Victory !

After much procrastination, I have finally managed to finish editing the sequel to Unemotion. The actual editing was not as bad as I had been expecting, though I have yet to form an opinion on the new book. All authors have a bit of trouble judging their own work, especially when it has to match up to a previous work.

I’m fairly sure I know how this new one stacks up with Unemotion, but I would probably have the same opinion of anything I managed to write in the immediate wake of that book. It’s hard for anything to compete with the first, especially one that I believe turned out as well as it possible could have. I’m not sure I could write a better book, no matter how hard I tried, and I’m sure that’s the case here.

As for when the book will manage to see the light of day, I haven’t decided that yet. It’s coming, but I still need to work through a few things first.

For instance; what’s the point?

I Haven’t Given Up Yet

No, I have not given up on ever producing another piece of writing. It is still in the plans, and I’m more than halfway to having something ready to announce, but I have once again been distracted by other endeavors. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but once a friend pitched the idea of collaborating on a musical project, my mind shifted gears and left me with no other choice. My limited ability to creatively multi-task meant that I abandoned the editing process for a little while, but now that I foresee an opportunity to return to it, I should be able to turn out the work in short order. Once I manage to do that, I can finally make a judgment on the merit of my sequel, and assuming it gets a nod of approval, I can look forward to putting it out for the entirety of no one who will read it, just like the first book.

Still, it’s something.

Progress Is Slow, But Steady

So after much internal struggle to find the enthusiasm and motivation to take the next step with my career as a writer, I believe I have finally managed to get to a point of saying something.

My second book has been written for quite a while, but I have now managed to finish the first round of editing on the manuscript. This new development puts me within sight of being able to completely finish the book sometime in the very near future, and will hopefully lead to a release soon thereafter.

Being that this new book is a sequel to my first book, and the complete lack of interest that one drew when it was coming out, I’m not even going to bother with the pretense of seeking a traditional publishing contract for it. The book is commercial suicide, and the months it would take to amass the rejection letters could be better spent focused on what comes next.

Instead, when I reach the point of being ready to put this book out into the world, it will be self-published. While less glamorous, it feels like the right thing to do for this particular book.

Hopefully I will have more to say about the project soon.

Until then, back to normal.

The Muse and Self-Abuse

Once again, I find myself conflicted.

On the one hand, I’ve become increasingly convinced that I am not destined to spend my whole life trying to be a writer, and that my real passion lay with music. Of course, coming to a simple conclusion is not something I can do, and no sooner did I reach this end than I felt the desire to sit down and start writing prose again.

I didn’t actually get any words down on the page, since I am still without the next big idea I’ve been waiting for, and I’m not about to bend my own rules and write just for the sake of writing. Until I get an idea I find worthy of spending the time it will take to finish, I’m not going to allow myself to start down the rabbit hole of false promises.

What it does do, however, is plague me with a question I have yet to be able to answer. Why is it that the medium I feel more comfortable working in is the one I have a harder time putting on display, while the one I originally took up for the sake of shutting people up is the one I’m proud of and eager to share?

Something about that contradiction feels wrong to me, as though the answer should be easily seen, but I’m just too dumb to sort through the fog and find it. Whatever that truth might be, it now puts me in the awkward position of eagerly waiting for the next idea to come along, instead of putting it out of my mind until that day came.

Now I have something to be neurotic about. Oh joy.

Christmas? Humbug!

With Christmas less than a week away, I can report that I have felt none of the Christmas spirit that gets talked about so often. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve never been filled with the type of warmth and good cheer tv tells me I’m supposed to be. Christmas is nice, but it’s also a pain, and seeing a thousand horrid Santa decorations isn’t going to put me in a better mood.

“Comes a time for Christmas and I really have to ask; if this is feeling merry, how much longer must it last?”

So begins my favorite Christmas song, and I think it’s a good question. My attitude towards the holiday probably has more to do with the expectation of what I’m supposed to feel, rather than how I actually do. It’s the knowing that I’m not a character in a Christmas movie that makes me start to wonder, not the actual thoughts in my head.

But, it does mean one thing. After years of talking to myself about doing it, I finally managed to sit down and write my own Christmas song, even tough it doesn’t actually mention Christmas, or serve as being the least bit uplifting. I wouldn’t be me if it were any other way.

The Death Of Language (Figuratively)

Tying in with what I was talking about in my last post, I have yet again been dumbfounded by the opinion of the collective writing community.

This time, someone was questioning the (excessive) use of metaphors and similes in a book they were reading. A sample was presented, and the ravenous maw jumped in and tore into the use of figurative language.

I gather from their statements that these people believe that a writer is nothing more than a journalist, there to report the facts of the story, while injecting nothing beyond the most bare bones of a narrative. No voice, no color, no wordplay. The story and nothing else.

It pains me a bit to call myself a writer when I read that sort of thing. I truly cannot understand the point of writing if my job is to be as invisible as possible, to blend into the story to the point where it’s impossible to tell that I, and not someone else, wrote the work. I’ve struggled with finding the energy and the passion to pick a project and get writing again, and when I see what my peers think of writing, whatever tatters I have collected slip through my hands.

If this is where we’re headed, I don’t know if it’s somewhere I want to go.

The Words Purple

Reading a forum today, I came across another in a long line of discussions centered around the evils of purple writing.

If there is one thing beyond the absolutism of the “rules” that bothers me about writers, it’s the almost reflexive antipathy many of them have for anyone who takes pleasure in showing their craft to the audience. It seems that the general opinion these days is that writers should be invisible, a conduit for the story no different than the fraudulent medium relating the thoughts of the dead. I’m sorry, but I can’t buy into this line of thinking, no matter how many times or how loudly it is repeated.

