Every once in a while, I run across something from my childhood or youth I'd forgotten, and I realize that I've been on the same path since I was small. My earliest memories are of Danny Kaye and Cary Elwes being the funny man in movies like the Court Jester and Robin Hood. They're of Kevin Kline in Pirates of Penzance. They're of Martin Short, Leslie Nielson, and Steve Martin in Airplane and Three Amigos. My foundation, my whole image of myself, is based on the comedy from my childhood. When I was a kid, it didn't occur to me that the cartoons I watched were voiced by real actors, real people, so I was a full-grown adult before I realized that Mel Gibson was the voice of John Smith in Pocahontas. Similarly, The Road To El Dorado is one of my all-time favorite movies, and it's voiced by two people I've loved for nearly as long as I've been sentient--Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh. When I was sixteen, I wrote a letter to Kenneth Branagh after watching his adaptation of Hamlet. I asked him to come to Indiana and teach me how to Hamlet. I got so far as to put stamps on an envelope before good sense regained control of me. When Thor came out, I somehow knew it was him directing it, that he was responsible. When I dream, I dream big and without sensible limits, so my goal is to one day produce a television series based on the novels I'm writing. Having Kenneth Branagh be my director would be...well, it would be everything I'd ever dreamed. As I meander through my life like a stream through quiet woods, I find things I didn't know I knew--like Kevin and Ken were in my favorite movie, or that Kevin Kline was the voice of the knight in Hunchback of Notre Dame. Time and time again, I find that the things that are important to me were projects that involved people who are important to me, in the manner that celebrities sometimes are. I'm 28 now, and I know that's more than some and less than others. I drift, for now, but always with an eye on a shiny horizon that seems so far out of reach--but I'll never stop reaching for it. I don't have a backup plan, although that's more out of a dogged sense of determination and a lack of sense than any intent to inspire myself. I have time, years and years of it ahead of me, but I have so much to do before I get there. In the mean time, I continue to discover that the things that inspire me have, somehow, more in common than I had realized when I was small. Since I know you're wondering, no, I don't have a point. Just the midnight musings of a wannabe writer.
Ah, the wonders of fantasy. Terry Brooks, Tolkien, the guy who wrote the Belgariad. The awe-inspiring heights of science fiction. Asimov, Dune, Ender's Game. And then there's me, sitting over here clutching my pearls anytime someone brings up the greats. "Oh, I, uh, haven't actually read them, because I don't read anything in the genre I'm writing." I'm so great at logic. I'm not one to consider myself a victim of imposter syndrome; I know who and what I am, to a greater inch than anyone else knows me, as is proper. Still, I wonder if by writing a sci-fi/fantasy novel, there's some expectation that I've consumed the greatest authors in my genre/s. I've read, like, one whole Terry Brooks novel. I got ten minutes into the Dune audiobook and wondered why anyone bothered. I read the first three pages of A Game of Thrones. I got a book and a half into Lord of the Rings before realizing that the only passage in all of that I was ever going to remember was the part about Tom Bombadil, who could easily have just took a running leap at Mordor and flipped over the mountains, cannon-balling into the fires of Mount Doom like it was the local swimming hole if only he felt like it. Spoiler alert: he could not for one whole second be arsed. [shrugs in Gandalf] Now, that's not to say I've never consumed anything sci-fi; like all normal people, I've seen every episode of Star Trek at one point or another, as well as every movie of Star Wars and a couple kids' novels. I've read, like, two books by a paranormal romance author set in a sci-fi setting. Likewise, I was deeply passionate about Tamora Pierce's novels, and they factor heavily into the inspiration of my setting. But the greats? The ones people have been raving about for generations? I just don't get the appeal. I know there's nothing inherently wrong with not enjoying any particular book for the same reasons other people think it's great, but it feels honestly a little disingenuous of me to say that I'm trying to be part of any given genre when I have a rather serious distaste for everyone who came before me. In my dreams, I'm on a Women of Sci Fi panel someday and people are asking me about my inspirations. It's at this point that it stops being a dream and becomes a nightmare, because I have to admit to only having Star Trek and Star Wars as inspirations because I thought every other sci fi book I read was boring. Shortly thereafter, I lose all of my fans for being a joke of an author who doesn't read what I pretend to write. Pic related.
