Two years later...

Two years later.

I finally finished what is likely my final or near-final draft of book 1 of children of the pantheon.

That's right, it has taken this long.

Two freakin' years since I wrote three books in three months.

If I did it all again I'd do it differently. I did a bunch of things ass backwards but I never stopped working on my writing the whole damn time. Never got off the horse. I've performed at a spoken word festival, a literary festival, written a couple of short stories and won a few competitions (okay, the same competition multiple times) and written a shitload more poetry, most of it filthy, rude and chuckle-worthy. Been on the radio talking shite and a podcast on mental health.

Been writing away. And this damn novel has been a beast to edit.

But its done, version 3.0 is what its called in my google docs.

I'm writing book two now and reckon I'm going to edit the others. But two years!

Two freakin years!

The first round of editing took me 8 months. For the first three I put it away, so more like five months or so after the hiatus, letting it steep like Steven King advises. Then I sent it to the first round of readers. Took them another three months to get back to me. God bless their souls, they came back with some hefty feedback.

The biggest one: The story wasn't there.

The story. Wasn't. There.

"What's the actual story?"

"The story doesn't start until the last three chapters."

A book without a bloody story.

And they were right. Originally I wrote a book that started with a journey through a wasteland. I wanted a group of characters to go an epic romp across exotic locations, a kind of subversion of the classic adventure tale. But then I thought, the readers won't know who these characters are. So I wrote the first book which is just about getting to know these fine folks.

That was the problem, there was no story. Just the main characters meeting, getting to know each other, seeing episodes from their life. Sure, it linked together as far as I was concerned but weren't no clear domino-style narrative.

So I got that feedback and a whole bunch of other criticism.

I went back at the beginning of this year and I wrote 'version 2.0'. I added at least 1/4 more chapters, including a prologue and changing one of the main characters to a girl, practically writing her own sub-plot from start to end. That's on top of all the other additions and subtractions, the polishing and rectifying of grammar and language. The whole thing weighed in at a whopping 150k words.

Finally sent it to the 2nd group of readers, a wonderful writing circle I'm a part of. They gave me more feedback around June.

In the words of one of them "You have a lot of work to do." Admittedly those words were a real gutshot. You know because I can slap quotation marks around them verbatim I became seriously discouraged. After 1.5 freakin years since the first draft, it still wasn't good enough. And still not enough story.

So I've gone back, cut 10% like Steven King's rule, added a different prologue (a prelude if you will) and now, as far as I'm concerned, there's a freakin' story. It's there.

Version 3.0. Sent it to a new round of readers.

I had an existential crisis recently about my writing. Although there's the poetry- that's gone pretty well. And besides a few small short stories, my novel writing hasn't been up to snuff. It's been two years since I did those three novels in three months and I feel like I'm barely closer to getting published.

I felt like a fraud, a fool, an idiot with a pipe dream.

Real bummer. How can anything do matter a damn when you've got youtube stars and bloggers who hit it big, creating and maybe getting a mite lucky? I'm one of the wannabes the never cut its.

Then I got sick of feeling sorry for myself.

The truth is I can't give up writing. I can't. Its a part of me. I love it. I love it the way you’re not always happy when you’re in love. Sometimes love hurts, sometimes its frustrating and you’re confused as hell about it. You’ve got high expectations and hopes, but its in your blood. It completes you.

So I realized the problem is I need to work harder.

I made a schedule. 2-5 hours a day between and after work, writing and promoting the words. One thousand words, five days a week at least, that's 80k in 4 months, practically a novel. Fuck that.

I'm tired of kicking my own ass. At poetry, people whoop, they laugh, they're awful nice about my poetry but I still haven't put together a collection. So I’ll do that too. I'm going to fix up this site. I'm getting off the mat.

There’s giving up or going forward, but to hell with treading water. Maybe I'll make an ass of myself, or maybe I am destined to be one of the failures. Maybe its shouting into the void.

I don't care anymore. My crisis ended when I thought of writing as a sculptor might. My job is to create the best possible work. Which means its appealing to an audience, to be sure, but I'm not going to concern myself with pleasing them for the sake of it. Make the best possible work. Sculpt the best possible statue.

And that excited the hell out of me. Because its the road to mastery. With enough time, effort and heart it's doable.

14 weeks for 100k words. That’s one more book. Piece of piss, that's 7.1k words a week or 1k words a day 7 days a week. No sweat.

If you made it this far, reader, thank you for coming along. Write on, pursue what you love, even if it frustrates the hell out of you.

To hell with treading water.