I'm back, bitches

Wow, so what was originally intended to be a short break from blogging- for the purpose of working on my very first book- became several months of me doing anything but writing. My bad.

But after much soul searching and a few epic quests, I'm back in the saddle and ready to once again pound the key board like that bitch owes me money. Because it really does; I give it so much of my attention and affection, the least it can do is loan me a few bucks every now and again. Being poor and black ain't easy, ya know.

To review, my plan was to spend the entire month of October finishing the rough draft of my book, which had been sitting on my hard drive neglected for months. I wanted to get it finished before November and NaNoWriMo began. And I achieved that goal. That's right, I have an actual novel sitting on my computer, just over 96,000 words long. It ain't pretty- in fact, it is probably the ugliest thing I have ever had the misfortune to look at. I mean, we're talking hideous shit here; I'd rather stare lovingly at the brown, puckered up asshole of Donald Trump than look at this thing.

Pictured: Donald Trumps asshole

And that's where I hit a snag. Once I completed the rough draft, I gave it some time and then read it from beginning to end. Wow, it is bad. I don't mean that it needs a lot of work- which it does, it being a rough draft- it needs to be set on fire. Every aspect of it, from character development (or lack thereof), plot, subplot, tension, pacing, and all the rest of the things that makes a novel a novel were basically absent. What I found was I had 96,000 words of me blindly rambling.

So that was depressing. But not entirely unexpected; being new to the novel writing gig, it wasn't entirely surprising that my efforts would be...amateurish. Inept. God fucking awful.

Ahem. Moving on.

When November 1st arrived, I began this new novel with a surge of excitement; this time, I had the makings of a good story, with a (mostly) solid plot, character development, and a clear idea of how it would end. And for the first week, that was enough to propel me forward. But then something happened, something that I didn't expect. Something that caused me to go from happily typing away with pure fervor to gritting my teeth in frustration. Like sprinting through a quagmire of liquid shit, I forced myself onward through sheer stubborn tenacity. That lasted for another week, and then, after just breaking the 20,000 word barrier, I ran out of steam and stopped. Just stopped.

And I haven't written anything since, until now.

It wasn't from a sudden lack of interest; my mind was still churning out story ideas and scenes and fun character designs near constantly. Nor have my goals changed; I still want- need- to become a professional writer and published author. The drive, the pure desire, was still there, but I couldn't muster up the will to actually do anything. It took me many weeks of staring blankly at my computer screen to figure out the problem.

I wasn't having fun.

Creative writing is supposed to be fun. It's basically like being a kid and using your imagination to create all sorts of fun adventures, only turned up to 11. And while there is going to be a helluva lot of effort involved, the entire process should still be fun. And I wasn't having any. That fact ended up killing ability to churn out stories. The entire process slammed face first into a wall, not unlike Wile E. Coyote after falling victim to his own overly complicated schemes to catch the Roadrunner. That avian bitch.

Smug bastard.

To summarize: All work and no play makes Darren awful at things he wants to do.

And we all know what happens next.

Having figured that out, I am doing my best to focus on the process, rather than the end result. Don't get me wrong, the end is very important to me; writing for a living instead of doing someone else's bitch work would be a dream come true. But I can't get tunnel vision and miss the scenery on the journey towards my eventual career.

I don't like to write, but like to have written. That phrase was used by George R.R. Martin and numerous others over the years to sum up the experience of being an author. Well, I say fuck that noise. I'm not going to go through life dreading and hating 99% of writing a book, just so I can have that small 1% of joy at the end. From now on, I'm going to devote my efforts to finding joy in as much of the process as I can. And yes, I'm not at the level George R. R. Martin is, not even close. All I have is a horrendous rough draft. But it's a start.

And the sky's the limit.

As long as gravity and roadrunners don't interfere.