Tag: writing

She stepped through, back into her own world.

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*exhales* WHOOF. I have finally completed Queen Ophelia’s War! I knew I’d be finishing it in the next day or so, but I hadn’t expected the ending to come so quickly! Come to find out, I’d already written the ending I thought I’d need to write, just that I had it in the wrong place, heh! [The above title is the last sentence of the novel, of course.]

Anyway…this was an interesting and extremely personal novel to write. To start with, I’d come up with the idea inspired by a waking dream in May of 2021, and sketched out the entire synopsis in one three thousand word go that morning. Surprisingly, the end result follows it almost to the letter, with just a few minor changes here and there and the addition of a few characters I hadn’t come up with initially.

But the real reason I say it’s personal is that this one mirrors my own life during and post-pandemic. It’s a story about reconnecting with people and things you’d been disconnected from for ages. It’s a story about unexpected life changes and choosing to embrace them instead of fearing them. It’s a story about being honest with yourself. And it’s a story about trusting yourself. Things I felt it was far past time to embrace in real life.

I already have a few book cover ideas in mind, so once I give this current draft a quick once-over, this will be my next self-published novel.

And then I can finally start on Theadia! Woohoo!

Coming close to the end

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As of this week I am revising the most climactic scene in Act III of Queen Ophelia’s War, which means that one, I am coming close to the end of the book, and two, that I am on schedule to get this thing out into the world by late spring! Woohoo!

Finishing this one does feel a bit like how I felt when I finished Diwa & Kaffi…a sense of satisfied completion mixed with an eagerness to move ahead with the next project. In a way, QOW is a very personal book in that I’d written it during the pandemic and post-leaving the Former Day Job, but there’s also the fact that one of its themes is about the willingness to completely change one’s life, and how far one might go to achieve it. I kind of feel like this is my way of signing off many parts of my old life and embracing where I am now. I’m ready to move on to the next chapter now.

This is also one of the last standalones I’ll be working on for a while, and that’s something new to deal with as well. I’m eager, almost impatiently so, to jump back into an extensive created world again, this time with Theadia. I’m ready to move on to that style once again, to the point that I’ve been preparing myself for it over the last month or so.

We’ll see where this new universe takes me…!

Days away from social media

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(Art source unknown, but borrowed from this Medium article)

It’s been a little less than two months since I closed down my Twitter feed, and I can’t say I’ve missed it all that much. Sure, I still pop in from time to time for a minute or so, just to ensure I don’t lose access and to check in on those I follow who aren’t online elsewhere, but other than that, I stay well away.

I’m still on Bluesky and Threads, but even then I don’t stay for too long. Again, maybe for a minute or so. I spend more time with my east coast friends on our shared Discord, to be honest. My Instagram these days are mostly pictures of our cats Jules and Cali. Weirdly enough, the most time I’ll spend on social media is to watch some lawn care reels on Facebook, because they’re a lot of fun and surprisingly calming to watch.

That was the whole point of this detox, really…it wasn’t to take a vacation away from social media but to recalibrate my brain so I’m no longer beholden to it. I still feel like I could better use my time during breaks at work, but I’m not really beating myself up over it. I feel less stressed out, for starters. I feel less inclined to give into a daily rage about whatever nonsense is going on in the world. I’ve found a healthier social balance and I’ve decided I’m going to stay there for a while.

Does this give me more time for writing? Sure! I’ve been doing a lot of world building work for Theadia during breaks and slow times at work. I can get through a good chunk of revision work on Queen Ophelia’s War on a daily basis. I can zip through my daily 750Words. All this, and still have a bit of time left over to relax with non-creative fun things! Time management for the win!

Getting there

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Unfortunately I’m at the ‘Oh god this sucks why did I even write this drivel’ point in Queen Ophelia’s War, and I’m doing my best to ignore those lingering doubts. I know the reasons why I’m feeling that way, and it’s not because it is drivel…it’s because I’m twitching to get that rewrite of Theadia started. I just want to quit this project and jump into the next one.

So basically I’m tempering myself with a bit of patience and stubborn will to get this novel done first before I dedicate the bulk of my time to that one. [There’s also the fact that I really want to write the romcom as well, but I’ll get to that one soon enough. There’s less impatience felt in getting that one started.] Besides, I’m into Act III now, which means that I’m right on schedule and should hopefully be done by the end of the month.

I always seem to hit this point when I reach the final third of my projects, to be honest. I just want it done! And I’m quite sure there are other writers who feel the same way. All I need to do is see it through to the end and release it out into the world when I’m done.

I’m getting there…I just need to be patient.

here we go again

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So the other day while I was at work, I’d started playing around with ideas for Theadia, and I started thinking: well, as much as I love it, I still feel I’ve left a lot out. Too many moments where important things happen but only seen from one person’s oblique points of view. Conflict with muted payoff. Too many actions that lack the backstory other than “…then this happens but no one yet knows why” that deserve a much deeper examination. In other words, it’s great, but it certainly could be a whole lot better. And I want to put in that extra work to make it the best.

In other words, this is exactly what I’d done when I’d rewritten The Phoenix Effect as the Bridgetown Trilogy. It went from something that was good and I’d turned it into something great that I’m proud of.

In other words, Theadia may end up another large-scale, extended-cast trilogy if I play my cards right.

Sure, I still need to finish off Queen Ophelia’s War first — I think I’m about two thirds of the way there, so I’m on schedule for that one — but I’m already starting to do the pre-writing paperwork for Theadia now. Extended storylines and subplots for certain characters. I may not know how to successfully write a space opera, let alone write characters that serve part of a military role, but I already know that this one isn’t going to be a dense war-in-space story, and nor is it going to be a uber-savvy tech-nerd story either. It’s its own thing in its own reality, just like the Mendaihu Universe. And I think I’ve gotten pretty good at creating that kind of thing. And those are the things I love writing.

