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Things That Surprised Me So Far

I've only been a published author for the better part of a year now. I am by no means saying that I'm successful, that I'm doing anything right, or that I've been doing exemplary research on what the typical author's experience is. All I'm saying is that the following things have surprised me. -The friends who will support you! (I probably mentioned this a couple times, but seriously, I'm still grateful for the friends who want to buy my book. It helps my salty heart realize that they probably do care.) -The people who want to support a local author. I recently did a book signing in my home town. A surprising number of people showed up specifically because they "wanted to support a local author." We can complain about people's taste in books, but at least they're still reading.

-The number of marketing companies that want writers to "craft a narrative." I've been looking to expand my experience and portfolio by looking for more writing jobs. Most of the job opportunities I'll see are ad companies that need someone to write their campaigns for them. Honestly, I'm a little disheartened by this. It makes me worried that good stories aren't being written because the market doesn't want good stories, they want glib ads. (Or maybe this is just me being an old man yelling out clouds.) Furthermore, the feral socialist in me thinks that the company owners should make their money honestly by crafting the narratives themselves.

-The Romance/Erotica demand. I wish I were joking. The next largest category of job opportunities I see looking for writers is romance novels. Inevitably, they also warn that they want "steamy" scenes. I'm not trying to sound like a prude, but I was under the impression that the internet is chock full of free steamy writings. This is probably another case of me being an old man yelling at clouds.

I'll probably write more later, but I wanted to put these thoughts down so that at least a few people may get a laugh out of it. And also point out to me how young and naive I am. Well, that's my writing journey so far. I'm curious what other interesting sights I'll see, even if they're the leavings I've stepped in.

#my writing #authors #writers #I need an adult

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How I Learned to Love Editing/Book Review!

One of the most unexpected results of my journey to becoming a published author was learning to love the second draft. Yes, I was one of those people who felt as though I had to get it right, or at least 99.5% right, on the first go. The second draft was supposed to be the coat of polish to fix it and the effort required would be just as shallow. 

I’ll be honest; a lot of it was ego-driven. I wanted my beta readers to be impressed with the first draft, so impressed that revising wouldn’t be necessary. Sentence after painstaking sentence, paragraph by paragraph, I labored to make that first draft as pristine as possible. 

I think it was the myriad of revisions prior to publishing that broke me of that assumption. I am not exaggerating when I say I cannot recall how many times I went over my novel in the revision process. On the second go around, I had to further flesh out a supporting character that somehow gained more prominence as the plot continued. I also had to hammer in a paragraph here and there to deal with the concerns the beta readers had. The next couple of revisions were to fix the mistakes that I saw. And then the ones I missed after that. 

Then, I had it sent to the editor. I swore that after they did their work, I wasn’t going to look at my manuscript again. I was sick of it. It was a labor of love for years. I remember being proud when the initial feedback I got on it was better than I could have hoped for. However, I had re-read it so many times I was nauseated by it. Eat your favorite food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and see how long it remains your favorite. 

Somewhere in that wild fever dream of red marks and re-chiseling word aggregate, I found myself enjoying the process of refining the very rough first draft. It was sick by the end of it, of course, but that was well past the second draft mark. 

For me personally, the first draft is where I go through the process of setting up the scene and trying to make it at least somewhere coherent. On the second go around, I have an easier time refining the coherency and a better mental image of what else needs to be written. “Missing pieces” are easier to spot, and I think I enjoy putting in clarifying paragraphs more than I enjoy deleting needless script. 

So, all that to say this: don’t fear the second draft. Don’t try to make the perfect first draft. Word vomit on the page and then clean that mess up later. It easier once you have the framework to work with. 

And here’s a quick book review on Justice in Blue and Gray by Stephen C. Neff. I recommend it for the history and law nerds and armchair American Civil War historians. It’s a fascinating piece of non-fiction, and I was surprised to find how much legal ground was laid down during that conflict that still affects us today. However, since I prefer history more, I felt a bit like the nerd sitting at the wrong fandom table at times when it leaned more heavily on legal theory. 

#my writing #authors #stories #writers #history #book review #American Civil War #Stephen C Neff #nerds #law #editing

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Might I suggest the Grumpy Good? I'm going to do the right thing but I'm going to complain about it the whole time, and only so that you guys will get off my back about this whole "end of the world" thing.

Rarer D&D alignments

Bastard Good: You make the world better for people but in a really obnoxious way so everyone low-key hates you for it

Chaotic Dead: You set yourself on fire at the start of each session

Informed Evil: you’re wearing a red cape and cackling so we kind of assume you’ve probably done some bad things off screen, right?

