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
Tuesday, 24 July 2012
Monday, 16 July 2012
Gaaaaasssssp!
And finally I re-emerge. Criminy, that was some hard writing. I've been crowing about this a bit elsewhere, but once more isn't going to hurt anyone:
250,000 words, motherfuckers! Ha!
I don't even know who that's aimed at. Maybe at the last person, other than me, who looks at this blog.*
The novel version of Crown Wearer has had a long, tough journey. It took me forever to get up off my arse to start the thing in the first place and then another aeon passed before I got organised enough to make a proper go of it. And that only happened once I stopped being intimidated by the length I initially thought it was going to be – a length it exceeded by about 70,000 words.
Now, to some people, all this talk of word counts is meaningless. I sympathise with you, I really do. Actually, I envy you. Not knowing the significance of word count would make my life a whole lot easier as a writer. I imagine being able to sit down at the computer, grinning from ear to ear, with my mug with the rainbow on the side, filled with more rainbows and clack out a couple of thousand words, no worries. There are some days like that, y'know, without that weird rainbow business, but a lot of days are wrangling and subduing words that end up not being right anyway. And, yes, that does involve a lot of staring off into the middle distance, it's an intellectual pursuit.**
So now I'm left with this manuscript, damp from brain juice and imagination placenta. What am I going to do with it? Who could possibly want this smelly, sticky brick of a manuscript from a writer who's never had a book published outside of a couple of disastrous Lulu attempts? Not my priority at the moment, is the answer (I bet you thought I was going to go on a rant, faithless bastards). For now what I'm going to do is follow the advice of every writer out there and leave it the fuck alone. That's right, it's going to sit on my various storage devices for a couple of months while I do other things and get a little distance between myself and it.
Unlike a good cheese, when I cut through the rind of the novel I won't be rewarded with the sweet nutty taste of aged milk, I'll be confronted by the horror of what I've actually written. Something riddled with spelling and grammar errors. Something that doesn't make a lick of sense because of a network of glaringly embarrassing plot holes. Hey, look at that, another cheese analogy.†
And I'll be lost again. Knee deep in the toxic porridge I've crusted the page with in hopes that some kind person will take pity on this mangled wretch and publish this monster of a book‡
For now, I'm back, ready to spew my neurotic semi-psychotic ramblings at your brain craters. We're going to have fun, dammit!
* The person who came back and thought this time it would be different. Sucker.
** Only geniuses and idiots claim they can bang out stories without thinking about it. If anyone you know says this and unless you know for certain otherwise slap that fucking idiot.
† I really want some Norwegian brown cheese. The stuff sounds amazing.
‡ It's only a partial monster. My research tells me it's at the lower end in length of one of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books. And less than half the length of things like War and Peace, The Stand and Atlas Shrugged, so there you go.
Will
250,000 words, motherfuckers! Ha!
I don't even know who that's aimed at. Maybe at the last person, other than me, who looks at this blog.*
The novel version of Crown Wearer has had a long, tough journey. It took me forever to get up off my arse to start the thing in the first place and then another aeon passed before I got organised enough to make a proper go of it. And that only happened once I stopped being intimidated by the length I initially thought it was going to be – a length it exceeded by about 70,000 words.
Now, to some people, all this talk of word counts is meaningless. I sympathise with you, I really do. Actually, I envy you. Not knowing the significance of word count would make my life a whole lot easier as a writer. I imagine being able to sit down at the computer, grinning from ear to ear, with my mug with the rainbow on the side, filled with more rainbows and clack out a couple of thousand words, no worries. There are some days like that, y'know, without that weird rainbow business, but a lot of days are wrangling and subduing words that end up not being right anyway. And, yes, that does involve a lot of staring off into the middle distance, it's an intellectual pursuit.**
So now I'm left with this manuscript, damp from brain juice and imagination placenta. What am I going to do with it? Who could possibly want this smelly, sticky brick of a manuscript from a writer who's never had a book published outside of a couple of disastrous Lulu attempts? Not my priority at the moment, is the answer (I bet you thought I was going to go on a rant, faithless bastards). For now what I'm going to do is follow the advice of every writer out there and leave it the fuck alone. That's right, it's going to sit on my various storage devices for a couple of months while I do other things and get a little distance between myself and it.
