Leaving a Mark In the Final Days

"Knife of Dreams" by Greg Ruth (gregthings.com)

Spoiler alert! More excuses following.

So life happened...again. Since my previous blog I've been on a week long trip to Universal Florida for my son's birthday, celebrated my 10th anniversary with my wife in the Carribean, been for my birthday to Williamsburg and switched from consulting (for the last 9 years) to a full-time graphic designer position with a startup company in Raleigh. But it's not all good news. My father also passed away at the beginning of September. He was 75 years and passed away in his sleep due to a heart attack.

So where does that leave me with writing? Honestly? In a not so good place. I've been struggling for the last few months with a particular involved piece of rewriting. Whereas I was redrafting before, at most adding, rewriting or omitting small sections of my almost finished novel, I always knew I was going to have to do major work at this part of the process. So far draft 4 of Aelemental was about bringing the book to one cohesive read. Separating action and emotion so it didn't feel like every single chapter was trying to emphasize both, smoothing out Simon's character building, so he wasn't an ADD patient on a sugar rush all the time, but also omitting a slew of secondary characters who quite frankly were slowing down the plot. So where the first three parts of the book involved only minor edits (but still a complete syntax and semantic check), the fourth part was where most of the plot, characters and mythology really didn't gel. That's when I decided to rewrite the whole part.

That took me several months, with many interruptions for work, side projects, household duties and a long (and admittedly fun) summer.

Now comes the final fifth part. I've wrapped up pretty much everything I wanted to say. Foreshadowing and hints of things to come are in place and loose plot threads and character conflicts are all neatly resolved and all I have to do is bring the climatic battle to a satisfying payoff...again.

Still, I have my fears. What if I publish it digitally and I can't find the time to advertise it well? Will I still be able to market it to publishers/agents? I still need to do the illustrations and the front and back cover. And winter is coming, which means more holidays, more time on the road commuting to and back from work and a looming flu season.

My dad wanted to become a writer when he retired. He was a chef all his life and only got so far as to self-publish a dozen cooking books on Vancouver Island, driving from inn to store and stocking new copies wherever he managed to sell a few. He didn't get very far, despite his great drive. So he decided to write fiction and find a publisher for that. He never made it. I don't want to become like that. I don't want to leave a legacy of a great ecological fable unfinished except for an unpublished digital manuscript, four more plotted books and a wall full of notes. I'm already 43 and I was 35 when I came up with the story.

Although I can't give up my day job, and I'm also not willing to give up every spare piece of time to force-write, I will diligently and patiently continue plowing on until I deliver a 95% great young adult novel. Anything more will go unnoticed anyway and result in a greater amount of hours second-guessing myself and not shipping. This story must stand or fall on its own merits and I will let go of it with the confidence that I gave it my best shot.