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.

Parked and Tuning Up

Flights to and back from America are horrendous. I'd like to say that we had nice service on this 23 hour journey, but the fact is nowadays if you travel with the cheapest flights available you end up paying for it on the flight itself. Take United for instance. I used to have a high opinion of them when I traveled between Amsterdam and Washington D.C. or Chicago, but that was 10 years ago. Now the flights between Bangkok and Narita and Narita and Chicago are a shame on airlines everywhere. A single screen for the sardines in economy (if it's working in the first place) counts for entertainment if you can stand the censorship they commit. Not that Alex could even see anything potentially traumatizing: he sits too low in his seat to see anything past the seat in front of him. Luckily they fling enough drinks at you during the flights, but maybe that's because you otherwise can't swallow the poor excuse for food they serve (Seriously? Instant noodles? What are we, students?)

So that's the flying part. Next up: customs and immigration. If you're lucky you get to the humiliating cattle-prodding before you leave foreign soil as America now has official territory to call its own in many foreign countries at airports worldwide. Can you imagine if Germany, Canada or even Saudi Arabia demanded a piece of O'Hare airport to call their own if you wanted to fly to their countries? There would be an outrage, a revolt. Anyway, never my favorite excuse for ego-boosting exercises in police state paranoia, immigration gracefully left me alone this time (and the computers weren't even down). I bet blogs like these don't help the cause, but even before that the simple fact that I came from Holland and had visited Egypt, Eritrea and other suspect countries always made me a red flag suspect. When I got my Green Card it only became worse as I didn't fit the cookie-cut mold of a immigrant willing to please Uncle Sam at it's every whim. But there is light at the end of the tunnel or should I say an Obama at the end of a Bush. They seem to be a tad more relaxed since 2009.

Now, I get to enjoy the truly beautiful of America. No, no, not the shameless buying at Walmart and eating warmed up frozen dishes at Applebees. I used to do that, but I enjoy a more global education now and tend to avoid the pitfalls of FalseTrade products and health endangering foods. No, I mean that on which the corporatocracy cannot put a price. Fresh air. Wide spaces. Sidewalks. Green springtime lawns and blossom heavy trees. Silence. Nancy's mom lives in the suburbs of Chicago, but even there it is a blissful paradise of quiet, green, clean greenery with silent monoliths of houses, driveways and the occasional car lazily cruising along the wide street. Compared to noisy, stinky, crowded Bangkok (which is not doing so well this week) where you're always fighting with cars, street vendors and rat covered garbage for a place to walk, being able to open your door to cool crisp clean air and a silence that makes your ears ring is pure....bliss.

Sure we'll have to fly back in two weeks. It doesn't last, but that's the beauty. A change of pace, setting and culture is exactly what the Muses need to replenish. So now a week in Chicagoland, another week in Florida and yet another up north in Wisconsin. That's vacation. It costs a lot, but it's worth it.