Pining for Deadlines

Photo by Agê Barros on Unsplash

I’ve been trudging through this draft at a laggardly pace. I’ve come to realize that I work better when there’s an external deadline, without one I meander and find it difficult to sit down and just hammer out the words. Apparently, this isn’t unique to me and is a common problem for other writers.

I remember when I wrote the Boneman forever ago (pre-pandemic), I sold it on a pitch to Abaddon Books via an open call for submission. I had a little over 60ish days to write a 30k novella. I managed to do the initial draft in the first half, and then spent the second half revising. Pushed by an actual deadline, I felt motivated and engaged in a way that I’ve not been able to replicate with self-imposed deadlines.

And that’s how I find myself pining for deadlines. For an external entity to be prodding me along at a brisker pace. But this is likely part of the process too, figuring out how to just get it done on your own. Like many others have said, there’s a certain point when you have to just get your butt in the chair and write.

I’m still making progress on my sci-fi novel. I’m in the last 10% or so of the story, but lately I’ve been noodling with worldbuilding elements. Since the story and world have started to solidify, I’ve been going back and realigning things to make it all fit together. I might also be stalling.

I have a good sense of what the ending will be, but am at tangle where I’m not sure how to get the characters from Point A to Point B. So, I’ve been gnawing on this knot while focusing on secondary—and in some cases, tertiary—worldbuilding. The solution might be acknowledging that this isn’t actually the last 10%, but is more like that last 20-ish percent. We’ll get there though. Just hunker down and put one word after another.

Fiction update and recommended reads

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

This year is when I tried to hunker down and get back to finishing my sci-fi novel. I dropped it for several months, so I had to go back and reread it along with working through the old worldbuilding for it. Interestingly, I drifted away from some of the core ideas in the original draft. This led to me changing characters and figuring out reworks for the story’s universe. I like the direction it’s going in, but those reworks didn’t necessarily translate into an increased word count. Right now, the draft is at about 65k words. My goal is 90k, and I should be able to hit it without having to smudge any corners.

My end goal with this novel is to shop it around to hopefully get an agent. I feel pretty confident about it, but I still need to finish the damn thing before anything else. Hopefully I’ll be able to start submitting it next year. Stay tuned to this newsletter for updates.

Speaking of this newsletter, I’ve been consistently posting a new Hello Void on the first of every month for the last few months. I’ve enjoyed writing about games, and using it as an excuse to play older games I’ve been curious about but never got around to. I especially like going back to the 2000s era where there’s a bunch of interesting 3D games, I’ve become oddly partial to those blocky polygon models. Expect more of that in the future, with of course some newer games thrown in.

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Short stories have always been my weak spot, but I’m going to give them another try. I’d written them off as something I’m not good at, and maybe they just aren’t a narrative form I connect with, but I’m still going to try writing a few and shopping them around to venues. I’m working out the rough idea for two fantasy stories right now. I’ll update this space if they manage to see the light of day.

Recommended Reads

Here are a few newsletters and books I’ve read recently and really enjoyed.

“What Hawk the Slayer Got Right,” by Alec Worley. This a great dive into a movie that I’ve always wanted to watch. It’s from an era that I find fascinating, and Alec Worley explores the history surrounding it in an incredibly engaging way.

Combat in fantasy series, by Danie Ware. I really enjoyed Danie Ware’s Judge Anderson and Sisters of Battle stories, I’ve been a fan ever since. Recently they’ve been sharing advice on writing combat in SFF. Check out Combat in Fantasy, Part One, and Combat in Fantasy, Part Two, for some great insight.

Unconquerable Sun, by Kate Elliot. This has been on my TBR for a while, and I finally got to sit down and dive into it. It’s a phenomenal sci-fi story with both space battles and political intrigue. It follows Sun, a princess navigating conspiracies and backstabbing, all while intent on proving herself capable to inherit a throne.

Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West, by Aidan Moher. It’s no secret that JRPGs are one of my favourite genres. I grew up with them, and think a lot of my love for fantasy and sci-fi came from games like Final Fantasy, long before I started reading SFF books. Fight, Magic, Items digs into the history of the genre and shines a light on the people who made these cultural touchstones. If you have even a passing interest in the history of JRPGs, then I highly recommend this book.

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I hope everyone has a good holiday season.

Happy Holidays!

-Matt

Slow Progress is better than No Progress

What? I’m not updating my blog to avoid working on my current WIP, you’re updating my blog to avoid working on my current WIP.

Um, er, anyway.