Unlike a good cheese, when I cut through the rind of the novel I won't be rewarded with the sweet nutty taste of aged milk, I'll be confronted by the horror of what I've actually written. Something riddled with spelling and grammar errors. Something that doesn't make a lick of sense because of a network of glaringly embarrassing plot holes. Hey, look at that, another cheese analogy.†
And I'll be lost again. Knee deep in the toxic porridge I've crusted the page with in hopes that some kind person will take pity on this mangled wretch and publish this monster of a book‡
For now, I'm back, ready to spew my neurotic semi-psychotic ramblings at your brain craters. We're going to have fun, dammit!
* The person who came back and thought this time it would be different. Sucker.
** Only geniuses and idiots claim they can bang out stories without thinking about it. If anyone you know says this and unless you know for certain otherwise slap that fucking idiot.
† I really want some Norwegian brown cheese. The stuff sounds amazing.
‡ It's only a partial monster. My research tells me it's at the lower end in length of one of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books. And less than half the length of things like War and Peace, The Stand and Atlas Shrugged, so there you go.
Will
Thursday, 14 June 2012
There's actual sunlight?
My, but I like my films. I enjoy sitting and letting myself be taken away by a story. Or failing that, I enjoy mocking the cack-fisted attempts at story thrown together, recorded and called a film.
In the last month or so I've been watching a lot of films. I've gone through more new (for me) films in the last few weeks than I've seen in the previous two years. It's left my head crammed with all sorts of silliness, so I thought I'd spray you with some nonsense about my film-viewing.
You won't be surprised to learn that a lot of this will be negative, with Viewing Joe that I am pointing and laughing at the pitiful abortions plastered on the screen in hopes of eking money from me. And they might want to entertain, too, but it's harder to prove that.
Micmacs is a prime example of a jolly good film. It has 'we are crazy French film makers' plastered all over it, but that's fine, because it's charming and you actually like this odd collection of characters and you can't help but applaud what they're doing.
Not something that can be said for Dread. I should have been on my guard the moment one of the half dozen or so producers was Clive Barker. Pushing aside my misgivings I watched and an age passed, humanity went extinct around me and a new civilisation of floating amphibious celeriac came to power. Then I look at the time: I'd been sitting for ten minutes. Arrrgh! What the fuck, man? Did you people set out to make the most boring, boneheaded film ever? You probably failed, but you weren't that far off. You didn't add any interest by tagging on a torture porn third act. Dead-eyed, humourless and boring are not how horror films should be. That's something you should've learned in primary school.
At least Rec. and Rec. 2 had a bit of life about them. They were still bunk, but they managed to make the 'found footage' film interesting to me. No mean feat after seeing the snooze-and-whine-fest The Blair Witch Project in the cinema (although, in fairness, it's a better experience on television, just). The films start off silly and just keep getting dafter as they go on. But they pull the case zero apocalypse thing that I find overdone and dull too.
Still, better than Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. A whinging, creepy main character surrounded by annoying caricatures isn't an inviting premise. The saving grace of this film are the fight scenes, but you have to wade through dreary navel-gazing scenes of unfunny dialogue to get to them. If I wanted to do that I'd watch The Ultimate Fighter on TV. I wouldn't be quite so annoyed by this if there hadn't been months a couple of years ago of people dribbling about how fucking awesome it was. You were wrong, you bastards.
The same applies to Super 8. This is another film that commits the supreme sin of being fucking tedious. I had the curious feeling when it was being advertised with the desperation of a failed writer trying to get you to buy his wares (what the fuck are you looking at, shit clomp, go about your business). And yes. it was terrible, stupid and dull, just like a Tory MP. The best part of it was the intentionally shit film they showed over the credits.
Weeks before I sat down to churn my way through Super 8 I'd decided to give Salt a go. I was presented with the world's longest pilot for an '80s television pilot, right down to setting up a baddie of the week structure. Clearly this was both fantastic and horrifying to watch in equal measure.
