Yeah, so been a while. It's all part of my hobby of intermittently neglecting my blog*. Let's do a bit of a catch up, once again.
Okay so in the year or so since I last published a post, I've...not actually done much. That's astonishingly embarrassing to be honest.
I'll start with an update on my last foray into self-publishing. Fuckin' disaster. Absolutely, shamingly, crushingly failed. I think about eight of them sold, and those were to friends and family. When Amazon started hassling me for tax information** I decided to not bother and they took it off sale. Kind of wish I hadn't bothered with it now.
Pfah to regrets, I say! PFAH!!
Onto something a bit more positive: I started and finished another novel. My first sojourn into the world of full-length crime fiction, hopefully with a twist only I could give it†. It's a story I've wanted to do for a long time and finally pinned down a plot I liked. It sits, awaiting a final edit to be submitted to...er...somewhere. I'm at a loss. We'll see what happens once I've gone through it. Suggestions would be gratefully accepted.
This brings me onto something even cooler – I was almost published. My ridiculous action novel got a bit of interest from a digital-only publisher, and received some good feedback, but they passed. At least I think they did‡. Anyway this feedback was the best and most detailed I've ever had in tightening up a manuscript. I still don't have a fucking clue what I'm doing when I'm 'editing', but I feel like I have I'm not an inept macaque with broken fingers. I was working on that manuscript...
...Until the most shameful thing happened. I got distracted. Irrevocably so – okay, not irrevocably, that's an exaggeration, fiiiiiiine. Bloody addictive computer games§. So yeah, from about July onwards is a bit neglected.
But now I'm back, for a wee while at least, and I'll have something to say about that in my next post. Isn't that exciting?
Ah fuck you, blank-eyed shits§§.
* One thing I'm clearly very good at.
** Really should have read the terms and conditions. Lesson for you there, kids.
† Or even if it doesn't make you fall asleep and vomit at the same time, would be good.
‡ Last year, as you might have noticed, was a year of uncertainty in a few key areas.
§ I'm looking at you, Borderlands 2, you time-sucking bastard.
§§ Unless, y'know you offer some advice in the comments. G'wan! My gratitude is more valuable than...whatever.
Will
Showing posts with label insecurity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label insecurity. Show all posts
Tuesday, 7 January 2014
Tuesday, 24 July 2012
A Tottering Pile
Well, look at that, another rejection. It's the frustrating grind that every writer knows, when you feel like you're putting your best work out there and it's just bouncing off the impervious skins of cynical agents and editors. I get it, not everything can appeal to everyone and so many people want to be writers, yada yada yada. There's been screeds and screeds written on that subject and frankly it's mostly padded out with platitudes and helpless shrugs of the shoulders. It's kind of inevitable, and when you find yourself doing it you feel like a helpless dick. No one profits from it and everyone walks away in a deeper depression, their faith in writing and publishing bashed a little more.
I've come to the realisation that a couple of the novels I've been trying to get published for while are never going to see the light of day. It's even more depressing than the tidal wave of rejections, when you realise the book you've written, read over, re-written, re-read again and re-written numerous times just isn't making an impact with anyone. For me, that's no impact whatsoever. There are people out there who get encouraging rejections. Good for them. I get the standard 'go away' or I get nothing. I'm going to stop there, because that conversation's a route to fucking suicide.
So what becomes of these sad, unwanted pieces of literary detritus? They sit and they moulder, in my experience. All that work and effort only to be chucked in a metaphorical pile to gather dust and dusty cobwebs. That pile of mine is getting big, padded out by the short stories and comic scripts that just can't find a home. It's like an animal shelter where no one even looks at the animals, let alone gives any hope they'll be adopted. I've been writing for a long time, churning out novels and short stories since I was sixteen. The first few novels I wrote, I knew not long after they were finished wouldn't go anywhere (they were hand written, for a start) so they've made a cosy base for the growing pile of pages I'm building up that no one gives any indication they want to look at.