I was watching Outlander and got super bummed out, so I thought I'd watch a comedy special before I went to bed. Netflix had been showing off this 'Vir Das' guy for a while, and I'd been meaning to get around to it. He's reasonably funny. I recommend it, but not if you're squeamish about the occasional cuss word. But it's not his comedy that's got me writing. It's his unexpected words of wisdom that I'm sharing with all of you, so that I can have it in the future when I need it. "And I learned something from that. I learned...fuck...that your talent belongs to you...and weirdly, your reputation belongs to other people. Other people will decide when you are cool, uncool, relevant, irrelevant, finished, want a selfie, don't care. It's none of your business, don't worry about that shit. It's a disease, you can't control it. Focus on the talent you have in front of you and you'll always be okay. That's what I learned." For some reason, tonight, that seems especially poignant.
A couple months ago, I received a rather scathing critique of my novel-in-progress that was not necessarily wrong, most of the time, but very unnecessarily harsh in delivery. Coupled with the insults delivered to my pride and the level of skill I think of myself as being at, I ended up not writing much in the month or so after that. And then I started playing Destiny 2, which I'll not expound upon at length here. Suffice it to say that it's sci-fi/fantasy, like my WIP, and something about the game rekindled my desire to write. Since then, I've reworked half my prehistoric mythos, ensured that my race of immortals has a cultural backstory that actually makes sense (egads!), and begun the real work of sorting through the messy plot of the middle of my book. I've also begun the second novel, just to have some idea where I'm headed with all of this. I remember, six years ago, being so in love with the idea of writing, that it didn't matter much whether the backstory for the characters made sense. After all, it was 'just' a fanfiction. It didn't have to be perfect, or even really good. It was just for me, and it just didn't matter how logical the motivations were. I watched Avengers: Age of Ultron in theaters. I remember looking up at the screen, and seeing the terror in perennial alcoholic Tony Stark's eyes during his Wanda-vision. I saw that look when he said, "A suit of armor around the world." I grieved for him as Ultron flew away from the tower and it became clear how deeply Tony Stark had fucked up this time. I still remember the spark of inspiration that grew into a wildfire after seeing Avengers. I knew that was the story I wanted, nay, needed to tell. Malchoir, my MC, was born shortly thereafter, though it was some time before the real work on the novel began because I couldn't decide on a voice for him. Over the intervening four years between Avengers and now, I've picked this book up and set it down again as waves of depression, anxiety, and general schedule havoc crest and break. But I never forget the look in Tony's eyes, or the dream I once had of telling a story that really, truly meant something. I do, however, on occasion forget to be fascinated with my setting. I've put so much work into it, even beyond the requirements of the immediate plot, that I just can't process the enormity of it. The possibility of it. I know it has holes, between the 'everyone and their brother runs a trading company' and 'remind me why the immortals care, again?', but it never seemed the right time to straighten out the kinks in a backstory that couldn't possibly matter. Something, though, has recently struck me. I've rewritten mythos. I've shaped plotlines previously left vague. I've eliminated a whole useless planned character on account of a major plot twist (that I actually didn't myself see coming). Something has shifted in me, and I've gotten so much done. Oh, for that muse of fire...for I have ascended the brightest heavens of invention.
The good news is, I have a professional artist (as in, employed by a museum to do art classes and stuff, and does commissions) to do art for my book/wiki. He's agreed to do it all for free, even. Obviously, if I'm successful, he'll see some of it, I'm not a total wad, but he's not expecting compensation for it. He's just looking for a passion project that lets him draw things that aren't portraits and still-lifes. The bad news is, I still don't...actually have a book to design a cover for. At the moment, most of his work will be for the wiki. I've got two major character rewrites and two chapters to fix before I can even move on with my story. My brother, who I would have socked if we were in the same room, tried to lecture me on timetables and 'why do you need an artist, you don't have a book yet'. While I may have objected quite intensely to his tone (I HATE being lectured about timetables, and he's exactly the wrong person to be doing that, anyway), he has a point. I've gotten more than a bit ahead of myself. I'm not much more than a third of the way through my book, I'm writing slowly, and I'm at a serious loggerhead. I'm not less grateful for finding an artist, but thanks to my brother, I feel guilty about not being farther along in the writing process. Damn it all.
