Category: Journal

That was nice

Last night, on the spur of the moment, I wrote a short story. An interactive short story. I wasn’t thinking about marketability, writing formulae, or anything other than expressing the little idea I had. I suppose it was a bit like following a writing prompt (something I’ve never really tried, though I know other authors (especially of the “must write every day” sort) are quite fond of such exercises) in that I saw something in the world which prompted me, and spent the next four and a half hours writing out my interpretation and expression of the ideas it gave me. (Here’s the story.)

It was quite nice to write that way. To simply chase a random idea. To go from nothing to finished, published story in just a few hours. To be writing for a platform (inklewriter) which doesn’t currently/really offer much hope for “monetization” and thus be freed from any concerns beyond writing something fun; fun for me to write, hopefully fun to read… No stress, no expectations, no rules, and the only deadline was “this should already be done; the conversation it’s a response to is already over,” so I couldn’t put it off at all, only get right to work or watch it fade into total meaninglessness before it even existed. No chance to over-think it or second-guess myself, only to write, write, write. It was nice.

It would be pleasant to have more of my writing go like that, in future.

I think that’s closer to the sort of writing experience which led me to ever believe I might enjoy writing. At all. Let alone full time. It seemed like a good first step on the road back to being the sort of creative I want to be. Creating what seems fun or interesting at the time, rather than what I think other people want from me, or what might translate into profits down the road.

I’ve no idea what I’ll create next, right now, which seems just as it should be, and I sincerely hope it’s as pleasant an experience as this was.

bleh. This is why I don’t look at my reviews very often.

It occurred to me that I hadn’t looked at the iTunes user reviews of my podcast novels in a while, so I popped into the iTunes store, searched my name, and started clicking through, title by title, so see if there were any new reviews. Mostly, no, but a couple of reviews for Sophia (none for Emily?). One five-star review posted last week, “This was a great vampire story…..got to learn how an adolescent would deal with vampirism.”, and there was another new-to-me review dated 11/21/2012:

“I unfortunately wrote the previous review after listening to only about one third of the story… oh my god, was I off base. I kept expecting something to happen… All I got was a sermon disguised as a story. If you’re interested in evangelization, this podcast is for you. The characters remain as 2 dimensional as they were in the beginning (a normal expectation in the first 3 to 6 episodes, not so by 27) and I was left feeling like I’d watched a 1970’s After School Special aimed at Christians (no slam on Christians). It was awkward and I often felt myself cringing in reaction to his dialogue and descriptions, knowing I’d written a somewhat favorable review for the story… yet I had to finish, and I’m glad I did. Why? Because the author goes on to explain in an end note that this was written in response to The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, which McClanahan describes as a heavy handed, over the top mess of a novel. I believe he even refers to Atwood’s writing as ‘ham-fisted.’ I was stunned. This cat is delusional. Sophia is the definition of a heavy handed, underwhelming mess. Total waste of time. I will never ever write a review until I am completely finished listening to the story… sorry the initial review was misleading.”

(Forgive any typos; iTunes wouldn’t let me copy/paste, so I’ve re-written the whole thing by hand. Assume any errors are my own.) Now, I never saw the initial review, so I don’t know what praise this person may have initially given Sophia… but this is the sort of feedback that makes it hard for me want to write, at all. Or to live, for that matter. Seeing a review like this actually makes me feel like I oughtn’t go on living. That the world would be a better place without me. That my best work isn’t good enough, and that I’m making the world a worse place by my existence, and by my contributions to the world.

“Total waste of time.” A year and a half of my life, a total waste of time. Heck, since this is some of my best writing to date, my whole life is apparently a total waste of time. If only any of my frequent suicide attempts across the 1990’s had been successful, this person wouldn’t have had to lose six hours and fifteen minutes of their own life listening to a free book they didn’t enjoy.

Well, if I put it that way, it seems a little out of proportion. I mean, what sort of failure am I if it takes me a year and a half to ruin just a few hours of someone else’s life? Surely I can do better. I mean, I could become one of those high-volume traders, right? Then by making bad bets on mortgage-backed securities I could ruin thousands of people’s lives and futures in a matter of seconds. Maybe contribute toward crashing the entire global economy. Continue reading bleh. This is why I don’t look at my reviews very often.

Thinking about Dragons’ Truth

Beginning with the nearest to break even, I thought I’d write something about my novel Dragons’ Truth, in hopes that you’ll consider buying/reading it. To reach “profitability”, Dragons’ Truth needs only $9 more in earnings, which could come from sales of: 1 signed paperback ($25), or 2 paperbacks ($7.99 each), or 3 copies of the eBook ($4.99), or some combination thereof (and/or via $12 or more in donations to Dragons’ Truth at Podiobooks.com). Here’s the description from the back of the book, a simple enough starting point:

When two young boys decide to skip school and seek adventure one day, they end up finding much more than they ever bargained for. More than the dragon and the mountain of riches they see at first, one of the boys finds the entire course of his life changed.

That boy, Larry, finds himself at the center of an adventure bigger than anything he’d ever dreamed of. And when Larry’s continuing adventure begins to effect his schoolwork, and then his teachers and his entire school, Larry’s not sure what he’s gotten himself into. When the effects of that seemingly innocent day begin to spread throughout – and then to threaten – his entire nation, Larry is forced to take action or face the destruction of the entire human race as a result of a single day of hooky.

Join Larry as he grows from a little boy into the last chance for survival that humanity may have, and find out just how complicated a happy ending can become…

Contains some violent content.

Dragons’ Truth was my second finished novel. I wrote it during NaNoWriMo in 2003, a little over nine years ago, and I consider it my least-accomplished published work – though certainly not without value; for most of the last nine years it was also my most popular single title. In fact, I believe it has enough potential and value that it’s also been top of my list for rebooting/rewriting for some time, now. I get a lot of requests for a sequel, but with the way it ended I find myself at a loss for how to continue the story. In trying to come up with a way to write a sequel, I’ve instead managed to come up with quite a lot of ways to write the whole thing differently (while allowing it to be part of a series (or at least a trilogy)), and with all the experience and skill I’ve developed over the last 9 years. I do not have any immediate plans to move forward with a reboot/rewrite at this time, but I’d like to share with you some further information about the book which might intrigue you if you haven’t read it, and might make you want to go back to it and take a closer look at it, if you have. Continue reading Thinking about Dragons’ Truth

Quick debt update (Jan.2013)

My usual/annual debt paydown update post (normally on the last day of January) will be late, this year, and will cover slightly more than a year, because of some sudden/recent changes to our financial planning/future we’ve been making. But within a few weeks we’ll be down to 1 credit card ($8.7k) and the 1 student loan ($37.7k) payment, carrying roughly $46.5k in debt. Since we were at $60.7k total debt at the end of January last year, by the time I post my detailed update we’ll have paid off $14.2k of our debt in a little over a year.

Then, some time in late February, we’ll start trying to buy a house and probably triple (or more) our total debt, and slow down our consumer & student loan debt paydown by quite a few years (not to mention how long it takes to pay off a mortgage). I’ll probably do another update after we close on a house, and after I’ve had a chance to create a whole new set of spreadsheets and calculations to manage the new financial situation we’ll be creating for ourselves over the next few months. If everything goes the way we hope, we’ll still be able to accelerate our debt paydown (beyond minimum payments, including on the mortgage, eventually), just not as much as we have been these last 5 years.