Lawful Pointless: You follow the rules of chess in every situation you find yourself in.

False Neutral: HAHA FOOLS! I WAS NO DRUID! I WAS A PALADIN ALL ALONG!

Lawful Anxious: You follow very strict laws but you don’t know what those laws are or if you’re breaking them.

Personal Evil: rather then making things worse for sapient life, you work to make things worse for Steve specifically. Everyone else is fine.

Centrist Neutral: “I don’t support The Chained God Tharizdun breaking free and unmaking all reality but if we stop him through force we’re just as bad as he is. Did you know there’s actually zero difference between good and bad things?”

Sponsored Good: You provide justice, compassion and the great taste of subways sandwiches! Put in the code SMITETHESINNERS when ordering online for 20% off!

Sexy Lawful: You follow very strict rules but in such a way we kind of suspect you’re getting off on it.

Chaotic Incidental: You act completely randomly but by sheer chance your actions turn out identical to if you followed very strict rules.

Theoretical Good: You want to do good things to help the world and once you stop binging Netflix you’re absolutely going to.

Ugly Neutral: None of the other alignments want to hang out with you so you’re neutral by default

Chaotic Meta: You pointedly refuse to follow the rules of the game you’re playing.

Thirsty Evil: Look, orcs are hot, ok?

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Destructive Narratives

Earlier on, I mentioned that I believe there are destructive stories. They are destructive because they cause harm, or otherwise impede individuals from pursuing good. These are stories that go beyond merely being “bad.” 

People will complain about a book, movie, series, or what-have-you and say they didn’t like the narrative. “It was bad,” they’ll say. This is a phrase that can cover a multitude of (mostly) venial sins. Often, this will mean that they found the writing or story-telling as lacking, poorly put-together, or improperly executed. Perhaps there were plot holes or narrative threads that weren’t tied up. The story probably contradicted itself. There are a number of ways a story can fail on a technical level. People can also dislike stories because they fail on a subjective level. I purchased the book Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa with the implicit expectation that there would be lots of sword fighting. There was some sword fighting, but nearly not as much as I thought there would be. I was disappointed. (It’s still a good book, and you should check it out. Just don’t expect a lot of sword fighting.) 

There are many, many, reasons someone may be disappointed in a book. Plenty of those reasons can be subjective. However, while a story may be deficient or disappointing, that doesn’t necessarily mean they cause harm. 

Harmful stories rob us, our societies, and the world we live in. They not only steal hope and joy from our lives, they give us only cynicism and bile in its place. Destructive narratives divide us from our true selves, our best selves, and us from our communities, if not setting whole societies against each other. 

I don’t believe this is an empty superlative claim. How many people struggle with an internal monologue telling them that they can’t? That they simply can’t. That they’re the worst, that the world is out to get them, that they’re worthless, and that the world wouldn’t miss their passing? We dismiss claims as “clickbaity” and yet wade through a river of the madness. And why are they exaggerated? For something as vulgar as lucre. 

We need to have more sophisticated discussions about narratives. There are myriads of reasons for us to be dissatisfied with the stories we are presented by the media. However, we need to better identify when we are being sold destructive stories and confront them better. 

#authors #writers #stories #bad stories #destructive behavior #musashi #eiji yoshikawa

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Book Reviews: Patron Saints and Manila Noir

I thought long and hard about the entry I wanted to make this week. As it so happens, I need to do more thinking. That being said, here’s a review on two books I completed within the last week. They are Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay and Manila Noir, which is a collection of short stories. 

So, massive disclaimer here; I have relatives from the Philippines. I was born there. Large sections of my book Ritual: Rivets and Runes was inspired by the stories my family told me of the place and my limited experiences there. This probably means I read these books with rose tinted glasses but that being said, you should still read them.

Both of these stories take place in the Philippines, and while they are works of fiction, they reference real life events, places, and cultural norms. Off the bat, I’ll say this: I immensely enjoyed these books, even if Manila Noir showed me that Noir is probably not the genre for me. I’ll have to give it another go with a different Noir book. 

Both books are relatively short, which can be both a pro and a con. They are also accessible to a general audience. Knowing Tagalog and the multi-faceted culture of the island nation will definitely help you as a reader, but it isn’t necessary. (Besides, there’s always the tome of “Google.”) 

There are definitely uncomfortable themes in both stories, although Patron Saints is more friendly towards more mature children in handling these topics. (I’ll be honest, is there such a thing as “Noir for children?” I haven’t read a Noir book before this one.) However, there is a delightful, if gritty, graphic short story in Manila Noir which was definitely my favorite of the whole collection. 