I've watched a lot more than that, but I'm not Rotten fucking Tomatoes, you want recommendations, go there.you bastards, stop expecting me to do WORK!
Will
In the last month or so I've been watching a lot of films. I've gone through more new (for me) films in the last few weeks than I've seen in the previous two years. It's left my head crammed with all sorts of silliness, so I thought I'd spray you with some nonsense about my film-viewing.
You won't be surprised to learn that a lot of this will be negative, with Viewing Joe that I am pointing and laughing at the pitiful abortions plastered on the screen in hopes of eking money from me. And they might want to entertain, too, but it's harder to prove that.
Micmacs is a prime example of a jolly good film. It has 'we are crazy French film makers' plastered all over it, but that's fine, because it's charming and you actually like this odd collection of characters and you can't help but applaud what they're doing.
Not something that can be said for Dread. I should have been on my guard the moment one of the half dozen or so producers was Clive Barker. Pushing aside my misgivings I watched and an age passed, humanity went extinct around me and a new civilisation of floating amphibious celeriac came to power. Then I look at the time: I'd been sitting for ten minutes. Arrrgh! What the fuck, man? Did you people set out to make the most boring, boneheaded film ever? You probably failed, but you weren't that far off. You didn't add any interest by tagging on a torture porn third act. Dead-eyed, humourless and boring are not how horror films should be. That's something you should've learned in primary school.
At least Rec. and Rec. 2 had a bit of life about them. They were still bunk, but they managed to make the 'found footage' film interesting to me. No mean feat after seeing the snooze-and-whine-fest The Blair Witch Project in the cinema (although, in fairness, it's a better experience on television, just). The films start off silly and just keep getting dafter as they go on. But they pull the case zero apocalypse thing that I find overdone and dull too.
Still, better than Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. A whinging, creepy main character surrounded by annoying caricatures isn't an inviting premise. The saving grace of this film are the fight scenes, but you have to wade through dreary navel-gazing scenes of unfunny dialogue to get to them. If I wanted to do that I'd watch The Ultimate Fighter on TV. I wouldn't be quite so annoyed by this if there hadn't been months a couple of years ago of people dribbling about how fucking awesome it was. You were wrong, you bastards.
The same applies to Super 8. This is another film that commits the supreme sin of being fucking tedious. I had the curious feeling when it was being advertised with the desperation of a failed writer trying to get you to buy his wares (what the fuck are you looking at, shit clomp, go about your business). And yes. it was terrible, stupid and dull, just like a Tory MP. The best part of it was the intentionally shit film they showed over the credits.
Weeks before I sat down to churn my way through Super 8 I'd decided to give Salt a go. I was presented with the world's longest pilot for an '80s television pilot, right down to setting up a baddie of the week structure. Clearly this was both fantastic and horrifying to watch in equal measure.
I've watched a lot more than that, but I'm not Rotten fucking Tomatoes, you want recommendations, go there.you bastards, stop expecting me to do WORK!
Will
Wednesday, 23 May 2012
Sore wrists, swollen thumbs.
Yep, I'm back for a ramble, deal with it.
I don't have any wonderful insights about the computer gaming industry. Let's throw that one out there. I have only a little more insight about the writing industry, and given my situation, you can tell that ain't a whole lot. As far as insights go you might as well go and ask a tree stump, it isn't my forte.
What I do have is a long history with computer games. I remember Christmas, 1987, opening the box my ZX Spectrum +2 came in and being delighted*. I didn't even mind the squeaky squarky five minutes of loading for a game that I was shit at or, even worse, decided not to work at all, because I had a computer. Over the next four or five years I built up a library of tapes, most of which lay unused while I obsessed over the games I enjoyed and were within my abilities to play **.
Games like 'Robocop', 'Chaos' and 'Target: Renegade' took up a great deal of my time. Time I could have been using to go out playing with other kids or masturbating was dedicated to making shitty collections of half-dozens of pixels scoot around the screen to beat or shoot each other. It was a golden, very pale time.