I’ve always valued the slow and steady approach. Doing a little bit here and there adds up over time, and I try to apply this to my writing. Sometimes hitting word counts can feel like grinding stones. During these lull periods, I tell myself that it’s okay to do a little. Even just 100 words, because by the end of the week I’ll be 700 words ahead than if I’d done nothing. This has worked for me, allowing me to make slow and steady progress even during those low periods.

But sometimes, sometimes, this turns into an excuse. It’s fine to be at a low point, and it’s fine for that low point to last as long as it needs to. But eventually we’ve got to start crawling our way out. This is different for everyone, there’s no universal answer and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something. I can only tell you what works for me, and hope it helps.

Carving out a dedicated writing time helps me immensely. Every day at whatever-O’clock I’ll commit to sit down and write. Plus, I’ll give myself an increased word goal, nothing too far out, but something within reach. And over time I try to slowly increase it. Usually, these two things together help get me back on track. Whenever my word count suffers, it’s almost always accompanied by a frantic hyper-focused worry about This Month’s Negative Thing. And my writing schedule during these times fluctuates, chores and everything else seemingly rising in priority.

That’s when I get in the Writing Vault and shut the door. Carve out that time with an iron will. Setup turrets that will pelt any intruder with a fusillade of nerf darts. No one can withstand a nerf dart barrage. The routine gets me back on track, it becomes like brushing your teeth. Just another thing you’ve got to do, otherwise ick.

That’s what helps me. Maybe it’ll help you, or maybe it won’t. Everyone’s process is different, but I hope this can at least point you in the right direction.

The Novel, Slow but Steady Progress

I’ve been slowly chipping away at what I’ve only referred to as The Novel for a while now. I started writing it way back in 2017, but really it probably started in 2016 with The Book of Jewels. The Novel takes place in the same world, but the technology has been up-jumped to a steampunky version of the early 1900s. The core conceit started as a very self-indulgent “steampunk with orcs!” bellowed from the depths of Wouldn’t That Be Cool. But it’s evolved beyond that, having Hrusk—our half-orc half-gnome main character—butt heads with weapon manufacturers and corrupt authority figures. All while swinging swords and shooting bolters.

The book is tentatively titled A Tusk too Many.

I think it’s getting close to being done. I’m currently rewriting the final chapter, and then I’m going to go through the whole manuscript to make a bunch of little changes here and there. After that I think it’ll be done. Then the question is, what do I do with it?

I’d considered putting it out on submission and trying to get a literary agent, and maybe I still will. But something about the story feels off, I don’t know if it’s the plot or the characters or what. And the thing is that wherever this loose doohickey is that’s messing with the story’s guts, I can’t seem to find it. It might need a total rewrite. Like, start with a new blank page kind-of-rewrite. Ultimately, I think there’s a good chance I’m going to end up trunking it.

So why finish? Why keep writing it if I know it’s tittering on a knife’s edge, likely to end up in the digital equivalent of a dusty attic? Because I believe in the idea of finish your shit. It’s important to go through the whole process from beginning to end, there’s a lot to be learned by simply doing. And I think I’ve already learned a lot writing this book, hopefully that’ll make the next one better.

Gnomes, Big and Small

I’ve had multiple secondary worlds tumbling around inside my head. One of them is Aftania,* a world that is unashamedly inspired by things like Dungeons & Dragons and Warcraft. It features all manner of monstrous creature as well as the expected “races” like elf, human, orc, and gnome.

Absent from this world are Dwarves and Halflings. Anyone that knows me would think the absence of Dwarves was weird, fantasy dwarves are one of my favourite races (coming in close behind orcs). But I decided to condense them all into gnomes. So, gnomes, in the world of Aftania, can be small three-foot humanoids, slightly larger (halfling-size), or burly and wide shouldered with bushy beards like Dwarves. This makes gnomes more similar to humans in that they can be a whole variety of sizes and shapes as oppose to all being made out of the same mold.

It also gives me more freedom to make certain body types and features more common among certain gnomish cultures. Maybe the mountain gnomes to the north are the burly ones, while the gnomes with deep ancestral roots in urban areas are smaller. It allows for a lot more variance.

It bugs me when all of a race are the same. It doesn’t make sense that elves high in the mountains have the exact same culture as the completely disconnected elves on the other side of the continent. Same goes for physique, though I’m not sure if this is a remnant from Tolkien or the influence of video games/pen and paper RPGs.

I’m trying to keep all the things I love about this kind of high fantasy but with a few twists that make it uniquely mine.

*Aftania is actually the name of the largest territory, and is also where the majority of my current stories/characters reside. The planet is referred to as Mo’den (an orcish word), but particularly arrogant Aftanians insist on calling the planet “Aftania.”