When I think about writing, there is one thing that sticks out to differentiate the best writers from those who aren’t as skilled; the ability to craft language into memorable art. It pains me to think we are training a generation of writers who think their most desirable skill is to disappear into the page, to be subservient to the God-like story.

Have we ever told a painter that their work is too skilled? Told them their subjects look too lifelike on the canvas?

It seems stupid to level such criticism, but that is where writing is headed. We lash out and denigrate anyone who attempts to showcase their craft with language. Taking pleasure in turning inventive phrases and showing the beauty in language is now a disease, not a talent. Adverbs are hunted down and burned at the stake, traitors to the cause of storytelling. Descriptions are pared down until the bone of the story juts through and exposes the cold whiteness reflected in readers’ engrossed eyes.

Perhaps it comes from a difference of terminology. Storytelling and writing have become conflated, when they are two distinct things. Stories are wonderful, they fuel all good writing, but they are not the only thing that matters when we put our words on the page. Anyone can tell a story. Nailing down the pieces of a plot to move the narrative along isn’t the most difficult of skills. Mastering the craft of wrapping that story in an inviting and memorable vessel is the art of writing. Writers use their words not just to tell the story of the plot, their words tell stories about themselves, about all of us.

Lest you think I’m trying to rationalize away my own offenses, I find it hard to believe I could be considered purple, although I’m sure there are those extremists who would compare me to a bruise upon the good name of writing. I certainly enjoy seeing words come together, using them to be something more than a deliberate recounting of a plot. We’re surrounded by stories all the time, from the most grandiose movie to the starkness of the newspaper.

I ask: what’s wrong with finding a balance?

Stuck In A Rut

I continue to find myself in the same state of stasis that has been plaguing me for too long. My ideas, or their facsimiles, are growing moldy as they sit in the back of my mind waiting to be rescued by a flash of inspiration, and those that have been freed are wondering if being born was not a curse.

Yesterday I tried to begin editing the sequel to my book, only to find that I lost interest by the time I hit the second page. It’s been this way for several months now, as I don’t know how to get myself in the right frame of mind to go through the process, when there are more immediately gratifying things I could be doing with my time.

It wouldn’t be so bad if I simply knew why I have such ambivalence towards the project. I have two competing theories, and neither one seems to be standing out above the other. It could be that, 1) In my mind I know this second book isn’t as good, and I’m trying to protect myself from realizing that fact, or 2) I know the book is a waste of time, given that practically no one I didn’t blackmail has ever read the first one.

Both ring true, but if I had to pick, I think the second is the weightier alternative. As gratifying as the process of writing and publishing a book was, as excited as I finally was over something I had done with myself, it was even more disappointing to see that so few people cared in the slightest about what I had accomplished. There are those who did, and I’m grateful for that, but so many other people who I thought would have been supportive of me have never said a word about it, and since I know the minute sales I had, I can say with certainty they never read the book.

That makes me wonder what the point is in trying again. If no one cared the first time, when I was flush with pride, there’s no reason for me to believe that anyone will care about the second one, especially if it requires the reading of the first to understand what’s going on. It’s an exercise in futility, something I specialize in.

One of these days I’ll write another book that isn’t connected, and when I do, the crushing of my dream by their apathy will get another chance to destroy whatever confidence I might have in myself. Until then, I get to do it myself.

Talking To No One

It dawned on me today that I have been blogging in various forms, in various places, for seven years now.

That isn’t supposed to be impressive, merely a fact to place my conclusion in context. There is one thing I have come to realize more than anything else during this time, and it can be summed up succinctly:

People don’t care what I have to say.

It’s the truth. No matter what subject I’m talking about, it appears that I’m almost always talking to myself. That normally wouldn’t bother me, but it does make me wonder why I go through the trouble of posting anything if I don’t believe anyone is ever going to read it. Hubris? Boredom? Stupidity?

I think the answer is something less exciting, simply that I like having a record of some of the things I spend my time thinking about, because I’m sure I’ll forget somewhere down the line how much certain things affected me.

I bet you’re glad you missed out on the phase where I really did say things, aren’t you?

Older, Wiser, ?

I wouldn’t say that I’ve become disenchanted with writing, but I have entered a state of apathy towards it.

Even that isn’t quite fair. I still enjoy writing, just not the form of it that people think I should be focused on. I have not been in a period of creative fallow, but I will admit to making no progress whatsoever with further book projects. I don’t know if it’s related to the pathetic number of people who bothered to read my first book, but I feel little pulling me towards writing long-form works at the moment.

I have, however, been turning out shorter works with relative consistency. I suppose I always thought of myself more as a musician than an actual author, and spending the summer working on a project for someone else in this arena has more or less proven the point to me again. There’s something about the instant gratification that comes along with being able to have a roughly finished product in less than an hour that appeals to the impatience in me.

That’s not to say that I’m giving up, because I’m not. As fall approaches and the weather turns, I’m going to force myself to get the draft of the second book done and ready to put out (even if I have to do it myself), and I would like to spend the winter writing the only other idea I have in my head. It might take some encouragement to get myself in gear to actually do it, but I have enough time that I should be able to manage it.

On another note: the birthday that I was dreading was both better and worse than I expected it to be. It was good because nothing horrible happened, but it was bad because yet again this year the number of friends who remembered and said anything was less than it should have been, and less than it was last year.

I’ve said it before, but I think I need to find some new friends. Seriously.