I will also recommend Patron Saints of Nothing for those readers who may have been born in one country but grew up in another without ever really getting to know the place where you were born. In my experience, this can give you a whole bunch of conflicting emotions and Randy Ribay was able to put in prose those emotions I’ve always had but could never voice. It was beautiful. 

So, if you’re looking go to the tropics but for a fraction of the price, pick up either book (but really, you should get both) and enjoy. It is highly recommended that you have a cat to nap with you as you read as that’s definitely part of the Philippines experience. At least, that’s how I remember it.

#philippines #Noir #bookworm #book recommendations #randy ribay #short stories #Manila #Ritual #Rivets #Rivets and Runes #my writing #authors

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Life Giving Stories

A few months ago, I read The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. It was amazing, it blew my mind, and left me feeling philosophical. Or perhaps existential. And, if I’m honest, I couldn’t tell you a single thing I learned, even though I feel like I learned a lot. 

There’s a line in American Gods by Neil Gaiman where a character says that his tales are “imaginative re-creations, truer than the truth.” 

I tripped so hard when I first read that line. Tales truer than the truth? I was still deep in my days when the only truth I wanted to put any stock in was in things that could be measured and quantified with tools. It wasn’t until I read a line in a fiction book that I realized not everything I valued could be analyzed in a centrifuge. 

“Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape…Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy.” 

(That’s from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather. Yes, I recommend reading it if you haven’t. Go, go, go, go!) 

It took me a while to realize that I had forgotten something from my old theology class; some things aren’t the truth in and of themselves. They point to the truth instead.

I’ve come to believe that that’s what we appreciate and enjoy in stories, it’s what makes them life-giving. It’s why we tell them over and over. They either hold up an example of something we should revile and conquer or something that is “truer than the truth.” We tell ourselves these stories about truth, friendship, justice, triumph, hope, love, redemption, renewal, and all the wonderful things we love to love because some days our lives do not look like that. Sometimes, those days stretch on for whole seasons, and we may find ourselves going, “I don’t feel like the hero now, I haven’t felt like the hero in so long I don’t remember what it feels like. But I know how good stories end, and I want a good ending for this story. I need a good ending for this story.” 

Let me tell you another nerd story from life because I’ve already made a fool of myself, so why not go the whole way? This could sound odd, I know I feel odd admitting it, but the game Dark Souls had an enormous, positive influence on my life. 

I’ll try to summarize the game real quick for those not in the know: your character must take a journey through many treacherous lands without ever really knowing why you’re doing it. There are towering monsters in you’re way, and rest assured, you’re going to die over and over again trying to beat them. Maybe you’ll get lucky, and some helpful, sunny fellows will come to your aid, but for the most part, this is a journey that you’ll have to take on your own. The journey will feel long, grinding even, but every step forward, every foe vanquished, and every victory won makes it worth it. 

So, why was this dork game such a positive influence on me? It taught me to be resilient. No, seriously. I made it, one death at a time, through such horrible places as the Undead Burg, the Depths, aptly named Blighttown, the Catacombs, and all the way to the end at the Kiln. If I made it through all of that, well, maybe I should give it a go with whatever new challenge I was facing in life. I might get knocked flat on my face twenty times, but why not go for a twenty-first? I can honestly say that it’s what gave me the attitude to confront my depression head-on when I realized it was destroying my life. There was a time that I nearly gave up on my manuscript. I remember my finger hovering over that delete button, but I didn’t have the heart to do it, and I walked away. A couple of days later, that Dark Souls gremlin was prodding me like the heat of a determined sun-bro, encouraging me to “get up and  give it one more go.” 

Thank God for that Dark Souls gremlin. It took ten years, but my book being published made it worth it in the end. 

If there’s anything I hope you take away from this post, it is this: whatever it is you’re facing, whatever it is that you feel hung up on, give it one more go. Be smart about it, find a different strategy to attack it with even, but give it one more go. Life-giving stories start out as myths, and they find their apotheosis when we recreate them in our lives. When we are inspired to overcome our difficulties, to see our dreams made true, to live compassionately, generously, and make the world a better place, we touch the magic of timeless stories and show how they can be truer than truth. 

(The Dark Souls community is (in)famous for its terse motto of “Git gud.” There’s an argument to be made that could apply to anything in life that you’re passionate about. Writing included.) 

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#my writing #terry pratchett #neil gaiman #dark souls #praise the sun #stories #life giving stories

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I very much appreciate the follow. Thank you very much.

