Currently viewing the category:
"Book 1 – The Genesis"
I have a book to finish.
I have no excuse not to complete this draft within the timescales I previously set one of many a drunken nights on Twitter.
I have take the liberty of printing myself a calendar off* and scribbling all over it with the days I’ve essentially lost to procrastination or just general laziness.
Now I have the remaining days to work myself into the ground in an attempt to get a working draft out for my beta readers by the first week in October.
I remember mentioning a long time ago about an inspirational quote I read at a customer’s workstation, which stated:
A Goal Without a Plan is just a Wish
I have the plan for the story. I wrote it months ago.
I have no excuse.
It begins here.
* I print my calendars from CalendarsThatWork.com. You should, too.
Because I know you were all so very worried about me, it’s alright, I’m not dead! You can call off the search parties and inform the authorities as necessary.
OK, so wow, yeah, it’s been almost two months since I updated the online world of my [writing] escapades. The reasoning for this can be summarised with two points:
1/ I got married. Having a wedding to plan and manage and perform damage control for took up most of my free time, and any time where I wasn’t technically doing anything (which, to be fair, was a lot of the time) I still couldn’t concentrate because I was too anxious about the whole thing. In any case, it all went off without a hitch, you’ll be glad to hear, I’m sure, and a big thank you to anyone who reads this who was a part of it. And yes, I’m sure you can all appreciate (especially those of you who have been married) how that kind of took my attention away from everything else.
2/ I returned to World of Warcraft. Yes, it is an addictive temptress, and after just three months’ break, I found myself longing once more to pick up that hoove’d, horned vixen hunter Catrinna and start playing again. We started a new guild, and I’ve done a few blogs on there (which I’ve had the gall to call writing “exercises” but that really aren’t!).
And that’s about it, really. Between stressing about the hundred and one things that could go wrong at the wedding (none of which did in the end; it was a lovely day) and levelling a new Draenei priest (plus dual-boxing a druid / shaman combo), I haven’t really made time for any of this mysterious thing called “writing”.
But now, the wedding is over and done with, so I can let out the breath I was holding in equal amounts of anticipation and dread, and with only the prospect of a game looming over me as a freely available pastime whenever I want it, I can (hopefully) return my focus to the whole writing…thing.
The first two weeks of married life have naturally been bliss. We’re currently planning our honeymoon for July 2011; I desperately want to go to America, and – more specifically – San Diego Comic-Con, and because my husband loves me very much (enough to marry me, no less!), we’re going to incorporate it into our trip! We’re going to Vegas, San Diego and Los Angeles, which already sounds far too hot for me just typing it, but I’m sure I’ll get over it when I’m there (or I’ll just sit inside the air-conditioned hotel room and have husband visit all the sights on my behalf…with a video camera!).
In writing news – of which there naturally isn’t much – it would appear that Amazon have finally pulled their fingers out and released the Kindle publishing over here in the UK. While the site is about as easy to navigate as Undercity (WoW joke; don’t worry if you don’t get it, just means you’re not a nerd), hopefully I’ll be able to get the information I need to be able to force “The Genesis” on the general Amazon population Soon™!
And in the meantime, I’m trying to get some kind of organisational skills around the writing, since that really should deserve quite a hefty chunk of attention right now. I have about a half of “The Vampire’s Son” done, with the rest being stitched together by my muse, plus about a quarter of “Divided They Fall”. Both still technically first drafts (“The Vampire’s Son” is still the version that came from NaNoWriMo last November), there’s still an entire field worth of improvement room.
It’s good to be back!
Stepping through the front door after work today, I spotted sitting behind it the self-addressed envelope I sent out in April, which I sent to my first literary agent since my rejection streak of 2005.
I never received the confirmation postcard I sent to them along with the letter, and I was starting to suspect the demons who live at the Post Office might have eaten either it or the letter. Turns out they just didn’t take the two minutes to put it back in their post pile. So that was a nice waste of 36p of a stamp and however much the postcard was. But the important thing — I suppose — is that they got it.
I picked up the letter. Not much weight to it, which tells it all, really. I would say my hands were trembling and my heart was pounding in my chest as I ripped the envelope open, but that would be a huge lie. Already feeling suitably downtrodden, I opened it with a sigh and a brush of overwhelming pessimism before opening it up to read the pre-printed letter saying that they, regrettably, do not have the confidence to represent my work. Which, to me, is just a nice way of saying: ‘Yeah, we think this is shit, now fuck off. Bye!’
On the upside, they did spell my name right.
I am taking some solace in the fact that part of their submission guidelines advised to expect four weeks for a response, and this took closer to eight; I’m going to imagine that this was because they were fiercely torn and desperately wanted to take my book, but, due to some reason — let’s say the financial instability of the company — they decided it was better, for my benefit, not to. I’m not going to steer towards what is more likely the truth, that the delay is down to the fact that they have received an unusually large influx of weak submissions lately that they’ve had to sift through before reaching my own creation of suckiness.
So anyway, they’ve said ‘No’, and it fells like a kick in the balls, or at least, I would imagine it is, since I don’t actually possess balls of my own.
I suppose it’s not all bad, really. In the time since I sent the submission in the first place, I’ve thought about my options. Traditional publishing would be nice, sure, but nowadays, what chance have I got…really? I think I mentioned a while back about the quality of others’ work that I’ve come across — sometimes inadvertently — online. These people are in the same position as I am, and yet their work seems leaps and bounds beyond the best that I’m capable of doing.
The people who have read my work — family and close friends excluded — have had nice things to say about it, but since it’s been systematically rejected — in all its manifestations — for the last seven years by professionals, I have to consider the prospect that it’s just not considered a marketable product.
And then I have to sit back and think what exactly it is I want out of my writing. With every day that passes, I reach closer to the realisation that I may never become a published author. And at the end of the day, that’s never what it’s been about. Not for me. I just enjoy writing, creating characters and entirely new worlds for them to run around in, swearing and fighting and generally getting into mischief.
Going forwards, since the traditional route is falling further and further away, I think I’m going to go down the self-publishing route, at least in the foreseeable future. If anyone buys and reads it (and hopefully enjoys it!), great, and if not, fuck them, and I’ll keep writing regardless.
^_^
Subscribe
