Horrible truths and a badass! · 10:49am Apr 19th, 2017
Feeling inspired at 5:30 AM!
Sadly I have to sleep.
To you followers who still care to look here and see that I made a post: I'm not making any promises. I'm kind of done with promises. All those promises before, they were excuses. I've gone through a whole hell of a lot in the last year. Good god. If I wanted to saddle back up, I'd have to really read like... Man, it's sad to say, I'd have to read the last couple books of TCoL again just to familiarize myself with it again. All I remember is I was working towards Pinkie Pie being the ultimate friend and Ismara being a real bitch. Hmm...
STORY TIME!
You know what's inspired me recently to write again? I'll tell you! It's an author that I've never even heard of before, and he has awoken me to a horrible truth! Really, it's a few horrible truths, and I am gonna share them here. First, though, this guy. Okay, so his name is Marlon James, and he is a Jamaica badass that lives in Minnesota! He wrote a novel called A Brief History of Seven Killings that won the Man Booker Prize for fiction in 2015. In case you're unaware, that's a prestigious literary award! Apart from the prize of $60,000 dollars, you won the goddamn Man Booker Prize! I mean, that's just amazing!
So okay, this guy, he's a real badass, and a writer, and a teacher, and he moved from a tropical island to a cold fucking northern American city where he writes and listens to records and basically lives the sort of dream life that I dream about in my most dreamiest of dreams. That's not all of why he's a badass, though. He's a badass because he really understands the drive, the desire, to write.
I learned about him while listening to the BBC World Service program called "In The Studio" which did a piece on him. You can listen to the whole thing right here, so go do it! Seriously, go listen to this guy and get a feel for how awesome he is over the course of the 27 minute program. I'll wait.
Okay, you back? Now you get it. This guy is awesome. I feel it down to the fiber of my being, my dude, I want to be this dude. I want to literally be him. Okay, not literally. Anyway, a couple things he said in there really struck me.
So look, his preparation to write, his research, his in-depth notes and timelines - all that is really in tune with how I approach writing. But the tragedy is something else he said, and that is his opinion on writing and having people know how the story is going to be shaped as you are shaping it. Something in my brain clicked, and I have to admit it's true. Writing is a discovery. It's as much of a discovery for me as it is for you all. As I am writing something, I am always impressed at the twists and turns my brain can take. It's why TCoL is as long as it is! I never thought it would get to the length it has and still be incomplete! I am just as blown away, if not more so, than anyone reading it. Trust me.
There's also another side to that, though, in that writers are selfish things. It's true for me anyway, I'm a selfish bastard, and I love my mental masturbation. I love my discoveries while writing. I even had a saying that said "I love talking about my stories as much as I love writing them" and that is so fucking true. That's probably because talking about them flexed the same parts of my brain. I'm always discovering! But... there came a point where I wasn't. I wasn't discovering anything else. Marlon said in the interview, he had novels he never wrote, and that's because he kept talking about them with people before he had written them, before he had formed them... and that has happened with TCoL a few times now. It happened super hard in the most recent book because of a few reasons, but mostly it was because I had super solid expectations going into Pinked about exactly, and I mean exactly, how it was gonna play out.
FUCKING BORING! Right? That's like me telling you all how it's gonna end, and then releasing it chapter by chapter, and you're all like "Oh my god, fucking get to the point already..." except I've never spoiled things like that for anyone except maybe Zoarvek. He's the only person who basically knows how the whole fic is gonna end.
But here's the thing... I actually don't know how to get from point... wherever we're at right now... to that ending. Like, there's a few vivid scenes and events in my head, and I know how characters and relationships are gonna pan out, I know who's gonna live and die, but other than that, man it has been an adventure! And just look at a couple of my clopfics, too. Look at Velvet Plush and how awesome it was because I was discovering it as I went! Look at how... I dunno, maybe mediocre is the wrord... Velvet Punishment is because I just sort of spat it out while being distracted by what was really capturing my attention at the time. (Which was roleplay on a clop roleplay site, but that's another story.) And yeah, that sequel to Stress Relief? I mean, I have it kinda planned out, but I just don't feel like writing it at the moment.
Advice for aspiring writers, and it's the same advice I always give, but with a new twist: Just write. Just freaking write, people! I know there's a lot of people out there who talk about how when you write you need a plan, you need to know what you're going to write about, but to that I say bullshit! You need only the vaguest of ideas with a few concrete bits such as a beginning, middle, and end. Hell, listen to that radio program I linked. You don't even need a freaking beginning. He's rewritten the beginning of a novel before. Sometimes the first thing you write might end up being page 200 or 500 or whatever because as you went along, you realized there was more before that. That's a luxury I don't really have with fanfic! Luckily, it's not needed per se because the show is what happened beforehand.
Anyway, is this some sort of announcement that I am gonna get back to writing and you'll see new chapter of TCoL or some new cloppy goodness? Fuck no. Or maybe it is. The big difference between my past "promises" where I was just trying to lie to myself to psyche myself into writing again and now is that right now? I feel like fucking writing.
Thanks, Mr. James.
I got no fucking clue what I'll write, when I'll write it, when it'll be released, or even if it'll ever happen, but I will say this... I still don't feel comfortable putting TCoL into "On Hiatus" status.
We'll see. It's as much a discovery for me as it is for you.
You're all the best.
Good advice. And to you, write on friend
Woow now I feel slightly less weird about having that one dream in which you died tragically just before writing the last chapter and I was like, "I have to finish Littlecolt's work, I'm the only one who can do it!"
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Dude, it's scary to me, but I had the same thought recently. I have to get back on this train somehow, though. I'm trying to focus on the art of writing rather than the completionist side.
4502797 Well you know what they say, if you aren't having fun then you're doing it wrong!