So, I’m not much of a coffee drinker. I like the smell and don’t mind the taste if I add some sugar, cream, or ice cream to it. Hot coffee has this habit of making me drowsy though, so I don’t go near it. For all normal people, it’s a beloved drink that they need in the more to start their day. So, this holiday is all for you!
You know what’s more frustrating than not even being able to touch your manuscript for editing? It’s carrying part of it around with the expectation of getting some editing time, but it NEVER HAPPENING. Seriously, the only reason I can say that I touched Darwin & the Demon Game is because I literally held it in my hands at several points. Didn’t get to go beyond that due to exhaustion, evening events, and the continued barrage of appointments that aren’t for me. It’s reaching a point where I can barely get the 7 hours of sleep I need to get 100 on my CPAP rating.
One would think that I could edit all weekend since I don’t have my son. NOPE! A family event is going on tomorrow, which was originally going to be here and now it’s somewhere else. The timing of it carves the entire middle of the day out and nobody can tell me when we’ll get home. Maybe I can edit before we leave, but I’m more inclined to get out of the house for 30 minutes of Pokemon Go just to have some solitude before everything else happens. Not like work is crazy busy and stressful, so I would need a weekend to rest up or relax.
At least I get today, right? I now have to cram in editing, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, exercise (Pokemon Go outing, but it’s cardio), preparing lunches, and making dinner for myself. I stayed up late to do laundry last night, but I still have to cram everything into one day instead of getting two. I wouldn’t have minded this if it wasn’t sprung on me yesterday. That could have resulted in me doing all the chores throughout the week. Now, it’s looking like I’m going to be having another 2 weeks before I can dig into Darwin & the Demon Game. Maybe I can get a chapter done, but this limping along with blips of activity is getting bad.
My worry is that this will continue after I’m done editing, which means I’ll have to try writing with this amount of mayhem. I don’t think I can do it. Writing a few sections with 2-3 weeks of nothing in-between? I’d have to waste so much time revisiting what I did that I’ll have only one weekend day to write. That’s if the people around me don’t decide to set up appointments, gatherings, or whatever that I’m obligated to go to. No wonder there are so many authors who become hermits. It’s probably the only way to consistently get work if people won’t let you get any time. Me never selling a book doesn’t help since it means I can’t say I’m working. Hobbies aren’t important when you’re expected to be at the beck and call of others. Nobody should wonder why I suffer from anxiety and probably depression since this is my life.
As you can tell, the frustration of not being able to even edit a page for about two weeks is getting to me. Next week might give me Thursday evening, but I can’t guarantee it. On the plus side, the reason I won’t have much time is because I get my son for Rosh Hashanah and next weekend. The weekend after that is Yom Kippur and Columbus Day weekend, so I can get that Sunday and Monday. Honestly, the next chunk of time that I’ll be able to edit a lot will be . . . December. It’s those long breaks that are going to be where I write, which is adding to my frustration.
I’d like another Oswego trip for writing, but I can’t do that until the spring when I should have some time. I hope to buy a new laptop that I can close and take with me in November, which should make it easier. Though, I’m still thinking about making an Oswego or similar trip solely for editing or notebook work. I’ll be more relaxed and my imagination can solve problems of unfinished plans instead of following my outline with constant deviations. Probably another thing I have to consider, which won’t come to fruition until I’m too old to travel. My 40’s are really becoming an immense waste in turns of being an author, which is why I keep feeling like it’s back to hobby status. At least in the eyes of those around me.
Nothing I can talk about happened this week, so it’s just a rant. Spent the days with my students and the usual. Had a ‘Meet the Teacher’ night where I was on the teacher side of things. Other evenings were either with my son or coming back from an appointment then fresh air to watch some ‘Suicide Squad Isekai’ until I passed out. If I get home and settle around 8:30 PM then it isn’t worth editing because I’m crawling into bed within an hour or so. So, my evenings are shot if I have anything other than work that day. That never happens because of the appointments.