I understand why no one wants to touch at least one of the books: it's derivative and messy, so really why I tried so hard to get it out there is beyond me. A whole lot of wasted effort right there. Maybe it's because I get pulled into the trap of looking at the worst that's out there and thinking, "If that can get published..." before sending off the sample chapters. This is, of course, tremendous folly and leads to disappointment and the writing of long-winded blog rambles.
The book that prompted this particular ramble is one I wrote a long time ago, and took quite some time to get from my brain and onto the page, thanks to life getting in the way in one way or another (although I did manage to write a Warhammer 40,000 novel in the middle, that will also never, ever be seen by anyone but me) and I feel quite bad that it won't get a chance. Partly it's because I waited so long to get it out and partly because it's horror of a particular length the outlets for are almost nil.*
I often think that I was born a decade too late. If I'd been writing around the early to mid eighties, when horror novels were de rigueur, then I might have had more of a chance, but, since the early nineties, the kind of horror I like to write, and read, has tailed off to a great extent. I know a lot of people who will tell you this kind of fiction is still going strong, but I don't really see it. Then I have to wonder if I'm looking closely enough.
I'm thankful to the small group of people who've taken a chance on my writing and given it a wider audience. It's great to see something that was once a raw twitch in the middle of my brain offered the opportunity to fly. I keep hoping that the accumulation of work will make people sit up and take notice of me and I might actually start to get some money for this crazy path I've put myself on.
So, here I sit, with a pile of unwanted manuscripts, like a terrible execution device of my own creation that's leaning over my head, always ready for that extra few pages that will finally make it topple and have done with me. And I keep playing the crazy, obsessed hermit, feeding it and creating my own doom.
* The first person to mention Lulu.com gets a punch in the throat while I fucking weep.
Will
I've come to the realisation that a couple of the novels I've been trying to get published for while are never going to see the light of day. It's even more depressing than the tidal wave of rejections, when you realise the book you've written, read over, re-written, re-read again and re-written numerous times just isn't making an impact with anyone. For me, that's no impact whatsoever. There are people out there who get encouraging rejections. Good for them. I get the standard 'go away' or I get nothing. I'm going to stop there, because that conversation's a route to fucking suicide.
So what becomes of these sad, unwanted pieces of literary detritus? They sit and they moulder, in my experience. All that work and effort only to be chucked in a metaphorical pile to gather dust and dusty cobwebs. That pile of mine is getting big, padded out by the short stories and comic scripts that just can't find a home. It's like an animal shelter where no one even looks at the animals, let alone gives any hope they'll be adopted. I've been writing for a long time, churning out novels and short stories since I was sixteen. The first few novels I wrote, I knew not long after they were finished wouldn't go anywhere (they were hand written, for a start) so they've made a cosy base for the growing pile of pages I'm building up that no one gives any indication they want to look at.
I understand why no one wants to touch at least one of the books: it's derivative and messy, so really why I tried so hard to get it out there is beyond me. A whole lot of wasted effort right there. Maybe it's because I get pulled into the trap of looking at the worst that's out there and thinking, "If that can get published..." before sending off the sample chapters. This is, of course, tremendous folly and leads to disappointment and the writing of long-winded blog rambles.
The book that prompted this particular ramble is one I wrote a long time ago, and took quite some time to get from my brain and onto the page, thanks to life getting in the way in one way or another (although I did manage to write a Warhammer 40,000 novel in the middle, that will also never, ever be seen by anyone but me) and I feel quite bad that it won't get a chance. Partly it's because I waited so long to get it out and partly because it's horror of a particular length the outlets for are almost nil.*
I often think that I was born a decade too late. If I'd been writing around the early to mid eighties, when horror novels were de rigueur, then I might have had more of a chance, but, since the early nineties, the kind of horror I like to write, and read, has tailed off to a great extent. I know a lot of people who will tell you this kind of fiction is still going strong, but I don't really see it. Then I have to wonder if I'm looking closely enough.
I'm thankful to the small group of people who've taken a chance on my writing and given it a wider audience. It's great to see something that was once a raw twitch in the middle of my brain offered the opportunity to fly. I keep hoping that the accumulation of work will make people sit up and take notice of me and I might actually start to get some money for this crazy path I've put myself on.