The bug was there and over the years I've had brief affairs with Nes, Gameboy (original and Advance), Saturn, Playstation, Playstation 2, Dreamcast, Gamecube and even PC. All dependent on money and my interest. Each in their own way fascinated and ate my time for the period they were in my life. At least three of those were instead of having a girlfriend. Fuckin' hell, I'm a cliche!
My wife and I now own a Playstation 3. Recently I've gone into one of my periods of not playing games. After finishing up the last ending for 'Fallout: New Vegas' and playing the millionth team death match on 'Modern Warfare 3' I was starting to feel a little fatigued.
It happens. Although I've felt it more with modern games. Particularly ones like the recent two 'Fallout' games, where RPG elements are crammed in. These elements are almost guaranteed to get me playing, but I always feel like they're flawed, the main one being promising to allow the creation of characters your way and making it clear characters need to be tailored in a particular way if you want to complete the game, "Sure you can create a super tech-savvy character, just don't come crying to me if large, angry mutants spend most of the game eating her head off." These RPG elements also mean you have to play for a minimum amount of time in order to get your character good enough to complete the game. And, while this is a whole lot of fun for a while it can become tiresome (the 'Fallout' games are good at staving this off, mind you).
I would love to write plot lines for computers games, as it seems, sometimes, though creators want amazing narratives, they (seem to, I have no evidence this happens) kind of leave the actual writing to their stoner mate. There are exceptions: the above-mentioned 'Fallout' games, 'LA Noire' (although it did come undone a bit at the end) and 'Portal 2' to name but three. It was amazing to me, playing the first 'Resident Evil' with its dodgy dialogue and frustrating controls, that a game could have that structure. This was after I hadn't played games in five or six years. And now we're at the stage where they're pulling in David Goyer to write the next 'Black Ops' game. Pretty cool.
And I want in on that, man.
Although, just like lots of other kids who grew up in the eighties and nineties, I'd love to create my own game. A bit more of a problematic situation since I have no idea how to code or any of the dozens of other things required to develop a half-decent game. One can always hope, though.
* So many people have nostalgia hard-ons about those bastard little rubber-keyboard fuckers. Screw that shit. The +2 had a real keyboard, it looked slick, man.
** Fuck those retro-gaming snobs who think the mark of a game was how impossible it was. Fuck 'Manic Miner', it was retarded. And you can shove text adventures up your arse, too. I got enough frustration from games I liked playing, never mind trying to work out the right fucking command to type that didn't get me, "Pick up cup is not recognised". Gaaaah!
Will
I don't have any wonderful insights about the computer gaming industry. Let's throw that one out there. I have only a little more insight about the writing industry, and given my situation, you can tell that ain't a whole lot. As far as insights go you might as well go and ask a tree stump, it isn't my forte.
What I do have is a long history with computer games. I remember Christmas, 1987, opening the box my ZX Spectrum +2 came in and being delighted*. I didn't even mind the squeaky squarky five minutes of loading for a game that I was shit at or, even worse, decided not to work at all, because I had a computer. Over the next four or five years I built up a library of tapes, most of which lay unused while I obsessed over the games I enjoyed and were within my abilities to play **.
Games like 'Robocop', 'Chaos' and 'Target: Renegade' took up a great deal of my time. Time I could have been using to go out playing with other kids or masturbating was dedicated to making shitty collections of half-dozens of pixels scoot around the screen to beat or shoot each other. It was a golden, very pale time.
The bug was there and over the years I've had brief affairs with Nes, Gameboy (original and Advance), Saturn, Playstation, Playstation 2, Dreamcast, Gamecube and even PC. All dependent on money and my interest. Each in their own way fascinated and ate my time for the period they were in my life. At least three of those were instead of having a girlfriend. Fuckin' hell, I'm a cliche!
My wife and I now own a Playstation 3. Recently I've gone into one of my periods of not playing games. After finishing up the last ending for 'Fallout: New Vegas' and playing the millionth team death match on 'Modern Warfare 3' I was starting to feel a little fatigued.
