to always have that option, because sometimes I need something like that.

Maybe that makes me privileged. Thing is, with how hard I work when I'm going full-pelt, I think that's a privilege I've very well earned.

Or maybe it's not.

Who's to say?

So what have I been doing in my idle moments? Playing Roller Coaster Tycoon. It's a great game, and you can buy it on Steam for around $7. It was mostly made by one guy, and the code is robust as hell. My girlfriend runs it on Windows 8. Seriously, go pick that game up...

Denied

I'm unwell right now, so sorry if this post seems a bit off. It's the pseudoephedrine doing it's thing.

You know, we can make methamphetamine, a Class A drug, with pseudoephedrine. Imagine the sort of drugs we could make with real ephedrine...

Anyway, I received my first rejection letter this week. Maiden Voyage was described as 'unpublishable' (in its current state) and full of telling, not showing.

I couldn't be more excited.

I got some amazing feedback from the publisher, and it was honest as hell. Easily the most honest feedback I've ever received. That's such a refreshing thing for me to get. It was constructive, detailed and about as polite as a rejection letter can be.

After reading I was left with an amazing sense of accomplishment, and filled with an emboldening fire to do better work. Thing is, they told me pretty much exactly what I need to do to be a better writer, and when I looked at it, it was all stuff I could do. I could do it easily. It was just a matter of doing it, of learning the habit. How lucky am I to get that sort of feedback?

On top of that, there's a sense of legitimacy to being rejected. It's not that just about every successful author gets rejected to begin with, even though that's true. It's not about being 'part of a club' or anything like that. It's the fact that I put myself out there. Moreover, I put my work out there. Up until now, I've called myself a writer, I've considered myself a writer and I've talked about myself as a writer. Having been rejected by a publisher, I'm left with a sense of having walked the walk. I'm putting my money where my mouth is, and I intend on carrying on that way. It's one thing to call myself a writer, it's another thing entirely to try and get published. I can take myself as seriously as I like, but there's a difference between that and proving to others that you're serious.

We've all me the guy who goes around proclaiming some form of artistry that they're 'just really into, like, it's practically my life'. And we all know them for the fraud they are. They wouldn't dare try make a living off what they do, because in truth they don't really do that thing. That sort of person wouldn't even get as far as being rejected, and if you asked them about it they'd say something like 'the publishers are all just vicious. It's a racket' or somesuch conspiratorial statement.

I'm not that person. Provably so.

That's a good feeling.

Onwards

It will have been a week by the time this post goes up since the WORST THING EVER.

I accidentally deleted 2,000 words of Lifebringer. Not just any words, good words. Hands down the best prose of Lifebringer so far. The sort that would be the benchmark when it came time to edit. I don't say this to toot my own horn, I was seriously proud of the quality of what I'd written.

And then I lost it.

I don't know how it happened. I was reaching for 'CTRL+I' to turn on italics, then I heard a sound reminiscent of the 'would you like to save' pop up, and all at once the document was closed. I was in shock.

So I looked up where Word keeps it autosave files. Thank goodness for those. I had to dick around with my folder settings just to find where they were kept, but in the end I found them.

And Lifebringer wasn't there.

In fact, the most recent document was from 2013.

2,000 words were gone.

I guess it serves me right for not saving, but something about it didn't seem right. I went and took a look at how Word is meant to autosave documents, and found something very interesting. There's meant to be an option you can check that makes Word keep the last autosave of a document even if you select 'don't save' when you close the program. In my settings for Microsoft Word, no such option exists. Where the checkbox should be is nothing.

In short, fuck Dell and their pre-installed garbage OS.


So the next day I re-wrote the section. The prose isn't as good, but I can still write good prose, and when it comes time to edit I can bring that whole section (and indeed the whole book) up to the standard I'm after. I still hit the same story beats, and the section moves the plot just as it's supposed to. In fact, I even improved one section that wasn't working before (as much as the prose doesn't drip like honey anymore).

This week has hurt like hell, and I'm amazed at how hard I've found it to deal with what happened. It really affected me, and I was shocked by how affecting it was. Still, I persevered in what I like to think was the best way I could. I couldn't just sit idle and wallow, letting the sore fester until I never touched Lifebringer again. I carried on. I muscled through it, and did something as hard as anything I've done so far on my journey as a writer.

Onwards and upwards, or at least that's what I tell myself.