Strangely, the notification that I started this blog three years ago has made me consider why I even started this blog in the first place.
I suppose you can’t help but glance back a few times when moving forward.
This blog originally started as a place to showcase my writing. My plans were to post my every idea and piece of work on this very page. As some of you have seen, I have posted a few things, but since I gained all my followers I have felt the need to produce, but without actually producing. Sitting in this chair now, I even have a screen open with my book in it… it is begging me to finish it. I could go type some words, but I have exactly no focus. This is why I am still not actually published. Of late I’ve been more obsessed with the idea of collecting fantastic editions of classics and compilations than the effort of finishing my book.
My problem is I allow things to get into the way. Anything. Everything. I don’t just need someone to support me while I try and write my novel, I need someone to push me. I need that person who forces the time into my life. I need that time to be sacred. Consistent. Wether it’s in the wee hours of the morning, or the depths of the evening… I need it. Crave it. Must have it. But that hour must also be a time when I am alert, well rested and energised. In my current state I have the attention span of a gnat, which is said to be roughly .1 of a second. Sounds about right. Between paragraphs I have seen a raven poop over my neighbour’s house, a bug fly directly into the window, looked up the actual length of a gnat’s attention span (I was curious) and checked facebook because I have a conversation going where we occasionally get back to each other.
The thing I would love to see is just how the “successful” author organises their ideas and stories. I mean, writing one book was hard enough… but imagine JK Rowling writing seven! Middle Earth’s series of five! The countless trilogies and ongoing insanities. I feel like Tolkien had hundreds of notes, while for my book I had nothing. My story evolved as follows.
Boy joins magician in hunt for evil magicians before the rise of the forbidden arts destroys the world.
Then the next step was I broke it down into five plot points or critical events.
- Boy meets Magician, inducted into order.
- Forbidden Arts introduced, traumatic event.
- Magician descends into madness, breaks from order.
- Boy helps order to recruit for oncoming battle.
- Battle and Aftermath.
Sounds almost like Harry Potter there huh? Those five points can probable be applies to any number of books.
Then after that, my writing followed the direction of the plot, but the characters drove the story. My target was to hit one hundred thousand words so I said around every twenty thousand words the characters should have progressed enough that one of the points was happening. And it did for the most part. The recruiting took a bit longer and the battle and aftermath turned out to be the final ten thousand, but I never once had a note or anything. This most likely means my book is like a wet paper bag and you could poke holes through it with a limp noodle. I am proud of my foreshadowing and setup of some events along with their execution, but the overall product isn’t sold on me. No matter how many times I reread it and edit it, I find it’s not good enough…
Hopefully, that doesn’t happen to my kids someday. If it does, and they read this… know that I am sorry, I can’t help it. High standards!
Lastly… Happy Three Years to me and my blog… to many more words and many new friends along the way! Thanks for reading and please keep in touch!