For those of you who celebrate Halloween: Have a safe and happy one. For those of you that don’t: you should, it’s awesome.
I did up a couple pumpkins real nice like in honor of the day. Here they be:
Monthly Archives: October 2013
Jumping the gun
I recently read a blog post by author Ania Ahlborn about National Novel Writing Month and it got me thinking. If you’re into horror you should read her books by the way.
Winger has been chomping at the bit to get going and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to make him wait a couple days to start his travels. I already have the outline done and I know where I want the story to go- generally. So, why am I holding myself back from writing the story that I want to be writing and filling the time with stories I’m merely content with writing to kill the time until November starts?
It makes no sense and I decided I’ll have no more of it.
That being said, I broke the “rules” of NaNoWriMo and started Winger on his journey today and I’m glad I did. I don’t regret it in the least. Keeping him bottled up was getting kind of depressing and writing things I was only content with writing wasn’t really all that much fun.
So I can’t stick to the suggested idea of NaNoWriMo. So what? Writing isn’t about following somebody else’s rules. Writing is about taking a journey on your own time and with your own rules. Writing is about being true to the story in your heart, not the idea that November is somehow a mythical beast that will be slain by writing 50K words.
Write the story you want to write when you want to write it. That’s what writing is about.
I’m still going to try to finish by the end of November, just to see if I can. If I can’t, I’m fine with that. I know I’ll finish eventually. I just gave myself a few extra days to meet a lofty goal. Winger’s tale will be longer than 50K words anyway- maybe a good deal longer. I’m going to need those few extra days.
Letting the words flow from my fingertips felt amazing and wonderful and made me happy. I can’t say that about the rest of the stuff I’ve written over the past couple days. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take that over keeping a story bottled up inside when it wants to come out any day.
As long as I’m writing and enjoying myself, what does it matter?
Thanks for giving me the kick in the ass I needed to get moving, Ania. I appreciate it more than I could ever express.
Reaching for the stars
Last night I did something I didn’t think I was going to do.
From the very beginning I had planned on self publishing Sins of a Father. From the time the seed was planted in my head to the moment I made the final keystroke, I never even considered submitting it to a publisher. I don’t know why exactly, but I didn’t. I even went as far as getting the proof copy in print, which actually turned out to be a big help in finding a couple errors that I missed in editing.
Anyway, that changed over the past few days while watching my wife engross herself in the story and seeing her reaction to it. I think I may have something pretty decent here and at least attempting to publish through a traditional publisher gives the story a chance to reach a wider audience than I currently can give it through self publishing. I just don’t have that big of a following right now and I’m smart enough to realize it. I owe the story that much. It wanted to be told and I owe it the chance to be heard.
Last night I submitted my manuscript to Nouvella in hopes that they might choose to publish it. If they don’t I can still go the self publishing route, but I won’t know their decision for 4 to 6 months according to their website. That just means I have to work on some other projects now to keep my mind off of whether or not Sins is good enough. If I bury myself in something else I’m sure that time will fly by. And by fly by I mean drag on endlessly with me wondering what their answer will be. Every night for the foreseeable future, when I lay down I’ll be forced to think things like “did they read it yet?”, “do they love it?”, “what if they hate it?” and all those other things that run through my head when I should be sleeping. I won’t want to think those things, but they will be there and there isn’t anything I can do about it.
Cherokee Johnson and Winger are currently vying for attention now. With NaNo fast approaching I better have a sit down with those guys and see which one wants it more. I don’t want to choose the wrong one and have the other rise up halfway through NaNo and throw a wrench in everything, but even if that does happen they’ll both eventually get their stories told. I had planned on Winger, but Cherokee is making a strong case for himself.
Here’s hoping the folks over at Nouvella like my story as much as I do.
Do you guys have anything out there in the ether waiting to be lift your spirits/crush your ego when it is eventually approved/denied?
My Writings
