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.

A Wild Start

The Wild Hunt is on. It's the start of a new year and with it comes a fresh mentality. The Wild Hunt refers to the mythological concept of magical huntsmen unleashing chaos while chasing some boon or another. To me it means a wild abandon of the conventional ways as 2011 will become the year in which I reinvent my ways. The portents are present. According to Chinese astrology this is the year of the Rabbit and by being a 'Metal Pig' myself I am destined for great things - if I work on making them happen - which I will.

While I hunt for a new purpose in the computer world (and no, nothing like Tron: Legacy might suggest) I will continue to put the emphasis on creativity. In my work this not just means finding freelance work to support me and my family financially. I will be reaching out to my local community via a pro bono 'free expert for a day' project in which I hope to garner some word-of-mouth advertising. I call this my 'i2u' initiative (look for it soon on www.marcelclaxton.com/i2u).

While I hunt for an agent brave enough to tackle the next step in young adult fiction, I'll continue plotting book 2 of the Aelemental series. Ideas that don't fit within the series will find reality on my computer in the dark hours before hitting the sack. One of the ideas I have follows from that feeling everyone has when they wander through a bookstore and sees titles which boggle the rational mind (how is it possible THAT was published). We've all had that feeling, usually followed by a notion of 'Well, if they can write a book, then certainly I can.' So, that's exactly what the book will be about: an experiment to get a book about nothing and everything written in record time, published in even less time thereafter and on your e-reader before you know it. It's all doable in on the Internet nowadays.

I have several odd projects on the side, which I will indulge in (rebuilding a rickshaw from scratch, painting a series of paintings representing the Aelemental books, the Sesame Trail maps for young explorers, three different and distinct children's series involving alternate reality Earth settings), but they will have to wait until I get concrete results from Aelemental and IT work first. There is always room for dreams, but they need to be balanced with actual real life results. But the hunt is on...and all the muses are unleashed.

Happy New Year.

Done.

It is done. Finished. Wrapped up and sent away. Aelemental Book 1: The Tree of Life is now being sent around to agents in London and New York. There are some really interesting men and women in the field out there, who are looking for exactly the kind of material I'm offering. This is my general pitch:

Synopsis -  The Tree of Life (Aelemental Book 1)

The novel is intended for young adults (age 9+) and is a fairy tale fantasy about a thirteen-year old boy, Simon Spangenberg, who armed with a mysterious artifact must follow a trail through mythical forests, filled with wonder and danger, while being hunted by a vicious corporate villain, in order to rescue his kidnapped sister Sally.

Regarding the Aelemental series.

The story is the first part of a larger storyline, which spans both fantasy sub-genres and global continents using symbolic themes as metaphors for current environmental and societal issues. Each book in the five-part series then brings these grand concepts to a personal level to challenge the characters to grow and empower themselves in ways that will speak to young and older readers alike.

Ultimately it's a story about an everyday brother and sister, who struggle with their new roles in restoring balance to the world while facing up to their own personal demons.

I have a good feeling about this. There are not only a lot of agents out there - I have done my research - there are really good ones out there as well. And they're accessible. I've found great agent-searching advice (http://caseylmccormick.blogspot.com/) and resources (http://firstwriter.com/), but there comes a point where you just have to dive in and hope for the best. So that's what I've done these last two weeks. Of course I'm also still polishing the final version (draft 4) of the book. I've done away with a whopping 100.000 words (basically a novel in its own right, just not a very good one), but there are still a few thousand words left that have to omitted to reach that magical 100K barrier. Ach, it will give me something to do on my 25 hour flight to Chicago today.

Yes, the bags are packed, Alex is bundled up in his winter coat and I've got enough Simpsons episodes on my iPod to last me until Istanbul (sorry, I love reading, but handling a 5-year old as well as an already tired wife coming home from a workweek in Africa, leaves me with no way to actually enjoy a good read while flying). I'll also be doodling some artwork I'd like to see in the book (is Chris Bachalo available by any chance?). I already designed a cover, but of course in the end that kind of stuff is all up to the publisher, right? Anyway, time to enjoy some snow, hot cocoa and the lovely company of my wife, son and family in law.

Happy holidays everyone! Catch you in 2011. 

The End is So Near...

Four days to go (where has the time gone?) and I'm down to the final two chapters on my third draft.I've cut a mighty 83.000 words and am now reaching my desired 120.000. That means basically that I still need to shave off 20.000 words for it to be considered 'publishable'. Still, I have good hopes for the magic threshold of acceptance (that 100K) as well as a good starting point for a professional editor to dig into. I found that that the cuts I've made so far truly were for 80% superfluous crap; stuff I could have reworded differently from the start (how much we learn...) or events, characters and dialog that simply didn't add anything. One of my favorite writing mistakes was: 'Simon started to ...' whereas really I should just say 'Simon '. Another favorite was including words like 'basically/in fact/suddenly/really and now' where I could easily leave them out and just come to the point. The other 20% is useful material I might use in future books.


In this way, editing has taught me how to also be more concise when I talk to people. I now come more directly to the point, where formerly I would try to include every possible safeguard to a misunderstanding. If this book never gets published (in a traditional manner, because I'll otherwise publish it myself for an e-reader audience) then at least I can say I really enjoyed the whole process. I learned so much about myself and how to communicate simply by plotting, writing and editing for five years consistently. In fact, I'm half a mind to list the year of 'non-IT-work' as 'Communication Enhancement Training'. Heh, heh - that's a little nugget I picked up by the way from Zuul, the main villain in the book, who after a lifetime of being a CEO has a speech impediment: he is incapable of talking in anything else than business lingo.


And that brings me to this: I have contacted a nice number of agents in the field and have listed this blog as a reference (my only 'published' experience in writing). I've explained before and to my friends and family that the way I talk in this blog does not reflect my fiction style in the book. I realize I do have a tendency in choosing rare words over simple ones when I'm blogging and I'm sure it has to do with the fact that this blog really is my online therapy. It's my valve for releasing my brain farts while I write Simon & Sally. I guess the only reason I can give for it is that I don't really have anyone socially to talk philosophy with (and the book is obviously not an appropriate forum either). So this blog remains really for me, while the book is for all those kids (big and small) in the world who enjoy a good story.


Finally, I'll be off for Christmas to the States to celebrate the cozy times (and snow!) with loved ones. When I come back I'm going to start looking for IT work again, while the book is being shopped around for enthusiastic representation.  I'll keep you up to date on that progress - and the evening work on Book 2, which I'm eager to start plotting.


Happy Holidays everyone!