Work in progress
In 2007, I was gifted my first glut of free mental space in years. I had graduated college, and before all the stresses of adult life had fully taken root, I reveled in the freedom from all the stressors of college life. I hung out a lot at a new friend's rented home. I say new because these were not the people I had met in college; these were my first post-college friends. Eventually, upon sharing present and past interests, I was introduced to a supernatural show that "everyone" had seen and "thought was awesome." I never had, but with the entire box set being pushed at me, I eventually relented and started watching them. I ended up in a place that was very reminiscent of where I was in 2000, when I started a journey through what I called the door-stop fantasy novels: brick-shaped, popular fantasy series that were very popular at the time, the kinds of things that have become very popular television shows in the past decade. At the time, in 2000, the foremost thought I came away with was "I could do this." I wrote some bad pages, and forced them on some good friends. The love was tough, and I was discouraged. But in 2007, after years of reading, writing, editing, critiquing, and studying composition and theory and rhetoric, after being told by my mentor that I wrote well enough to do it for a living, with that wellspring of energy and focus, I decided to try again.
Over the next three years, I ended up writing some eight novels. I hurled myself bodily into the process. My first job out of school giving me lots of free time to work on notes helped. In the second summer of that position, I actually totaled my car, so I was relegated to be either at work or at home, so that also helped. I couldn't see my friends unless they came to me, which was infrequent, so most of my free time was tangled up in the writing. I did ask some people to read it, but this was different. This was when I realized that people treated writing that had a spine, a cover, differently than an emailed word document. So, I clumsily searched for a home for my writing. I was fortunate to have found one. Not a good one, but one where I could learn a lot of valuable lessons, like patience. I saw my work online for sale in 2011. I saw my first royalty check in 2012. For the next several years, I was mired in the unpleasant process of trying to be a professional writer. Soliciting reviews, self promotion, developing a social media presence, it was a lot like trying to light a fire in a freezing windstorm. A strike, and no spark. A strike, and no spark. A strike, a spark, but no flame. A strike, a spark, a flame which was snuffed out almost immediately. Of the eight novels, I published five through that very small, unknown California print house, during which ownership changed once and management changed some three or four times. In the end, the publisher dissolved. There were a lot of apologies from people I never really knew, and goodbyes to people I might have worked harder to stay in touch with.
Five years later, my rights reverted back to me, and I started on a different journey. At some point or another, I had thought that these eight books were introductions to me. Professionally, it was the worst writing I had ever written, because after those first few years I had gone on to write more, develop more, practice more. And I made gains in my craft. I have written things since that will never see the light of day, but I have also written things since that I am very happy with, and have high hopes for. When my rights reverted, I went back to those first stories and looked at them. At first, I think it was how a planner examines a failed outline, kicks it around to scrounge out some mote of value, where they expected to find none. And what I discovered is that I did not hate the stories. I loved them. I love them, and I realized I had been mistreating them in my thoughts, thinking of them as something to put out and hope people might find a glimpse of something redeeming in them. I was a little cross with myself. Also during that introspection, I realized that what I wanted, what I really wanted, was for them to live out in the world, complete, for a chance for someone to read all of them, front to back. So, I started down that road.
It was a lot of rewriting, which I didn't dislike. In a way, I felt like the newer versions where what the first versions should have been. Had I exercised a bit more patience. I connected with a cover artist, and our communication and relationship has developed.
But only just last week did I hit a place in the fifth book where I had stopped all those years ago. I got to the point where I felt like everything had frozen. I hit my old writing, the impatient writing, the writing I had been performing when everything had stalled. I leaned back, took a deep breath, and realized it had taken me almost three years just to get back to the same point after starting all over again. I had to shake my head at the weighty but fleeting nature of time. At the same time, I just had a conversation with the cover artist, and this cover is the first cover that benefits from an actual conversation. He heard me speak, and asked questions, then went away, and engaged his own creativity. He stacked his understanding on top of the themes and ideas, and he came back with an initial sketch
Comments
Post a Comment