As I said, next week is Rosh Hashanah, which starts Wednesday evening. So, I only have 3 days of work. I’ll have my son for the holiday and weekend. We have a movie planned for our time along with Pokemon Go, father/son Super Smash, and maybe an outing. There is a chance that he will want to work on his art, which would give me editing time. We’ll see what happens since he prefers to spend time with me when he’s here because we don’t get as much time with each other as before. Then again, we’re supposed to have really good weather when he’s with me, so we should take advantage of that. Tried editing in the park, but the wind made a mess and I lost a page to a pile of horse droppings. So, I won’t be trying that again.
Goals of the week:
Try to edit at least one chapter of Darwin & the Demon Game.
Time with son after weekend.
Vacuum
Clean bathroom
Sleep
Work on December blog posts if time doesn’t permit editing
Pokemon Go for exercise, fresh air, and solitude
Pizza for dinner tonight
Figure out who the fuck decided to curse me, so that I never get a moments peace to relax unless I’m already exhausted . . . I have no hopes for this one.
Here we are at the final type of story and it’s one that can give an author a massive headache. Not in the moment, but after the story is written, published, and absorbed by readers. I’m talking about ‘Right vs Wrong’, which creates stories about temptation, good/evil, and morality.
We always think that this is an easy story to write because who can argue with right and wrong. Killing somebody is wrong. Saving someone is right. Fairly simple and universal concepts, which every reader can connect to. Definitely no gray area like if you kill someone who has been murdering others. Nobody would dare to think that’s a good thing since killing is ALWAYS wrong. That’s enough sarcasm since I’m sure everyone gets my point.
Morality isn’t universal. Culture, experience, religion, mental state, and many other factors will mold a person’s sense of right and wrong. Even the big crimes we know are wrong aren’t always treated that way. People have defended murderers and rapists if they feel there was a bizarre moral high ground. That’s because something influences their sense of right and wrong to the point where justification is created. Other people won’t agree or even be disgusted by the mentality, but this is the human race. We aren’t a hive mind. More of a pack mentality where people will fall in line behind someone else to adopt their morality. No wonder cults are so common throughout our history.
Getting back to writing for those who haven’t rushed off to the comments to talk about the real world, the grayness of morality is a challenge. ‘Right vs wrong’ stories tend to involve someone being tempted to make a wrong decision. An author would like to believe that all readers would know which is the ‘correct’ choice, but that’s not the case. You may always have a group of readers who think the wrong decision is the right one. Nothing you can do about it beyond accepting the fact.
Something you should never do is argue your moral code with your readers. Being a stranger to them, you aren’t going to convince them to change their ways. It’s more than likely that they are surrounded by people who share their views, so they will always have more support for their stance. This doesn’t mean you have to agree with them or change your own ways. Just that there really isn’t any point in confrontation, especially over a fictional conflict. You know where you stand and remaining by your morality is more important than changing strangers on the Internet.
I’ve used ‘right vs wrong’ in my stories a lot. Heroes have to make big decisions and their morality is traditionally supposed to stay strong. I like having them waver a bit as they grow, but I still skew towards traditional ‘good/evil’ things. This is where I run into issues with some readers. For example, one of my stories had a hero meeting an arrogant lover of his girlfriend. It was a cultural open relationship thing, which the hero agreed to since he would be traveling. (Horrible sum up of what was always designed to be a tragic relationship.) Anyway, I had several readers asking why the hero didn’t just kill the asshole lover who was goading him into a fight. When I pointed out that such an act would be murder even in a fantasy world, they claimed the hero was weak and the asshole deserved to die. This was such a shocking mentality for me to face since I would think the more heroic act is to not take the bait, kill a weaker opponent, and go to jail instead of finishing your quest. Yet, the morality of these readers allowed them to believe certain people were okay to kill for their general, non-violent behavior.
What do other people think of the ‘right vs wrong’ theme?
