Slacker

Yep, I'm a slacker. I didn't post anything this Wednesday. I might as well hang up the towel after that.

Anyway, here's (unedited) chapter 3 of Lifebringer, because in all honesty I have nothing new to say about anything this week.

Hell, it's not even a long chapter. I'm the worst content creator this side of Treyarch.

Slacker indeed.

Chapter 3

Admissions

     This corridor was much like the first, only shorter and festooned with twice as many banners. In a way, it was like a concentrated version of the other one. It wasn't what Wrin had expected, but then when he thought about it he wasn't sure quite what he had expected.

     The corridor ended in an archway like every other in the Cathedral, but the room beyond was nothing like the rest of the building. It was still wrought from stone, but it was simple, utilitarian. There were no banners, no frescoes, no stained glass. The only decoration was a single brazier burning in the centre of the room. At the far end of the room was a table with three men sat behind it. A fourth, the one who had fetched Wrin from the chapel, joined them now. The room was very different indeed, but it matched exactly the floor plans Wrin had studied.

     "Wrinlett Leeve. Who is your father?" said the leftmost Clergyman.

     "His name was Tijun." Wrin replied, voice clear but quiet. He didn't exactly want the Priests to pity him, but the less they thought of him the easier he would slip about unnoticed.

     "Mother?" he continued.

     "Gloria." said Wrin.

     "Were either Blessed? asked the man.

     "No."

     That seemed to be all his questions. He scribbled in a ledger that sat in front of him, then turned to the man beside him.

     If Wrin thought he was nervous before, he'd been dead wrong. All at once a wave of nausea washed over him. Here he was, after all these years, standing in the interview room for admissions. He'd made all his plans, and everything should be perfect, but there was always that shadow of doubt. For a split second, that shadow consumed him, made him dizzy and blurred his vision.

     But he didn't show it. Oh no, Wrinlett Leeve was too good at what he did to slip up like that. It would work, everything had always worked, because Wrin was hard working and smart. That put him ahead of most, and his easy charm put him ahead of the rest. He could handle admissions. He'd made the plan, it would work.

     "Wrinlett." said the second man along the table. His head was balding, and what hair was left had long since gone white, but there was a youthful wiliness about him.

     Wrinlett kept his attention on the man, as he had from the moment the first man stopped.

     "As you should know, this is not a place for those chasing fanciful notions of wielding secret magics. Here you might learn to heal the sick and wounded, should you work at it. This is more a school of medicine than a school of the arcane. That said, in learning here you will be taught the ways of the Hymns, which you will use in the service of the Priesthood to heal, and not for personal gain."

     Wrin started to sweat, but not on his face. He never seemed to sweat where others could see. A useful trait, as one could imagine. The plan should have been in action long ago, though. Where was his interruption?

     "Wrin, I will now have you recite the words, given to you by the Protector himself, and you will sing his First Hymn."

     This was it, the crux of the con. Here planning blended with luck and lies, and in a few seconds he would be running on fumes. But he had timed it, it should happen any minute now...

     Wrin opened his mouth. He spoke the first word, a word he had no business knowing. A word he had stolen from an unwilling tongue.

     Then it happened. A crash, a cry, an almighty boom. The four men at the table stood up in alarm. One spared him a momentary glance, but said nothing as they all ran from the room. Their bodies spoke of urgency and practiced calm, of a rise to the call of duty.

     And Wrin was alone.

     It had worked.

Hit The Books

I've realised something recently. Granted I realise new things all the time, like yesterday when I realised my manboobs are big enough to make convincing cleavage if I tape them together the right way.

The thing I want to talk about though is how much university sucks if you like reading.

Some of my readers probably already know about my ill-fated stint at university. In fact it was upon dropping out that I started this blog to help encourage my writing. While at university, my time was taken up by nothing but university. Or at least in theory it was... In truth my time was taken up by video games and food. But I digress...