As some of you may have seen me mention, I play a lot of World of Warcraft. Part of the reason I do is because of the people I play with--my guild is as close to me as my family; we are family, albeit distantly located. I've known some of them longer than anyone else I talk to anymore. I started playing with them in 2010; that's eight years that I've known these people. I've seen their best days; I've seen their worst days. They've been with me since I was a naive, straight-laced 18-year-old, through my marriage and learning to cuss properly (unrelated incidents), learning to give and take teasing. When my mother in law died, it was to my guild that I turned for comfort. When my guild leader's cousin died (and then the next week, a friend, and then the next week, another friend), it was to the guild he turned for comfort. I preface with this not because you should care, but because you should understand why I do. So when my guild leader (called Ransue) happens to have a background in English, I have every reason to trust his opinion. I asked him to read the first...oh, third or so, of my novel. That's all I've got so far, but hey, I'm proud of it. I had some grammatical questions, sentences I wasn't sure I cared for. He could, and did, help, so I wanted the opinion of someone I care greatly for. He was kind in his appraisal, because it's only a first draft, but there was one comment that bothered me. A lot. He couldn't have known that it would bother me. He told me that he could hear my voice as he read it. He could recognize my voice in it. Here's why that bothered me. The very, very first version of my first chapter was written while I was still trying to find a voice to write in, to figure out who Malchoir was as a person. It was written much with the cadence of my natural thoughts: slightly comical, light, and a little too much stream-of-consciousness for a 'good' novel. In short, it was bad. The way my brain presents concepts to itself naturally is not acceptable for a novel. Which is fine, that part doesn't bother me. Ransue's words bothered me because I spent the next year and a half trying very hard not to sound like that. To not sound like me. Because my speech pattern, my thought pattern, was not acceptable, I tried very hard not to sound like that. When he told me that he could hear me in what I'd written, it bothered me because I'd clearly failed. Then I talked to my buddy, who has the patience of a saint, I swear to God. I'm calling the Pope when she dies to have her canonized. She told me that really, that wasn't a big deal. Her examples included Brandon Sanderson, Paul *mumbles something*, C.S. Lewis, and Tolkien. She said, (and I'm paraphrasing here) "If I gave you an excerpt from an author you're really familiar with, could you tell me who wrote it? If I gave you a part of Return of the King, or Prince Caspian, or [whatever Sanderson wrote], would you be able to recognize the author?" I said yeah, I guess I would. It had never occured to me, as she explained, that I can't divorce 'the sound of Mathi' (me) from a book I'm writing. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just because my thought cadence doesn't work, doesn't mean the way I structure sentences in general is bad. Doesn't mean I can't sound like me, and sound good at the same time. As far as revelations go, it's got nothing on John of Patmos, but it was still a big deal to me. I can sound like me, and sound good. I'm good enough. That's a big deal to me; I was so afraid of sounding like me. The people I work with and around tend not to appreciate my linguistic style the way my guild does. The way, I'm hoping, my future readership will. tl;dr, i've lost my goddamn mind and Cayss is a godsend and Ransue likes to tell me nice things about my book.