It happens. Although I've felt it more with modern games. Particularly ones like the recent two 'Fallout' games, where RPG elements are crammed in. These elements are almost guaranteed to get me playing, but I always feel like they're flawed, the main one being promising to allow the creation of characters your way and making it clear characters need to be tailored in a particular way if you want to complete the game, "Sure you can create a super tech-savvy character, just don't come crying to me if large, angry mutants spend most of the game eating her head off." These RPG elements also mean you have to play for a minimum amount of time in order to get your character good enough to complete the game. And, while this is a whole lot of fun for a while it can become tiresome (the 'Fallout' games are good at staving this off, mind you).
I would love to write plot lines for computers games, as it seems, sometimes, though creators want amazing narratives, they (seem to, I have no evidence this happens) kind of leave the actual writing to their stoner mate. There are exceptions: the above-mentioned 'Fallout' games, 'LA Noire' (although it did come undone a bit at the end) and 'Portal 2' to name but three. It was amazing to me, playing the first 'Resident Evil' with its dodgy dialogue and frustrating controls, that a game could have that structure. This was after I hadn't played games in five or six years. And now we're at the stage where they're pulling in David Goyer to write the next 'Black Ops' game. Pretty cool.
And I want in on that, man.
Although, just like lots of other kids who grew up in the eighties and nineties, I'd love to create my own game. A bit more of a problematic situation since I have no idea how to code or any of the dozens of other things required to develop a half-decent game. One can always hope, though.
* So many people have nostalgia hard-ons about those bastard little rubber-keyboard fuckers. Screw that shit. The +2 had a real keyboard, it looked slick, man.
** Fuck those retro-gaming snobs who think the mark of a game was how impossible it was. Fuck 'Manic Miner', it was retarded. And you can shove text adventures up your arse, too. I got enough frustration from games I liked playing, never mind trying to work out the right fucking command to type that didn't get me, "Pick up cup is not recognised". Gaaaah!
Will
Friday, 11 May 2012
Will someone shut those crickets up?
It's been a bit of a quiet week really. The most interesting thing I've done is go and vote. That's what you call living wild, right? Right?
Seriously, I don't know. I was bumped on the head as a kid and I think my wild centre was knocked out of whack.
One of these days I'm going to fulfil the aim I didn't tell anyone about and use this blog to occasionally educate my three readers. It's an admirable aim. Certainly far better than navel-gazing or doing the circular let's-talk-about writing thing that'll come up.
This week I'd had it in my head to talk about the sad situation of the FHM sexiest woman of the year list and how dull the number one was. Then I realised it would only lead to a depressing discussion of how the media is turning entertainment into a mediocrity contest. And who wants to read that trotted out again? Not me. If I wanted to really depress you I'd dig up the sales figures for 'Fifty Shades of Grey' – although I might have dragged some controversy my way from the people who like the badly written fan-fic of badly written fiction*.
Yes, I know the truth, and unusually, I've exposed myself to a tiny bit of it, taking one for whatever team you care to name. The writing manages to make Dan Brown seem witty and poetic. And that takes some going, I can tell you. I can't imagine reading a whole book of such awkward prose. Take a look here and get something of an insight into its terribleness, or you can go look at Amazon if you don't mind the books popping up as part of your recommendations (can you stand the stigma?). There were excerpts that I now can't find, bugger. You get the gist.
And I've gone and digressed. I went and talked about bad erotica. Are you happy now?
I'm going back out onto the porch, stare up at the sky and whittle me some words.
* Which actually sounds like the start of something. Fan-fic replicating like facing mirrors so long that it breaks through into the real world and WE CAN'T FUCKING ESCAPE IT! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! Hold me, I'm scared.
Will
And I've gone and digressed. I went and talked about bad erotica. Are you happy now?
I'm going back out onto the porch, stare up at the sky and whittle me some words.
* Which actually sounds like the start of something. Fan-fic replicating like facing mirrors so long that it breaks through into the real world and WE CAN'T FUCKING ESCAPE IT! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! Hold me, I'm scared.
Will
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