A Year in the Life…

It’s seductive to sit here and rant about all the things that aren’t going right.  In the end though, pity parties don’t help anyone, including the thrower of said party.  I’ve had a lot of really good things come from this last year.  In no particular order:

• I’ve managed to find out what I truly wish to do with my life.  It’s something that so many of us struggle with our whole lives, only to realize too late what we truly wished we had done.  Not so for myself.  Ever since the wet-works flew upon meeting Kevin J Anderson, I’ve known exactly what was needed and wanted of me.  Stories have always existed within my noggin; now they exist on paper as well.

• The second, and most important, bit of good news is this: progress.  Actual, tangible progress.  I can sit down and have 1100+ word sessions.  I can knuckle under all my mental issues and just write.  Further, my writing has increased dramatically in quality since I first started.  Plot, character development, structuring, and literary devices used later in a story.  All things that I can actually see improving with each passing day.  It is heartening beyond belief that I continue to see progress after a year of writing very consistently.  The only limit currently in place for my career is how hard I’m willing to push myself.  In a field chock full of hard working talent, it’s vital that I have a goal to continue working towards.  

Even though there has been a large amount of good, there has also been an equal amount of bad.  I’ll try to keep whining off the list, but some of it simply reflective of the time I’ve chosen to enter the field.  I can’t control the era I’ve launched into, but parts of it still sting:

• Anyone and everyone can be an author. That is incredibly wonderful, as that has allowed yours truly to join the fray.  However, anyone and everyone is now an author.  Avenues for entry are… crowded.  There are a million voices attempting to serenade readers at once. Which means hardly anyone actually gets serenaded, and mostly it sounds like the deranged wailing of banshee.

• Related to the first point, but still quite separate:  Getting a contract in this environment is nigh impossible if you are just starting out.  Publishing is more and more a business.  Businesses find risk abhorrent.  An unknown author, with an unproven script, and a non-existent audience is the very definition of risk.  I’m not a transcendent author.  I don’t have a ‘Sorcerer’s Stone’ locked within me.  I just don’t.  After a few years, I might be able to dig one out, but I’m coming at this with 95% desire and effort, and 5% talent.  I’ll make it, but it won’t be because of any individual prowess.  This means it is up to me to grow a readership . I’m trying, desperately, to do that very thing.  It’s a long, hard slog.  There’s hardly ever any measurable progress, and when release after release goes completely and totally unread, it’s kind of a huge downer.  Why should I keep trying when zero people notice?  Why motivate myself to continue seeking new avenues for readers when the ones I’ve used so far have turned up nothing?  I continue to reach, but it has required a lot of tears and a lot of compensatory whiskey.  Not fun times.  

That’s really all I wanted to do today.  I’ve loved this journey, and I honestly can’t imagine doing anything else.  I’ve impressed people who are hardly ever impressed by anything, and who have degrees in English and hundreds of books under their belts.  I can do this, and I can do it successfully.  Like everything worth doing, however, it is hardly ever easy.  

Through it all, I cannot thank you enough for following along.  Seeing people consistently show up to the blog has meant the world at times where I do not see any gains in other locations.  Stay with me everyone, we’ve got wonderful places to go together.