For the average student who is interested in passing papers, the bulk of your time is taken up by university. I don't mean to say that every waking moment is study, study, study. But certainly when you're not at university, or travelling to and from school, or working on assignments, you're still thinking about university. Every moment is pervaded by thoughts of study. If you're at your evening job, you're thinking about how early you need to wake up for class tomorrow. If you're at a party, you're thinking about the assignment due next week. If you've just finished exams, you're thinking about applying for nest semester's papers. University is your life while you're there.

You know all this when you apply to a university. You start studying there knowing how much of your time and life it will take up. That's fine, that's part of it. And yes, you don't spend every single second thinking about university. There is down-time. The problem is, reading comes in pretty low on the list of 'down-time activities', so when your downtime is really limited, you tend to end up not reading.

For 4 years.

I of course can't speak for everyone, but I know for a fact I started reading a hell of a lot more when I dropped out of university. In fact, I was amazed that when I came home from work and sat down to play a game or whatever, I didn't feel guilty at all. I was so used to sitting there, knowing there was some other work that still needed doing. I was gobsmacked at how much time I now had. Most of my friends are finishing their degrees now and they're going through the same experience. By extension, a lot of them have started reading again.

I also know plenty of people who read while they were at uni, so don't take this as me saying 'students don't have time to read'. Some do, most don't. And those that do still tend to read less than they would have were they not studying. In truth I fall into this category. I was still reading during the year and a half I was at university, it's just that in that time I read maybe 3-4 books in total. By comparison, I've read about 10 books so far this year. Yes I'm a slow reader.


My question, therefore, is how does this phenomenon affect publishers? More people than ever are going to university, often for 4 or more years. That's a massive chunk of the population. It's the bridge between 'Young Adult' and 'Adult fiction'. It's a demographic writers will struggle to write for, simply because so few will ever read what's out there for them. Publishers will be loathe to publish books for this age group, simply because there's too few buyers. Retailers won't stock those sorts of books, because they'll just waste space.

And the group that loses out is the writers.

As always.

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...

Fictional Fans

I should stop forcing puns into my titles...


So I don't like fanfiction. Don't read it, don't write it, don't like it. It's never done it for me. I don't have a problem with it, and if you're a fan of fanfiction all power to you, but to me it just feels chronically unsatisfying.

It's one of those things that follows Sturgeon's Law. 90% of Fanfiction is crap, but the other 10% is good enough to make wading through the crap worth it. Only thing is, that 10% is incredibly elusive. Why? Because there's literal years worth of fanfiction out there. Sure, there are ways to separate the wheat from the chaff, as it were, but the truth is, I'd rather just read a professionally written book.

Yep, there it is. I prefer paid professionals to amateur aspiring authors.

Oh god even I hated that sentence...

In all seriousness though, it's the same reason I'd rather watch Raging Bull than my friend's short film about boxing. Maybe my friend is the next Martin Scorsese, and I think it's great he's nurturing his talent and increasing his skillset, I just don't want to spend my time watching his baby steps.

Maybe that makes me a bad person.

Thing is, fanfiction is good. It's a healthy thing for aspiring writers. It allows you to work on very specific things while you improve your writing. You can avoid things like needing to come up with new characters (so you can focus on plot) or coming up with original plots (so you can focus on prose). It's a way for writers to develop their skill while contributing to a fandom they're passionate about. That's cool. Go them.

Still doesn't do it for me.

I think part of that comes from the fact that a lot of fanfiction is really wish-fulfillment. Once that wish has been fulfilled, the writer stops bothering. Moreover, their intention isn't to improve, it's just to write that thing they wanted the book to do. In that case, you might as well save time and just imagine that thing happening instead. You can do that in seconds. Writing takes a lot more time than that...

