In case you haven't noticed I have become a terrible blogger. Well, that is sort of a lie, I've just been an absentee blogger. So where the hell have I been? Read on McDuff and I'll tell you!
Well the question no one is asking seems to be where the hell have I been and when the hell will I have something new coming out? The answers are nowhere and your guess is as good as mine! While I was once extremely prolific, mainly because I had the time to write everyday, in recent times I have been in a creative drought. It isn't the dreaded "writer's block" and I don't truly believe that even exists. However, I have been in a creative rut. You see, most people who don't write or make some sort of art seem to think that it is "easy" to be creative. Most think it isn't very hard you simply sit down and do it. What you don't realize is that being creative takes a tremendous amount of energy. Sure you don't burn a gazillion calories writing for a few hours like you do running a marathon but to get your brain firing all the creative cylinders takes a lot of energy and it needs a spark. All the average person sees is the finished work not the countless hours of toil it took to create it.
For example take my debut novel (yes, shameless self promotion here!), Piece It All Back Together. I wrote the bare bones of it in about 10 days which was a little over 60k words. I did it that fast because I was up against a deadline not because I normally write that fast. While that first draft won me a contest I knew that it wasn't ready for public consumption. I could have tried to get it published but I knew it wasn't ready. I sat on it for about 2 years while I continued writing like crazy to become ready to write a novel. Finally, when I was ready I spent about 3 months rewriting and adding to it until I felt I had the best novel I was capable of writing. I submitted it to a publisher to let the editing process begin. I received some notes from an editor and set about making some subtle changes, nothing major. I should mention this was after I proofread and edited the manuscript before submitting to the publisher. I ended up editing the manuscript about 3 times and one final time after some notes from another editor after switching publishers to Hellbound Books. That whole process took about another 2 years. If you've never been through any process like this just know that by the end I never wanted to see my book or it's characters ever again. I developed a love/hate relationship with my own work because I was sick of looking at the F'ing thing! All in all I spent about 5 years with my novel in my mind in one shape or another. Can y'all blame me for needing a break?
For example take my debut novel (yes, shameless self promotion here!), Piece It All Back Together. I wrote the bare bones of it in about 10 days which was a little over 60k words. I did it that fast because I was up against a deadline not because I normally write that fast. While that first draft won me a contest I knew that it wasn't ready for public consumption. I could have tried to get it published but I knew it wasn't ready. I sat on it for about 2 years while I continued writing like crazy to become ready to write a novel. Finally, when I was ready I spent about 3 months rewriting and adding to it until I felt I had the best novel I was capable of writing. I submitted it to a publisher to let the editing process begin. I received some notes from an editor and set about making some subtle changes, nothing major. I should mention this was after I proofread and edited the manuscript before submitting to the publisher. I ended up editing the manuscript about 3 times and one final time after some notes from another editor after switching publishers to Hellbound Books. That whole process took about another 2 years. If you've never been through any process like this just know that by the end I never wanted to see my book or it's characters ever again. I developed a love/hate relationship with my own work because I was sick of looking at the F'ing thing! All in all I spent about 5 years with my novel in my mind in one shape or another. Can y'all blame me for needing a break?
So long story even longer, I think spending nearly 2 years doing literally nothing but editing killed a little bit of my creative energy. While I don't hate editing I can't say that I love it either. The problem though is that I tend to be a wee bit of a perfectionist so I don't want there to be even one minor spelling error. Oh, and that's before I even submit a manuscript! In a long enough work it's virtually impossible to avoid some slight mistake but I take pride in leaving an editor as little as possible to do. Of the dozens of short stories I've written (with several published), I'm proud that I've only ever had to make a handful of corrections and the majority of those were a misspelling or missing comma. The novel was more labor intensive but there are far more things to look at in a work as long as that was - about 120k words for anyone wondering. Anyway that is a huge reason I've had trouble writing over the last 2 years since I finished the novel.
Then, of course, comes the personal upheavals that life always provides. I won't go into all the gory details only to say that things work out the way they were meant to... sometimes. A lot of people say that "everything happens for a reason" and I don't 100% buy into that because we only tend to say it when something good comes after a bad situation, however, it is applicable sometimes. The good news is that I and those closest to me all survived the pandemic, my day job has been crazy busy but it is a stable job, I've been working out so I'm in nearly the best shape of my life and the year my lady and I have spent apart is coming to an end because we bought a house!!!! Unfortunately while she is moving in a few days I can't move until June but we have a damn house! No more apartment hopping!
Then, of course, comes the personal upheavals that life always provides. I won't go into all the gory details only to say that things work out the way they were meant to... sometimes. A lot of people say that "everything happens for a reason" and I don't 100% buy into that because we only tend to say it when something good comes after a bad situation, however, it is applicable sometimes. The good news is that I and those closest to me all survived the pandemic, my day job has been crazy busy but it is a stable job, I've been working out so I'm in nearly the best shape of my life and the year my lady and I have spent apart is coming to an end because we bought a house!!!! Unfortunately while she is moving in a few days I can't move until June but we have a damn house! No more apartment hopping!
So in about a month I will be leaving Nebraska for Iowa in hopefully the last move I ever have to make. If you had asked me ten years ago where I thought I'd end up I wouldn't have even guessed anywhere in the mid-west but then in the last ten years I could say that about pretty much everywhere I've lived. I've gone from New York to Delaware to Arizona back to New York to Nebraska and now, finally, to Iowa - 6 states in 8 years and I'm not in the military! I promise I will get back to writing steadily as I do have 2 novels in the works and some collections to put together. If you can be patient with me I vow that you'll see so much from me you'll get sick of me. Also I do plan to post regularly from now on and even more may be coming in the future. And now I am actually going to get to work on one of those novels so keep your fingers crossed as a new page in my journey is only just beginning. And as always...
Don't forget to head over to Amazon to pick up Piece It All Back Together or any of my other offerings! Thanks for stopping by!
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Author
Feind Gottes - horror & metal nut!
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