(This poem stemmed from a debate. A weird one too. I pointed out that songs can be seen as poetry with musical accompaniment while poetry is the opposite. The person said that isn’t always true because not all songs rhyme, but I think my point still stands.)
The great novel
Aspiration of my youth
My golden goal
For all these years
A want I never doubted
Until I woke at thirty
I have my plans
That I still hold very dear
Outlines and notes
Carefully constructed
Like children of my mind
That may never get to play
I stroke the bindings
Of my two ‘victories’
Both pushed to print
Which supporters call successes
Proud of my achievements
Yet I sense them lacking
The truth is harsh
I could not push
The way I needed to
My support faltered
Handing me chores
When I asked for more than words
Still there is the lacking
That both novels have at heart
I have been scared
To voice my thoughts
Going against my dream
A strange turn I did not see
I have a rhythm
That I keep raw
It comes out in the verse
And strangles in the prose
My poetry is a flow
That my prose can never match
So I wonder
If I have chosen poorly
That my true path
Was slightly to my right
Hidden by my pride
Upon writing a great novel
My characters have soared
Their adventures shined
Among my worlds of depth
Born anew
By a simple verse
Done with unsteady hands
So I stand
On an edge I fear
Because of time I wasted
To restart my mind
As a man of verse
And not a man of volume
Know the above quote for a fact, but we’re going to stick to fiction. ‘Maturity vs Immaturity’ is the tried and true ‘Coming of Age’ story. What can we really say about that theme?
First of all, this is a more challenging theme to work on than people may think. The issue is the audience. Many people mistake immaturity for stupidity, so they get upset about actions taken. Adult readers don’t always remember what they were like as teenagers, so they read the stories with their mature lens. Some also forget that maturity is the same across the board, so a character might be lacking in some areas. Personal experience and beliefs play a bigger role in this type of story than we would like to admit.
There isn’t a clear solution to this problem. The characters need to grow at a natural pace, but one that fits them and their situation. Readers might get halfway through and think maturity should have been reached. Gets even more difficult when you factor in that such things tend to be rollercoasters. Maturing isn’t just a straight path. We can all go backwards, so having that in a story makes the pacing much more difficult.
A key part of this theme is internal, personal growth. I think this makes it very different than the previous themes. All of those had either external conclusions (life, death, etc.) or viewable by the outside ones (accomplishment/failure). Maturity is all internal even if people are judging you for your actions. It’s how you feel and think as you gain experience and wisdom. This doesn’t mean you can handle every situation, but new ones create more growth. Maybe characters, like all people, never reach perfect maturity, but that’s not really what we’re here to talk about.
How do we show maturity though? An easy way is to have a character’s thoughts be shown in a story. I’m not a fan of that, so I go more with actions. Like in real life, we tend to judge a person’s maturity by how they speak and act. In a story, having them face similar decisions at the beginning and end can help. Choosing the immature option reveals where they are starting and making the mature decision later on tells you how far they have come as a person. This doesn’t mean the author or reader has to agree with what they are doing, but there will be a recognition of growth.
One thing I really like about the ‘maturity vs immaturity’ theme is that it can be as versatile as romance in terms of genre. You can fit it into nearly any story. Even better than romance, it doesn’t really take away because it’s a personal quest. A hero going on an adventure can have a coming of age story, which is nothing more than the trials and challenges they face. It would be the same with a mature character only without the same amount of growth. The point of the theme is growth on a personal level instead of anything external.
I would like to point out that you can fail in a ‘coming of age’ story. I’ve seen some people say that it 0nly counts if the person matures, but I think it still works if the character doesn’t grow. Failure should always be an option in a story, which would be nothing more than getting the bad ending. The character could lose those who care about them or whatever depended on them maturing. After all, we’ve seen these types of stories play out in real life too.
What do you think of ‘maturity vs immaturity’ stories?
Today, we’re going to revisit another setting from Charms of the Feykin. This was made up as I went along, so I was happy with the results. Though, the full results are in the ebook, which you can buy for $2.99.
Legends of Windemere 