2
Feb
How did I get here? Well, if you’ve read the interview with LMStull, you’ll know that I didn’t come to writing in the traditional way. I never wanted to be a writer. The thought hadn’t ever occurred to me, until that one summer’s morning when my Mum said I should give it a shot. That was seven years ago, that day when the two of us first drew the map of The Four Part Land.
The first five years, I was writing without much in the way of plans, or even progress. There was a brief burst of background creation that summer, but I didn’t do much in the way of actual storytelling. Then over the next year or so I slowly fleshed out the idea that would become Tarranau, and started writing the story. I wrote several version of the opening chapter, each one getting longer, until I had the version that became the first draft of the current novel.
During this time, I was also playing around with the idea of the magic in The Four Part Land, and in order to ensure that I could write it, and that it fit, I jotted down a pair of short stories, the first about an airmage, the second about an stonemage. That second one has become rather important, and given me a large pile of writing to do, which I’ll get to in a moment.
Now, at the time I was working a rather boring job, and writing a couple hours a day because of it. But all I had on my plate was Tarranau, and at the speed I wrote (at the time, slowly), I got rather fed up with just having one character that kept trudging on and on (it didn’t help the chapter I was writing at the time was bloated, and needed a severe cutdown in edits), and so, at the prodding of one of my friends, I opened up another word document and jotted down this “Chloddio’s hammer crashed against the shield of his instructor…”.
You see, my friend liked the character Chloddio from Caer Chan Carega, that stonemage short story from earlier. Liked him a lot more than Tarranau, in fact, and was always nagging me to write more about him. So, when I was a little burnt out on Tarranau, I did. I had no plan, no plot, nothing. What I ended up with about three years later was Chloddio, the first draft of a 106k word novel. Not quite what I was expecting that summer’s day at the office.
Now, you’re probably noticing there’s a rather massive time gap between when I started writing and now, and I still don’t have anything published. Well, there’s a good reason for that – I’d end up taking large breaks, often months in length, between finished chapters. And I’d also distract myself with short stories and other bits and pieces. And at the time, I hadn’t really wrapped my head around this whole idea of being a ‘writer’, as opposed to jotting down a neat story idea on the page.
Let me tell you right away those two things aren’t the same. Jotting down stories can be fun. Writing them ends up being work. It’s all the stuff you do after that first draft is jotted down. In the case of Tarranau, it’s been three editing passes, multiple beta readers, layout, copy editing, getting a cover, etc., etc. It’s a lot of work, and all of it has occurred since August 2009.
That month, I sat down with a single chapter to write to finish the book. And over the course of about ten days, I managed to knock it out. (Brief sidenote: my chapters average about 22.5k words). I went straight into editing, because it had been so long since I saw the first chapter it felt like it was someone else’s writing. That first pass only took a week, which wasn’t too bad given the first draft was 165k words long. A good chuck of which was unnecessary bloat.
Editing lets you tell the story you actually want to tell, not the story you put to page. They aren’t the same thing, unless you’re a truly brilliant writer. I’m not, and so there’s all these rough spots that needed smoothing down, places where the text bogged the story and needed a good case of liposuction treatment. Am I happy with the story where it is now? Of course I am, otherwise I wouldn’t be most of the way through publishing it myself. Would I have published it before I’d done all the editing work? Of course not. It wouldn’t be a book I’d want to read, and if I don’t want to read it while being strongly invested in the story, why would someone off the street want to touch it?
So, that leads me more or less to where I am today. There were a few more editing passes after August, a bunch of beta readers, having outsiders edit the book as well, and then the slightly dreary work of self-publishing. Self-publishing is the least fun part of the writing process in my eyes, even less than editing, because it’s not a creation process, it’s not carving a story from a lump of words, it’s poking a great internet beast until it notices you enough to stick a small cover icon in one of its hundred thousand window displays.
Was the journey worth it? Oh yes. Very much so. I’ve met a lot of great people, many of them through Twitter, and I’ve had an absolute blast writing down worlds that existed only in my head. There’s a real sense of accomplishment to writing “The End” to a story. And an even bigger one when you write “The End” to all the edits. That’s when you know you’ve really gone and done something. The comments from others often uplifting, but make sure that you’re writing for yourself, not for someone else. Storytelling should come from within. Otherwise it’s too easy to lose the thread and lose the desire. But if you’re writing for yourself and you’ve got the bit between your teeth, keep pulling until you reach a destination. It won’t be where you thought you’d end up, but it will have been an exciting journey. The joy of the surprise ending.
And one final thing – if you’re ever at a party and need something to talk about, just say you’re a writer.
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