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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