There's also that part of fanfiction that's really self-congratulatory. I get why people write the wish-fulfillment stuff. It's because they want to see it and they know how much they wish someone else would write it, so they write it to cater to everyone else that wants to see it. Thing is, those people then get to see the thing they want and then they walk away from it. The only feedback is 'Yes, finally, someone wrote it. I've wanted to read this so bad for so long.' The writer walks away feeling good, even if what they wrote was a total mess.

That being said, everyone in that exchange enjoyed themselves. The writer got to feel good about their writing (deservedly or otherwise), the reader got to see the thing they wanted to see and the copyright owner got to add another one to the 'sue for retirement fund' file.

Maybe it's the inherent lack of improvement that bothers me. It's not so much the fanfiction, it's the people writing it. I think you have the right to do whatever you want, and you're more than welcome to call yourself what you want, but I reserve the right to think that title is undeserved. If I unclog my toilet, I won't be introducing myself as a plumber to everyone I meet. By extension, I don't think writing fanfiction qualifies you as an author.

Lots of authors have written fanfiction. The difference between them then, when they wrote fanfiction, and them now, when they're published, career-writers, is improvement. Authors moved away from fanfiction once they'd learned what they needed, and started writing their own things, where nothing came pre-built.

To top it all off, you don't have to use fanfiction to learn those skills. It's just one way of many. For every author who started with fanfiction, there's another that didn't.

Keep writing fanfiction. Keep doing what you love. Don't let me discourage you. Just be aware of what it is you're doing, and be honest with whether that makes you an author, or just someone who writes. Because the truth is, everyone writes, but only a few of us will shake a new hand and say 'Hi, I'm Roger and I'm a writer.'



Ok yes I'm still salty about Fifty Shades of Gray...

A Review: Not Forgetting The Whale

This month I'll be reviewing a book I picked up, surprisingly enough, from Whitcoulls. In a last-ditch attempt to 'sell discovery' a few months back they started up something called 'Joan's Picks'. Joan is, apparently, their head buyer. The book is John Ironmonger's 'Not Forgetting The Whale'.

Previously J W Ironmonger, and not to be confused with Australian footballer John Ironmonger, John Ironmonger is known for his book 'The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder'. Said book was shortlisted for the Costa 'First Novel' Prize and The Guardian's 'Not The Booker Prize'.

Not Forgetting The Whale follows Jonas 'Joe' Haak, a stock analyst from the big city of London. Early one morning, he casts himself into the waves at St Piran in Cornwall, only to be brought back to shore by a fin whale. The combination of naked Joe and the rare whale sighting leave the town deeply stirred. Soon after his recovery, we find Joe has fled impending societal collapse, a collapse predicted by a computer simulation he programmed. He fast makes it his mission to save this quaint seaside town from the end of the world.

John Ironmonger has made my 'recipe list' with this book, joining authors like Patrick Rothfuss and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The list contains names of authors from whom I would purchase a recipe, should they ever write one, just to enjoy the prose. 'Not Forgetting The Whale' is excellently written, painting equally vivid images of smalltown St Piran and the bustling trading floors of London's financial sector, often in the same page. We care for characters that get little more than a name. We can smell the salty air of the Atlantic Ocean as we open the pages, It's like the writing Olympics, and Ironmonger took home gold and the world record with it.

The book appeals to all readers above 'children' level. There are arguably some 'adult' themes, but nothing more lewd than the mention of unmentionables. The arc of the story deals with some heavy, semi-existential subject matter, but ultimately comes out on the side of positivity. It's not like 'Requiem For A Dream' where you'll be left feeling dead inside for the rest of the week. In fact, as Joe undergoes a series of trials and tribulations to save the town, we get to watch as the people pull through time and time again, coming to the aid of first him, and then each other. If anything, the story feels almost biblical, thematically speaking.

The ending is, in a way, predictable. Foreseeable. But the satisfying thing is it's exactly the end we foresee as a reader, because we are humans and not computer programs.

I recommend this book as one of Pixie's Picks.

What I'm Worth

I had an interesting thought lately. Been a while, I know.