You're welcome! I'm new to this and trying to make it out here in the virtual world, and I figure a lot of us are trying to do the same. Every follow helps, right?

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Do I count? I'm working on becoming one!

Book blogs would you please reblog so that I can follow you; I need more book blogs in my life. ❤️

#book blog #i'm trying #goals

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My Writing Journey

Late last year, I published my first book. Just recently, looking through my old documents, I have reason to believe that I wrote, scrapped, re-wrote, edited, and put literal sweat and tears into that book for ten years. I didn’t go to school to write, something I’m oddly self-conscious about. I still struggle to see myself as an “author.” However, I had a lot of help. I was blessed with a community of long-suffering victims willing to read, give feedback, and enjoy the manuscript. Happily, there was even a willing soul trained to edit the poor thing when it was done. 

So why did I write it? I enjoy books. (My wife can confirm this is an understatement.) I enjoy listening to and reading stories. Fiction or non-fiction, stories are amazing. With non-fiction stories, it’s important how you construct the narrative and the implied moral that often goes with it. With fiction, in my opinion, the storyteller has an even heavier burden. The details are there for you to make up, as are the purpose, the voice, and the point you’re trying to make. I struggle to believe that there are pointless stories. There may be stories out there strictly meant to entertain, even if they’re the literary equivalent of a fart joke, but at least they’re amusing if you’re into that sort of thing. However, there are damaging stories out there, and, in my opinion, there are far too many of them. 

I used to scoff at the idea that stories could be important. I could point out where I heard anthropologists and historians saying that cultures throughout the ages constructed myths to make sense of themselves and the world around them, but I could not understand why that was important. They didn’t have the scientific method or the standards we have for recording history like we have today, so they resorted to the next best thing they had: making stuff up. Modern man, I believed at the time, didn’t make stuff up. There would be a reckoning. Liars would be called out. This was prior to the year of our Lord 2016. I’ve grown a lot since then. A crucial point in that growth was that one day, I realized my life very much resembled the first line of the Inferno. “I found myself within a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that does not stray.” 

Or, less dramatically, I was dissatisfied with my life, and my depression had reached the point that the check engine light in my head was doing a scary blinking choreography. Now, the story about how I learned to take care of my mental health is its own tale, but to summarize it very quickly, I was telling myself the wrong stories. The internal monologue in my head was damaging me and everyone around me because, at that point, my inner storyteller was a toxic geyser perceiving the world wrong and interpreting it through a lens that was just as cracked. 

(I feel the need to put this disclaimer here: if you’re struggling emotionally or mentally, please find help from your support group and a professional. You’re worth it, but one guy on the Internet telling you to tell better stories about yourself isn’t a treatment, it’s merely an encouragement.)

I’m not suggesting we throw empirical data to the four winds and shut our minds to it. Our world is a much better place because people do the science, run the experiments, and repeat until we better understand our world. However, I know I’m foolish enough to be an unreliable narrator for my own life, and I’m not convinced enough people are. I firmly believe that, in some ways, all of us are still just cave people flailing about in the 21st-century fire we stole from the gods. We’re telling ourselves and those around us stories about our reality. All the while, we’re not thinking about the damage, or life, they bring. 

One of the best tools I learned on my mental health journey was the importance of getting new perspectives, challenging my own (usually flawed) assumptions, and re-framing conundrums. Now, I did hate how in one job I worked, corporate tried to re-frame “problems” as “opportunities,” but they weren’t entirely wrong. (Their major malfunction was ignoring the opportunity to take better care of their workers in a soul-crushing industry) Problems can indeed be challenging, but I fear we turn too many into roadblocks. We do not re-frame them into issues that can be solved. We do not let ourselves imagine tales where these giants are felled and, in turn, deprive ourselves of a better world. 

For ten years, I let myself imagine that maybe, just maybe, I could be an author with a book out in the world. Now, I’m letting myself play with that new-fangled thing of getting people excited about it and experiencing the joy of people telling me that, indeed, they did enjoy it. I’m enjoying the work and pain of writing a new draft and hoping that it, too, will be out in the world in the near future. I’m hoping that I can put some life-giving stories into the world, and it will inspire others to do the same. Most people will experience the dark forest, their lives having gone astray. My hope is that they will remember the good stories, the good narratives and that those will be a lantern to help them find their way back out. We do ourselves a disservice by filling our world and our souls with darkness when light can still be found in creation, our fellow men, and ourselves. 

#my writing #mental health #bookworm #dante's inferno #my book