Fun in the Gun

Nah... the point is that I DON'T have a gun to my head.

My biggest fear has always been the passage of time.  Let me tell you a story, even if it takes a little while.

When I was on the MFA, sitting across from Paul McAuley (a god to me at the time) he was talking about the scenes not perfectly meshing into a cohesive emotional effect.  He paused in mid sentence, looked at me with a squint and said, "Is this a first draft?"

It was.

"This is good for a first draft."

"I edit as I go," I said.

He put the papers down and said, "I want to see a second draft."

I published that second draft.  It's called "Temple of Mirrors".  You can read it here. 

It held the 3rd place spot in popularity on Short-story.me for like 4 years or something.  The second place spot only beat me by a few clicks.  Last time I checked, about a year ago, mine had around 8,000 reads.  Now it has 14,000.  That said, now it's number 34, but I'm still perfectly happy.  People are reading it seven years later.  Hail Lord McAuley for his help and criticism, but in his opinion, the biggest thing he taught me was to write second drafts.

Oh, if only I weren't such an idiot.  Or maybe I just fear the reaper.  Fear makes people stupid.  People have been telling me to re-draft for years.  Terry Pratchet once said the first draft is just the story we tell ourselves.  He doesn't have six computer screens so that he can see more pages of his drafts.  He's got one devoted to plot outline, one devoted to ideas, and I have no idea what he uses screens 4-6 for.  Maybe I'll be a better writer if I ever figure that out.

Here.  It's in pictoral form too.  See?  That proves it.

 



Most importantly, every writer I know of who doesn't redraft properly writes in quite a rambling, unfocussed fashion.  They're usually qutie good at plotting, hence getting away with it, but as I read I can always feel the central narrative screaming to escape.  And these people do go back a cut superfluous scenes.  Nobody just finishes and says, "Booyah!  Done!"

I'm not really guilty of THAT.  I'm not that bad.  I do redraft, but the redrafting is cursory.  I can't say I sit there with a manuscript and a pen filling each page with notes and then re-writing the book.  That's what the best writers do.

To sum up, my period of idiocy is over.  I refuse to feel bad about all this time.  If anything it means I have a crap load of stories I can make something special of if I spend a long time editing.  I hate editing.  It feels like work.  But honestly sometimes feeling like you've suffered for work just makes you feel like a grown up, so I'll get to it.

I'll leave you with another great Terry Pratchett quote.


So he thinks editing is hell too, but he does it.  And there's no gun to my head.  If a book takes me eight months to write instead of four, and it's twice as good a book, I win.

Getting Personal

Over the last couple of months I have had an almost spiritual crisis that I'd like to share with you, in the hope that others going through the same thing might find it helpful.  This is another post for the artists, rather than the readers.

Putting things in perspective is always hard.  I can't remember which popular (million subscribers plus) Youtuber said that if PewDiePie dropped to his level of subscriptions he'd probably throw himself off a bridge.  This Youtuber's point was that, while he's pretty successful, PewDiePie is vastly more so, and a significant dip always feels awful.

I got a serious kick in the junk recently, which is that my agent has stopped representing YA and Mid-grade fiction.  I've found myself creatively moving more and more towards that age group.  For me, fiction is about change, and those years are the time in which people define themselves most--a time of tremendous upheaval.

I then had some thinking to do.

Step One:  Wallow in despair.  Check.

Step Two:  Decide what I want to write next.  This one has taken a long, long time. 

I used to love adult fantasy, and adult science fiction.  But it's rarely the modern authors that appeal to me.  There are some greats, but my tastes tend elsewhere.  In science fiction, it's towards the human stories of the 1960s.  In fantasy, it's the highly experimental, strongly themed stories of the 30s.

I've done a lot of thinking about this.  I've asked myself exactly what I like about the genres.  I might only write one fantasy and one scifi in my life, and I want each to embody the potential I see in the genre.  This doesn't mean I'm saying it will be brilliant.  It will just be exactly what I have to say.

I've almost cracked it for a fantasy book.  Maybe it's not everything I'll have to say.  Maybe writing one will make me rediscover my love for the genre.  All I know is that it's something I'm compelled to do for professional reasons.

I could just write the mid-grade idea that's bouncing in my head.  Honestly I'd love to do that, and on my study wall, right smack above the computer screen, I have this:


(Different pic but same quote.)

I'd find a new agent eventually, and I'd find a home for my midgrade stuff.  I have an agent referral.  I have a popular blog (thanks!).  I have my youth and my health.  I know my past self would have figuratively killed to be in my position now.  But a step back is a step back.  I don't believe I can justify deliberately letting it happen.  Not when I think I might actually enjoy writing an adult book once I get into the swing of it.

So expect some posts about adult fantasy and what I love about it in the near future.

As always, hail Cthulu,

Luke