So, here I sit, with a pile of unwanted manuscripts, like a terrible execution device of my own creation that's leaning over my head, always ready for that extra few pages that will finally make it topple and have done with me. And I keep playing the crazy, obsessed hermit, feeding it and creating my own doom.
* The first person to mention Lulu.com gets a punch in the throat while I fucking weep.
Will
Friday, 6 April 2012
My god, it's full of words!
Hey, how are you doing? I wasn't expecting you. Really I wasn't expecting to be here myself, just popped my head in to do a few things and then go back to the ole novel.
But since we're both here, pull up a pew and I'll sputter more nonsense at you. No, really, it's the least I can do after you went to the trouble of looking in on me.
I've always been in awe of writey-type folks who have a way with word count. There I've said it and it feels so good to get it out there. Yes, I am that shallow to see word count as a major part of writing, I can't help it, it's just the way my mind works. People like Gary Gibson, Dean Koontz (sorry, I'm not going to send you to his website, it's too much selling and quite frankly his output in the last decade has been appalling), China Mieville and yes, even though I'm not a fan at all, Stephen King, among others. Folk who can throw out four, five, six, seven, eight or more hundred page books with distressing regularity and, often quality (with the noted exceptions, of course).
It's not something I'm proud of and I hide the fact like a chronic masturbater who's hoping not be noticed cranking one out in a public toilet stall for the seventh time that day.
Word count isn't anything like a mark of quality in a work, yet from the time I started using a word processor and was given a way of tracking my word count, it became a compulsion to get higher and higher. You can't believe the sense of accomplishment the first time I broke the 100,000 word mark. What I'd written was a colossal piece of shit, but I'd made it. Then I saw that other authors regularly managed 160,000 words and more (and Stephen King has the crazy notion that 180,000 is 'goodish', like more is better...hang on a sec...DAMN YOU, KING , YOU BROKE ME!) and I looked at my paltry sum of words and I despaired.
There's no basis for this to be the case (except for that formative experience from On Writing, the best thing King has written, bar none and a recommended read despite what it's done to me) as some very good, classic books just squeak into novel-hood; the one that springs to mind is A Clockwork Orange, a great book that still has a pertinent message to this day. That couldn't be more than 60,000 words, it puts my desperation to stack up them thar words as high as I can into perspective.
For a while there I didn't worry about it, since the books I was writing were hovering around that 100,000 word mark, and I was happy with that, I thought it was the best that I could do. I still watched the word counts go up, but I didn't sweat it – if I got to it, great; if I didn't that was good too. I'd hit a little bit of Zen in my writing.
Now I'm up to my hips in a new novel-writing project. And going by what I've written so far and the detailed synopsis I've made (this is thanks to Gary Gibson, and I recommend doing this, it's a great way of seeing problems and mining new aspects of a story) it's going to be a fucking monster. My estimates suggest it's going to be at least 180,000 words and probably more - if it ever sees print it will be a six hundred plus page doorstop.
And you'd think I'd be pleased with this, not a damn bit of it. It's not huge just for the hell of it; the length is dictated by the story I want to tell. Instead I'm intimidated in a way I haven't been by writing for a very long time. There's the fear that I'll fall short and make an arse of myself (to who? I dunno, that weird wee guy who's always looking over my shoulder when I'm writing...the one that's only in my head) or that I'll get to the heady heights of 200,000 words and discover I've written an unreadable slab of compressed shit. Normal, understandable fears, right? Right?
Still the procession of words continues and the other fear I have rears its head. It's another fear that I've had from even before I started writing novels when I was fifteen - the terror that I'll run out of words, that the well of things to say will offer nothing more to me than a proverbial word bucket full of watery rat poo and kidney beans. It's something that hasn't happened to me so far, but it's there in my mind like a blank-faced imp, saying, "This is what you've got to look forward to, Couper! Ha ha ha! Look at my impish wang and snivel!"
Or worse, it will cause me t snap one day and I'll spend the next few months adding 'u's to the giant 'duh' I've decided to put onto page after page in my brain-crippled state.
