Hello, blog, and possible readers and writers. I’ve been off doing all those grownup things that people tell you get in the way of X Thing (you know, it’s just hard to believe till you see it…and now I’m seeing it!) , and haven’t been hitting my writing goals. Instead I’ve been kind of dragging along. Staying up too late playing video games with friends, waking up very early to get ready for work. Being a parent from work’s end until bed time or video game time. I’ve been trying to slice how to get back to creating what I like creating, and also deciding if it’s really what I want to do. It’s been an interesting run.
I’ve written my whole life. Since I was a little kid. I used to find those mass produced pens lying around the house and write out stories while my parents (or my friends’ parents) watched TV. I think it was 4th grade when I really found that I loved making up fiction. It was fun to make stuff up. To create a mood within the text (whether that be comical, satirical, scary, or thrilling). One of the funnest aspects of it was sharing with friends. When I first started I took my friends and I and I put us in stories. My first series was a Sliders knock off called Slippers. The heroes (me and my friends) “slipped” into alternate dimensions (same planet, different dimension) where all sorts of comedic hilarity and thrilling adventures took place. There was a lot of 4th wall breaking back in those days, a lot of omniscient storytelling, but I dare say it mostly worked because it was written for fun with the audience of my friends in mind.
And I think in there lies my dilemma I’ve been feeling of late. The comment I mentioned in the first paragraph, the one about not knowing if writing is something I want to continue, I think goes back to the idea of an audience. Well, at least part of it goes to that. Writing, it can be be hard work. Let me start with where my craft took a turn—and the amount of hours I spent editing increased immensely—and then I’ll get back to this audience idea, and tie it all back up into my anecdote about writing as a child (stick with me here).
So, the moment that really kicked me in the balls as a writer, was when I had just finished something that I knew was really good, that I was extremely proud of, and I had published it, I had made some money off it, and now I had gotten my first review, and it called me equal parts amazing and disappointing in one breath. Here’s the review:
So, I at first didn’t believe him. I had paid an editor (a guy who’d been advertised in this very popular self-publishing book) quite a bit of money to edit Bad Dreams for me. And the editor made a lot of corrections, so I dismissed this for awhile. But then I submitted it to a Goodreads reviewing group and got more of the same sorts of reviews (great story, needs editing). So, I had one of my writing buddies look at it, and he found a TON of things that had been missed by the editor I had hired (for a pretty penny). So, after that, I decided to focus a many more hours on editing all my future works. Everything post Bad Dreams (that is my entire catalog minus Skeletons and the first Dick and Henry, which in both cases I went back and re-edited) has had extensive edits and rewrites.
Now, carry this sort of work ethic five or so novels later (many of which no one’s seen but my writing buddies or my word processor) and finding the will power to sit down and do it has been tough. Not because I’m lazy (though, it looks like that on the surface), but because I’m extremely demoralized. Take my current book I’ve been editing for several months now, MOON. This was written at first as sort of an f-you to writing. I had written Sunborn, Phidelphius, Dick and Henry and the Temporary Detective, and Lady Luck, at this point, (as well as another unpublished novel), and all of them had needed extensive edits. My buddies would tell me the same sorts of things when I turned in my first draft to them, “Cool ideas. But what does your character want? What’s their goal?” So, I had to go back, and figure that out, each time. I’d listened to all the advice everyone gives about pushing through till you had a finished manuscript, even if it was garbage, it was still finished. So, I did that. I finished the manuscripts and started out with mediocrity and then I had to mold them into something better, and then better again, and then again. At this point I’ve lost track of how many drafts I’ve done of MOON. It’s multi-POV, so sometimes I focus on one character’s POV and then go back and do the other one. Sometimes I try to edit a draft and do it chronologically, editing the way the reader will read it. Each time it gets a little bit better, but each time I also notice new flaws that need correcting (structural flaws that take more time, and more writing, to fix).
And, all of this goes back to the audience thing. I do all of this work. Put in all those man hours, and then, often, there’s silence. Popular self-publishing bloggers would write in their blogs that you need to just keep writing, and not focus on the reviews (or the downloads…), but every artist wants an audience. That’s half the point of creating the art. The other half is what I talked about enjoying since I was a kid, and that’s the fun you get from creating it. But there’s also a lot of sweat that goes into these things, and it helps keep you energized for the next one when someone tells you, “Hey, kid, you’re doing all right. This thing you made here, it’s real good, kid. Real good.”
That’s all I want. Just 1960s Clint Eastwood to walk up to me, tip his hat, and give me a wink. Is that really so much to ask?
But, I think, to circle back to what became the point of this post, I’ve decided to keep going. To not drag the files of my unedited manuscripts into the trashcan, and then rush out and buy the Xbox 4 X (so many teraflops…), and the reason isn’t the thing I’ve been complaining about (the audience), but for me. I want to keep going for me. I enjoy the act of writing. Whether it’s on a keyboard or with pen and paper (not big on pencils. Even if they’re Blackwing). I also enjoy finishing a project. Creating something that’s now part of the pantheon of stories. To me that’s one of the best parts. There’s potential that sometime after I’m gone, somebody finds a copy of (the now RE-EDITED) Bad Dreams and decides it’s one of their favorite stories, and who is this Kenneth Buff guy anyways? He got anything else?
So, I guess that too could be why too. How else is there going to be “anything else?”