Thursday, January 10, 2013

Hiatus Journal #9


Happy Birthday to me.

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, remember it as it will one day be a national holiday celebrating the birth of the greatest novelist the world has ever seen. Lol. So, now that my ego’s been fueled, I guess we can get down to the serious hard hitting stuff.

I don’t really have anything to bitch about right now, other than being 27 and still not having a novel published. Though if there’s anybody to blame for that it’s me, myself, and I. I’ve not been very good about getting my work done, and I’ve been worse at getting second drafts done, and writing query letters, and just making sure my work is out where it could get published. Hell, the last thing I even tried to submit for publication was a little over two years ago I believe. And, that was just a short story. Only my first novel ever got fired off to the agent rounds, and it came back with several big fat nos.

So, I think I might have developed a fear of failure. Hell, I know I’ve developed a fear of failure. So, I don’t send my work out, and I don’t do the query letter thing, or the second draft thing, because I don’t want to sit and look at the piles and piles of rejection letters. I don’t want to be destroyed by the industry I love. But, that’s part of being a writer, part of being a professional author. Carrie went through what, sixty-two, sixty-three rejections before it found a home at Double Day. I’m not comparing myself to Stephen King, I’m just saying that even one of the bestselling novelists of all time has had his fair share of no’s.

And, my mentor, whom I need to email or call or something, says that maybe I’ve developed a fear of success. (Strange right?) She says that I’m the caliber of author that would only fail to be published because I didn’t try to sell my work. (I’m also the most prolific author she’s ever had come through one of her creative writing classes. I’m also the only student she’s ever had who wrote a whole novel. And, at the time of this writing I’ve completed six of them, not far enough into completion that they can be sold, however.) And, all of that is absolutely wonderful for my ego, but…

But…

I don’t know. I sit here, day after day, in my little writing corner, and I pretend I’m in a different world. Sometimes I’m running alongside a man who’s haunted by vampires and zombies. Other times I stand to the side of a dark elf wizard as he tries to save our world from ultimate destruction. And, then there are times, when I’m just a guy lost in a storm, and I’ve got a partner in crime on that last ride. And, I wonder, a lot, if anybody will ever read these stories, if anybody will ever put down one of my books, and not go to sleep because of the nightmares they know will come. Or cry at the end when the hero falls like Boromir at the beginning of The Two Towers.

Sometimes, I just don’t know if I’ve got what it takes to get published.

So much for a Happy Birthday post, huh?

As for the writing, I’ve done the line edits for the first 15 chapters of Cold Lunch. 8 left, then I’ll be back to working on the story itself. I’m beginning to wish that I’d just done the line edits either the day of or the day after typing the scenes. Would have made for much less work on my part. But then hindsight is always twenty-twenty.
As for the trunk novel I’ve written maybe two scenes of it since the last set of stats, and probably typed the same amount. So, the going is much slower than I want it to be. It always is.

Anywho, I’m checking out for the day. Talk at you kids later.

Ryan

Unnamed Trunk Novel
Stats:
                 Snowflake Completion: Done
                Pages Written Today: 2
                Pages Written Total: 104
                Pages Typed Today: 11
                Pages Typed Total: 49
                Word Count Today: 3,432
                Word Count Total: est. 36,000 (current typed: 13,695)

How many times must one pound their head against the wall to get some sleep?

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