And that's where I am right now, fighting the ball-retracting fears that I'm going to tumble into dementia or that I'm continuing an exercise in self-deceptive incompetence.
Welcome to my happy writery world! Aren't you glad you stopped by? Why not have a custard cream?
Will
But since we're both here, pull up a pew and I'll sputter more nonsense at you. No, really, it's the least I can do after you went to the trouble of looking in on me.
I've always been in awe of writey-type folks who have a way with word count. There I've said it and it feels so good to get it out there. Yes, I am that shallow to see word count as a major part of writing, I can't help it, it's just the way my mind works. People like Gary Gibson, Dean Koontz (sorry, I'm not going to send you to his website, it's too much selling and quite frankly his output in the last decade has been appalling), China Mieville and yes, even though I'm not a fan at all, Stephen King, among others. Folk who can throw out four, five, six, seven, eight or more hundred page books with distressing regularity and, often quality (with the noted exceptions, of course).
It's not something I'm proud of and I hide the fact like a chronic masturbater who's hoping not be noticed cranking one out in a public toilet stall for the seventh time that day.
Word count isn't anything like a mark of quality in a work, yet from the time I started using a word processor and was given a way of tracking my word count, it became a compulsion to get higher and higher. You can't believe the sense of accomplishment the first time I broke the 100,000 word mark. What I'd written was a colossal piece of shit, but I'd made it. Then I saw that other authors regularly managed 160,000 words and more (and Stephen King has the crazy notion that 180,000 is 'goodish', like more is better...hang on a sec...DAMN YOU, KING , YOU BROKE ME!) and I looked at my paltry sum of words and I despaired.
There's no basis for this to be the case (except for that formative experience from On Writing, the best thing King has written, bar none and a recommended read despite what it's done to me) as some very good, classic books just squeak into novel-hood; the one that springs to mind is A Clockwork Orange, a great book that still has a pertinent message to this day. That couldn't be more than 60,000 words, it puts my desperation to stack up them thar words as high as I can into perspective.
For a while there I didn't worry about it, since the books I was writing were hovering around that 100,000 word mark, and I was happy with that, I thought it was the best that I could do. I still watched the word counts go up, but I didn't sweat it – if I got to it, great; if I didn't that was good too. I'd hit a little bit of Zen in my writing.
Now I'm up to my hips in a new novel-writing project. And going by what I've written so far and the detailed synopsis I've made (this is thanks to Gary Gibson, and I recommend doing this, it's a great way of seeing problems and mining new aspects of a story) it's going to be a fucking monster. My estimates suggest it's going to be at least 180,000 words and probably more - if it ever sees print it will be a six hundred plus page doorstop.
And you'd think I'd be pleased with this, not a damn bit of it. It's not huge just for the hell of it; the length is dictated by the story I want to tell. Instead I'm intimidated in a way I haven't been by writing for a very long time. There's the fear that I'll fall short and make an arse of myself (to who? I dunno, that weird wee guy who's always looking over my shoulder when I'm writing...the one that's only in my head) or that I'll get to the heady heights of 200,000 words and discover I've written an unreadable slab of compressed shit. Normal, understandable fears, right? Right?
Still the procession of words continues and the other fear I have rears its head. It's another fear that I've had from even before I started writing novels when I was fifteen - the terror that I'll run out of words, that the well of things to say will offer nothing more to me than a proverbial word bucket full of watery rat poo and kidney beans. It's something that hasn't happened to me so far, but it's there in my mind like a blank-faced imp, saying, "This is what you've got to look forward to, Couper! Ha ha ha! Look at my impish wang and snivel!"
Or worse, it will cause me t snap one day and I'll spend the next few months adding 'u's to the giant 'duh' I've decided to put onto page after page in my brain-crippled state.
And that's where I am right now, fighting the ball-retracting fears that I'm going to tumble into dementia or that I'm continuing an exercise in self-deceptive incompetence.
Welcome to my happy writery world! Aren't you glad you stopped by? Why not have a custard cream?
Will
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