I am on the home straight of the final draft, having sat on it for a month I have decided to expand some elements and develop certain characters. It is an interesting thing writing a novel, especially when self taught. You sort of fumble your way through the process and rely on instincts. While talking with and listening to other authors.
I am on the home straight of the final draft, having sat on it for a month I have decided to expand some elements and develop certain characters. It is an interesting thing writing a novel, especially when self taught. You sort of fumble your way through the process and rely on instincts. While talking with and listening to other authors.
It is one thing to sit outside of a process, being in the audience of a play or listening to a song but it is another to exist behind the curtain. The creative process, can be a series of sprints along with frustratingly long lulls of procrastination. Add in the fact that most writers work and lead lives outside of the keyboard. For me I feel that the various eclectic things that I do can be a blessing but also a curse. I can have those “aha” moments while performing a mundane task but I have also found that I can have a spurt of inspiration while far away from the writing platforms.
I don’t know if I am a very good writer. I suppose it is a subjective determination. I do however find that writing is my passion and in many ways, short of sounding pretentious, is something that I “have to do.” I feel this way with the fight training and certain codes of conduct, but writing feels like it is the embodiment of both creative-artistic expression while being a process for philosophical exploration and establishment. As much of a wank that sounds, it is how I approach it. It is a truth and in many ways I find a purity in it. A purity for the intellect that I had found in limited rules combat sports competition.
When it comes to writing the novel, I don’t think that I am very good at plots. I actually start the books without a real plot, I have an idea but am less interested or excited about the journey’s end or why of the story. I know with confidence that I will find it. I only need the characters that are the focus of the book. Once I know them, and have an idea of what they need to learn, discover or experience then I find myself on a journey. There is a sort of series of emotions I experience in writing some characters, I try to infuse them with aspects of myself while extracting elements of those I know or at least have observed. I’m sure this is the same for every writer.
By knowing these characters and making them a hybrid of living people, allowing them to mature within your pages, growing with each word you can feel an attachment. I have found myself experiencing guilt and sorrow while writing scenes, it is a certain sadism to put a character through events that are horrible, intimately terrible. To know real people have experienced similar, perhaps even myself included. As I write such terrible moments, I feel that I am observing them, recording them, rather than inventing them. It is then in the overcoming of such moments that I find the strength and humanity in such a character. That is often when I fall in love with them and feel a connection to them.
I have other novels that I wish to write. They exist as seeds inside of my mind, with characters and events that I have already seen. Some I have started and have several thousands of words dedicated to them, though I will likely use none of it. For example the sequel for “The Rise of the Three” has an almost complete novel, I will likely just ignore what I have already written and just ‘remember’ and re-tell what I have done. Other books will very much be this way.
I would like to be faster and more efficient with the writing, perhaps soon I will be. It is a discipline that I struggle with. I can go through periods where I am dedicated and then I will allow months to pass without any excuses as to why I have neglected the books. I try to be kind on myself in this regard but I think that is unwise. So, I will delve back into this novel, “A Symphony for Heroes”, and fix what needs to be done and then release it to the wider world to be read by a few and likely to go with my other works unnoticed and not read.
One final perspective I wish to convey that I have discovered in this process and experience of writing, it is to avoid micro adjusting on the first draft. That will come. The book after subsequent drafts mutates into a different creature. The characters may remain the same, they however dance from the extremes. Some scenes for example that I have written for Julia in this new book would completely change how the reader comes to know her. It is in writing certain scenes that I feel I must go into a certain mindstate, it can be uncomfortable or deranged. Leaving one feeling sad or even depressed. It is in returning to such scenes in the editing process that one can feel a familiar discomfort.
Then why write certain scenes and themes? Because life without pain and horror is not realistic. When we go on adventures in some fictions we need to know these characters at the limits of human survival and to return with them. If the confrontation was safe and mundane then why read at all? If our own lives transcend what we are witnessing inside of the book, why invest?
I do try to have certain themes and aspects to the books or even stories I write, how well they come across is inhibited by my ability as a writer. As for “A Symphony for Heroes,” it is set three years after “A Knight for Heroes,” and expands upon the world we first explored while featuring returning characters and introducing new ones. The ambivalence of an antagonist may become a common theme with me, I think the real monsters are found in the foot soldier, common person and those along the pyramid, assuming that there is a hierarchy to climb. Sometimes the most terrible villain to an innocent is a faceless and underwhelming person, other times it is an otherwise charming familiar.
In any case, I will put on the playlist and read, re-write and edit as best as I may this next novel. Hopefully it will be available sooner than later for anyone interested in reading. Thank you for reading and many happy days.
September 2023