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We're Back, Birches
Jun. 23rd, 2021 05:03 amI don't know how to describe the utter glory that is wanting to write again. When every word isn't a tooth being pulled, when a new scene just spills from your fingertips, when you can't wait to come back to the page because you want to find out what's going to happen next -
It really just underlines how incredibly difficult this last year has been. And I knew that, even whilst in the midst of it, but of course couldn't help beating myself up over my inability to write. Still, I have shown myself more grace in the past year than any other difficult time before, so at least I'm learning and growing.
So where, exactly, am I back to? A story I started in 2019 after trunking another story I'd started and stopped and restarted and stopped and restarted again. That trunked story - which I've off and on referred to as the swamp WIP - was always going to be ill-fated, as I was trying to write a messy first draft in-between revisions of TPA and TIC and writing TUC. Every time I'd start to find my momentum again, a new deadline would appear and I had to step out of the swamp and back into the desert. And of course when I returned, the words and world were never as slick and fully-formed as those I'd just left behind.
The thing about messy first drafts, I've found, is that you have to write them all at once. Otherwise, if you step away for too long, you'll come back and try to fix the little bit you've got instead of finding your ending and your book's deeper meaning.
And that's what started to happen to this other story, this one I started in 2019 when Macey teased the idea of a sword lesbians anthology by sharing a single picture. I wrote 5000 words in a single day and I was ecstatic with my shiny new idea. And I worked on it and worked on it and wrote a short story and a query and visited the library and put together a proposal for my agent and -
Then the pandemic struck.
And yes, we moved, and yes, my wife got pregnant, and yes, I struggled with depression and isolation - as did we all. But inbetween all that, the last book in my trilogy released to what felt like silence and my editor was fired and the sales numbers weren't good and I knew that all of these things together meant whatever I tried to write next had to be absolutely phenomenal and -
You see where this is going, yes?
So a year of barely having time to think coupled with every time I did have a chance to myself with my WIP, only hearing a voice asking, "why are you doing this? who is this for? why bother?" and finding that the answer, was, in fact, that I didn't want to write, I wanted to sleep, or I didn't want to write, I wanted to stare vacantly at the wall in silence, or I didn't want to write, I wanted to play with Cabin Girl, or I didn't want to write, I wanted to connect with the myriad of friendly souls I'd found throughout the world yet conveniently fit in my pocket...
Well.
I'd built up a wall of expectations so high I could never cross it. So I didn't.
That wall is crumbling now. I've rediscovered my "why," and it's not exactly where I expected it to be. I mean, as always I write because I want to know what happens. Because I want to understand this culture and these people I've imagined. Because I love the way a good plot comes together like a thousand puzzle pieces. And I still have a demon to exorcise through these words.
But then I could just leave the words in a digital drawer, never to be touched. So why still seek to be published?
This community is why. The readers I've met. The reviewers. The authors. The editors. The librarians. The best part of being published is being thrust into this world of your peers - of people who love books just as much as you do.
I could stay here without ever publishing another book, I'm sure. And I certainly would try! But I want to be a part of the conversation. Nothing exists in a vacuum and that's 105% true for today's (and yesterday's and tomorrow's...) body of works.
All that is to say... I'm 32,000 words into a third draft of Cave WIP which has death gods by the dozen, a chaotic neutral lesbian with ARMS, catacombs filled with ancient artifacts and undead monsters, stabbings galore, and a bonus!! lake full of skellytons, and I'm publicly committing to finishing this draft without going back and starting another one to rewrite the beginning for the 15th time.
It really just underlines how incredibly difficult this last year has been. And I knew that, even whilst in the midst of it, but of course couldn't help beating myself up over my inability to write. Still, I have shown myself more grace in the past year than any other difficult time before, so at least I'm learning and growing.
So where, exactly, am I back to? A story I started in 2019 after trunking another story I'd started and stopped and restarted and stopped and restarted again. That trunked story - which I've off and on referred to as the swamp WIP - was always going to be ill-fated, as I was trying to write a messy first draft in-between revisions of TPA and TIC and writing TUC. Every time I'd start to find my momentum again, a new deadline would appear and I had to step out of the swamp and back into the desert. And of course when I returned, the words and world were never as slick and fully-formed as those I'd just left behind.
The thing about messy first drafts, I've found, is that you have to write them all at once. Otherwise, if you step away for too long, you'll come back and try to fix the little bit you've got instead of finding your ending and your book's deeper meaning.
And that's what started to happen to this other story, this one I started in 2019 when Macey teased the idea of a sword lesbians anthology by sharing a single picture. I wrote 5000 words in a single day and I was ecstatic with my shiny new idea. And I worked on it and worked on it and wrote a short story and a query and visited the library and put together a proposal for my agent and -
Then the pandemic struck.
And yes, we moved, and yes, my wife got pregnant, and yes, I struggled with depression and isolation - as did we all. But inbetween all that, the last book in my trilogy released to what felt like silence and my editor was fired and the sales numbers weren't good and I knew that all of these things together meant whatever I tried to write next had to be absolutely phenomenal and -
You see where this is going, yes?
So a year of barely having time to think coupled with every time I did have a chance to myself with my WIP, only hearing a voice asking, "why are you doing this? who is this for? why bother?" and finding that the answer, was, in fact, that I didn't want to write, I wanted to sleep, or I didn't want to write, I wanted to stare vacantly at the wall in silence, or I didn't want to write, I wanted to play with Cabin Girl, or I didn't want to write, I wanted to connect with the myriad of friendly souls I'd found throughout the world yet conveniently fit in my pocket...
Well.
I'd built up a wall of expectations so high I could never cross it. So I didn't.
That wall is crumbling now. I've rediscovered my "why," and it's not exactly where I expected it to be. I mean, as always I write because I want to know what happens. Because I want to understand this culture and these people I've imagined. Because I love the way a good plot comes together like a thousand puzzle pieces. And I still have a demon to exorcise through these words.
But then I could just leave the words in a digital drawer, never to be touched. So why still seek to be published?
This community is why. The readers I've met. The reviewers. The authors. The editors. The librarians. The best part of being published is being thrust into this world of your peers - of people who love books just as much as you do.
I could stay here without ever publishing another book, I'm sure. And I certainly would try! But I want to be a part of the conversation. Nothing exists in a vacuum and that's 105% true for today's (and yesterday's and tomorrow's...) body of works.
All that is to say... I'm 32,000 words into a third draft of Cave WIP which has death gods by the dozen, a chaotic neutral lesbian with ARMS, catacombs filled with ancient artifacts and undead monsters, stabbings galore, and a bonus!! lake full of skellytons, and I'm publicly committing to finishing this draft without going back and starting another one to rewrite the beginning for the 15th time.