Will this end in tears? Who knows. But I’m willing to put in the work.

Catching Up

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I knew that aside from the expected family gatherings and whatnot over this past weekend, I’d have a lot of time to myself at the hotel I was staying at, so I brought my trusty Lenovo laptop with me. My plan was to hole up and get some serious editing and revision done on Queen Ophelia’s War during that time, and I did in fact get several chapters done in the span of just a few days! Not only that, I was able to bash out a few hundred words for my romcom idea. Hell, I even had a few hours to kill at Logan before my flight back west, so I got some revision work done there as well!

Allowing myself to spend an extended amount of time was something I’d needed, and something I hadn’t been able to do all that often since I started at the Current Day Job. I can do it on my days off, but even then I’m sharing that time with other non-writing things I need to catch up on so the time spent isn’t nearly as long. But hey, that’s something I’ve been trying to adjust! I feel like I’m back on schedule, and that’s where I needed to be in order to make that happen.

Life has returned back to normal now and it’s the start of a new month, so this is the perfect time for me to plan ahead — to do a bit of proactive time management for my creative outlets and life adjustment to get rid of unwanted distractions. I’m still on schedule to get Queen Ophelia’s War out within the next few months.

Breaking out of the comfort zone

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(image courtesy of Bocchi the Rock)

I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to push myself out of that comfort zone I’d been in for years. Why was I even there in the first place? Was it about trust? Self-trust? Embarrassment? Worry? One or many of these things? Well. Most of it’s all gone now, at any rate. All I had to do was free myself from the self-imposed chains.

I think the last time I felt this way was when I’d started The Phoenix Effect back in 1997. A new part of my life had started and the road was relatively clear. It was a choice to say yeah, let’s get this writing career started. I can do this, and stick to it. But let’s face it, I hadn’t really adjusted all that much since then. Sure, I had the confidence to self-publish and all that backstage nonsense that goes along with it. But there had to be more. I knew I was holding back.

This is where I feel I’m at now. Pushing myself out of a comfort zone once again, not quite sure where it’ll take me…but trusting myself enough to know what I’m doing. Time to take more chances and look past the boundaries. Knowing I have people who’ll have my back. And knowing how to move forward with minimal blind flailing.

A lot of this will be new to me, but I’m ready for it. And I’m willing to learn.

…I’ll get back to that later.

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I’m still a little bit concerned about a certain scene near the beginning of Queen Ophelia’s War, but I’ve come to the conclusion that, like that one missing chapter I had in Diwa & Kaffi, I’ll put it aside and fix it later. I need to catch up on the rest of the novel, and focusing on this one issue was just wasting my time. [For the record, it’s nothing major, and the scene for the most part is written. It’s just that I haven’t decided if it works and I should adjust the later continuity, or if I should change it to fit the same.]

I very rarely went the ‘I’ll fix it later’ route in the past, but I’ve come around to it over the last few projects, especially considering that I feel more confident with my writing. I find it’s a bit of a healthier way to look at life in general, really…things might not be perfect, but if I can fix everything around it, then that’ll make coming back to this big problem that much easier. And I’m pretty good at remembering the points that need the most work and coming back to them at a later time. This one could go either way, really…I always leave a little bit of leeway in my stories so that fixing this sort of issue doesn’t become a major rehaul. I’ll know by the end of this revision round whether or not I truly need to make the fix.

I’m allowed to make mistakes…

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…but I’m not allowed to see every mistake as a failure.

Writing a scene that ultimately does not work for the novel is not a failure. Dealing with inconsistencies and continuity errors is not a failure. Sometimes writing is rewriting and revising and trying a different tack. I’m allowed to be worried that my project is still a mess that needs a lot of work, but it’s not a failure if I’m willing to do that work to make it better, no matter how long it takes.

Putting a novel project aside for a while with the possibility of it being trunked is not a failure. Sometimes the end result is simply not what I’d hoped it would be, knowing that I could do so much better. Or maybe that I’ve just lost interest in the idea now that I’ve let it percolate for a while.

Hitting only a few dozen words a day instead of a few hundred, or even a few thousand, is not a failure — nor is it a mistake. Not giving myself enough time to write every now and again is not a failure. Distraction and wasting time is not a failure, but an issue that can be fixed if I put my mind to it.

I’m willing to make mistakes. Failure, at least for me, is not even trying in the first place.

End of year review – future inspiration

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[Image courtesy of Saekano]

If there’s one thing that always worries me about writer’s block, it’s that I’m terrified that I’ll lose interest and nothing will inspire me to write. Outside inspiration has often been a big driver for me: coming up with In My Blue World while listening to ELO, Meet the Lidwells! from reading a ton of music biographies, and so on. But sometimes I’ll go through a spell of nothing quite resonating with me, and I always find that worrying. It’s like I want to write, but I don’t know what to write about.

I mean, it’s not as if something has to completely inspire me, far from it. But the issue, I think, is that it would often tie in with my state of mind at that moment. I’ve had low points in my life where I just stopped writing for months at a time. I’ve had busy points in my life where I just didn’t have the time. I’ve had rebounds where I was ready to write again yet had to relearn how to do it to my own satisfaction.

In writing Diwa & Kaffi, however, I realized that waiting for inspiration to strike might be good if you’re surrounded by that well, but sometimes you just have to push through and find it for yourself. Allow yourself to latch onto something unexpected. Stretch out and get out of your comfort zone a bit and see what resonates. I never thought I’d write a space opera but here we are with a nearly-complete story entitled Theadia. I never thought I’d write a romcom but that seems to be on the docket for 2024.

And that’s what I’m planning to do in the new year: go some place I haven’t been before, just to see what happens.