I often read people proclaiming that I, as a writer, should not 'sell myself short'. They decree that I must only accept payment reflective of what I'm worth. That if I offer myself or accept work for free I'm discrediting myself and being taken advantage of.

I see the wisdom in this advice, and don't get me wrong I'm keen to make money off this stuff, but I can't help but ultimately disagree.

Thing is, it's a competitive market. And it's a seller's market. There are more writers than there are jobs. There's more books than there are book deals. Sure, indie publishers and content creator-driven enterprises are bridging that gap. But they'll never bridge it completely, because not everyone who can write has the time or energy to market their own book or run their own business. Even then, the returns are even less guaranteed with these forms. You might even be doing more work for no money.

I might want to do something for free to promote myself. Hell, this blog is me constantly putting out free content in the interest of developing my skills as a writer while slowly building an audience. That's normal. In fact, it's encouraged by many established authors to actively promote yourself by submitting writing to contests and making content publicly available for free. Pretty normal stuff.

Now yes, there's a difference between writing for my own self-interest and making no money and writing for an employer and making no money. The problem is, the line between 'employer' and 'publication to promote yourself through' is often very, very thin. Say I submit to a low-budget magazine that is someone's side project and barely makes enough money to cover its printing costs. Should I demand payment from them? Hell no. I go into that sort of arrangement expecting to not get paid.

Many will argue that by going into that arrangement I'm selling myself short and not valuing my skillset, and that may be true, but it's still my choice.

I think I'm worth a fair amount, but that doesn't mean every sentence needs to be making money. Sometimes, I just like to write for fun.

Whitcoulls: An Apology

Many of you will have already seen my post last week about Whitcoulls closing their largest store. I will admit, it was a little vitriolic. I was impassioned, and passion drives men to do rash things. I also had an experience that changed my life while entombed in the half-bare shelves of your flagship store, and so I feel it's time for an apology, Whitcoulls.

I'm sorry for saying you had nothing I wanted to buy. It turned out you had exactly two books I wanted to buy, which is more than I had ever hoped for. To say I am pleased would be an understatement. I am awed, and I am humbled. Your gracious stocking of two bestselling fantasy books was a blessing indeed to genre fans like myself. There are millions of us, and to have our voices heard by your bankrupt ears was nothing short of magnificent. Moreover, the fact that these were the only two books on that otherwise empty shelf made me feel, dare I say it, special. It was as though these books were meant for me and only me, like a light had shone down from the heavens to part the shelves of clearance-price romance and reveal those two tomes, nestled on a naked shelf.

I'm sorry for insinuating your prices are too high. I said you couldn't compete with the online market, but I was wrong. I snatched up those books and hurried to the counter, joyed that I did not have to wait two weeks after my purchase to read them. My steps resonated in the spacious cavity of your three-storey shop, echoing against the elegant, barren walls. At the counter, I paid exactly $30 for these two thick paperback blessings. 'What a bargain!' I proclaimed to the ghostly attendant stood behind the counter. The markdowns were proof that you wanted readers like me to buy from you. And Whitcoulls, I answered your call. Like a phone-sold cold call target buying into shares, I was thrilled by thoughts of money well spent. It was ecstasy, having spare cash upon leaving your hallowed doors.

But like an invester in a property bubble, I knew it couldn't last.

I have the full trilogy of Brandon Sanderson's 'Mistborn' books, and afterward I had money left for a doughnut. Such luxury you have allowed me! As the sweet, sugary crumbs rolled down my chin I savoured the moment, quashing thoughts that, inevitably, this indulgence would end. Your doors would close, and I would no more be able to afford such thick stacks of paper. In fact, I would likely never see them on your shelves again.

Whitcoulls, without you this afternoon of sheer robbery would have been impossible. I have plundered your sinking ship, and for that I am thankful.

Sorry Whitcoulls, you were right, closing your doors was a good idea.