Actually, it was the other day, but I'm still better, and that pleases me. I hadn't quite realized it, but I was in a hella funk. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't tell what the problem was. I play a lot of World of Warcraft, or at least I used to. And I write a lot...or at least, I used to. These days, the past few months or so, it seems I just sit and 'waste time' on the computer. I know I should be writing, and i want to, I just...don't. I know I should be playing WoW, and I want to, because people are relying on me doing my part...I just don't. I'd just sit there on facebook and look at pictures, or play my puzzle game, or some other definition of accomplishing nothing. Recently (within the past two weeks or so) I realized that it wasn't just procrastination. It was a problem that was beginning to affect my life, and I needed to do something about it. I still didn't, though; each day I would come home and look at all the things I needed to do, just to not do them. And then I lost my job. Between you and me, I think it's because I reported unsafe work conditions, but that's not really important. I'm unemployed now, and...something has changed. I was better. I went home after losing my job (via text, no less--they couldn't even be arsed to call me) and played some WoW. I got more done in two hours than I have in a month. The next day, I played some more WoW and spent some time fiddling with my novel. I haven't fiddled since I got this job in December. The next day (yesterday), I played more WoW and did some more fiddling. I feel lighter, in my head. Not that everything was black and soul-sucking before; I've been there, and this wasn't that. It was the way a doldrum would feel: laid out before me was everything, and none of it was moving. Eerily flat did my life feel, and I wasn't capable of reaching for any of the many things within my range. But now, the waves chop again. Not so rough as to capsize, but things move once more. A task floats by, and I pull it into the boat. Before, I'd watch it idly, hating myself for letting it go. I feel better, and that's...incredible.
First of all, thank god for my friend the unpaid therapist. Dunno where I'd be without her. Second, now that I'm removed from my nervous breakdown last night, I realize that it doesn't make such a big difference where everything goes, and in what order; man, neuroses can be a bitch. As I write this, I have almost serene clarity of what to do in regards to formatting my pages. Better get some stuff done while I can; dunno how long it'll last.
wrong-side-of-a-war.wikia.com if you wanted to take a gander at what greatness looks like before it has its morning coffee. 8 pages and counting! Four days into this massive undertaking (boy, did i underestimate it), I've realized that I have a very, very basic problem. How do I format my pages? I have a MS Paint doc open with three 'Contents' boxes--Vulcans from the Star Trek wiki, Wookies from the Star Wars wiki, and Humans from the Andromeda wiki. I feel it relevant to note that Memory Alpha (Star Trek) doesn't seem to feel a need to be consistent with its Tables of Contents, nor does the Andromeda wiki (which can't even decide between 'physical characteristics' and 'physiology') but the Wookiepedia does. I'd like to be consistent, it feels...better to me, but ordering them seems to be a task in and of itself. On the one hand, I have to figure out who's reading this. Are they there to figure out if Imbarians have two hearts or one? Would they be more likely to be interested in the Nikian subwar during the initial conquest of the galaxy? Are they more perplexed by the biology of the pseudoimmortals, or the morality of the gods? Does it matter? Does history come first, because it sets the tone for the stories they read in my book, or should appearance come first, so they understand what the characters look like? Does the size of the canon impact the priority of history over appearance? Does it matter who the race is? The Thorans define themselves first by their military might, then by their architectural and industrial achievements; the Chouk'mir aren't too big on written histories, but they love talking about that time their father's cousin's nephew's brother's former roommate fell out of their bedroom window and into the waiting mouth of the predators bigger than they were, and that's why they build their houses in trees in the first place. Star Trek, Andromeda, and Star Wars all have massive histories, dozens of books and series and movies and episodes (apply to each series as relevant) written about them; I've got a third of a book, with relatively little grander backstory. Need I invent the history of Yevrun, so the part in the Constellar Imperium:first conquest about not being able or willing to conquer that planet makes sense? Or will a future reader tolerate a general lack of information, given that there's not much to be had in the first place? There's so much more here to do than I was expecting. If I manage this, someday I'll have an achievement equal to writing the book itself; if I don't, it'll just be another poorly run wikia hosted by FANDOM. God be with me; I need the help.
Now, I know I'm hardly unique among writers in that as much as I want to write a book, as good as I think I'll be about it, actually sitting my ass down and writing is practically impossible most days. Some days it's a time constraint; some days it's my son being trouble and not having the ability to focus on it. But most days...most days when I think about writing, my lip curls. It's just not...what I want to be doing. So I write a bit, and then I get distracted, and then I feel bad, but now what little mood there was is lost. Or I get in the mood, write some, and then get distracted... I may have some distraction issues. I've begun writing on my phone during my breaks at work. A new chapter, a later chapter than what's currently in my manuscript, but a chapter nonetheless. An interesting chapter that explores the personal relationships between the gods and their devotees. It's what I was feeling at the time, and it seems to be working for me. I sat at the computer for eight hours yesterday. I wrote three paragraphs, played some Torchlight, a couple games of Heroes of the Storm, and started work on my wikia (I'm making it to help me keep everybody straight). The whole time, I *wanted* to write. but I also wanted to watch Buffy, and watch Sabrina the Teenage Witch (a leftover vice from high school), and play video games. And then I realized...I wanted to write, just not on my computer. I wanted to write on my phone. Where the new chapter was. I couldn't explain exactly how, but I have a feeling that it's not the chapter that's relevant. For some reason, it's easier for me to write on my phone, to be inspired to write on my phone, than it is for me to write on my computer. I'm not necessarily asking for advice, or even solidarity. I just need to admit that I have a problem. That's the first step, right?
Some of you may remember my name, I posted in a handful of threads a month or so ago. I've recently had a bit of a...philosophical dilemma that I'd like to see your responses to. I know that at the end of it all, I have to make the decision that feels right for my book and my characters, and hang the rest; at the same time, I fear that nagging in the back of my mind that says, "What if..." Fun fact, I have no fear greater than that "what if...". Now you know. First, the instigator for this dilemma. I watched Becoming Jane recently (a fantastic movie, but only if you liked Shakespeare In Love). Generally speaking, I like tragic characters; paradoxically, I also dislike sad endings. The movie's ten years old, so I don't feel bad spoiling it, but if that bugs you, sorry. Jane meets boy. Jane hates boy. ??? Jane loves boy. Jane can't marry boy because (insert myriad reasons here, all of which are valid). It's here that my heart began to hurt, almost a physical pain by the end of the movie. Jane loves Tom, rather passionately (and chastely--as was right). And when his uncle refuses to allow him to marry her, they run away together. From the ball of pain in my heart, a flower of hope seems to grow. Perhaps...perhaps... And then that fails, and they never marry. I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry. The movie was so well done, without being (to my mind, anyway) in any way over the top. My heart hurt for Jane, and for Tom, hurt so bad I wanted to forget I'd ever seen the movie, just to make the pain go away. Here's the thing, though. My book ends with the death of the main character. After leading the Constellar Imperium to a crushing defeat at the hands of the rebellion, he finds himself a prisoner, almost a pet, of the man who had led the rebellion. His life had been spared out of kindness, a favor from one grieving widower to another. Zandakar decides to grant Malchoir one wish, for reasons I haven't yet gotten to (the book's not done yet, i'll get there one day); Malchoir tells him that he'd like to write a book. A history of the recently-deceased Imperium, free of the hateful bias of a rebel historian. He promises impartiality, and is granted his wish. A period of time passes, and one morning, when a guard goes to wake Malchoir for breakfast, he finds him dead on his bed, having died in his sleep. Beside him, on the bedside table, are three manuscripts. Two, histories; the third, a journal of the war. This has always been Malchoir's fate. Through three changes of the timeline, four drastic plot changes, and several seemingly minor changes to the way the universe functions, Malchoir has always ended his life by going to meet his family in the next. Suddenly, having watched Becoming Jane, all I want to do is save his life. I want him to live; I want him to not give up and 'go home'. I want him to have his happiness. The problem is that he simply can't. Everything this book is meant to be stands against the idea of him having a happy ending. He must lose. He must die. He simply must. And so my mind goes back and forth; on the one hand, I know now that it will cause me pain to watch the last few months of Malchoir's life go by, knowing that soon it must come to an end. It will cause me pain to watch this character, to whom I've devoted so much of the last few months and so much of the next few, reach the day where he will wake no more. How can I live with myself if I don't change his fate? How can I live with myself if I do?