Tonight I finished another chapter. Well, the draft anyway. I’m focusing more on just telling the story and working out the details later in subsequent drafts rather than what I had done, which was to tell the story perfectly the first run through. All that ever accomplishes is frustration and feeling like you suck because it isn’t ever as polished or right as you hope.
Drafting gives you the lightning in a bottle moments that you can glean some truly inspired pieces from the mess and work them in later in better, more efficient ways. Over the last couple day, I covered a lot of ground in the story. Between the notes I took yesterday and the narrative I built today, things are coming along nicely.
I squeezed in some binge watching, and have found Tennison on Amazon Prime. It’s good, but I don’t think it is nearly gritty or cheauvanistic enough. Life on Mars was done better. But I did get coffee today and my fans at Dutch Bros. cheered me on. One of them even said she was baffled by my new sleeping schedule, which believe me, it baffles me too. Tonight, I am running on fumes, still coming down from the third cup of coffee of the day, but my mind sufficiently tapped when it comes to putting words together that I actually like. Even on a draft level.
I keep thinking about the ethics of what I am writing. I understand that no matter what I do, some people won’t like what I write, and that will burn bridges. Not saying a lot of these bridges didn’t need to be burned a long time ago. It’s not as if a lot of those I am thinking about will even care if the bridge even burns. Not saying that I should hinge my life on what other people expect from me either. After all, that hasn’t worked out so well anyway.
I keep coming to this. I think of those inspirational quotes about “Well-behaved women seldom make history,” and sometimes I forget that this isn’t just for women. I think it’s about anyone willing to kick back at the bullshit we are held back by. Today, I could honestly, hardly care less about how people will react to my work that I know personally.
My bigger concern is that once I pour all of my time and heart into this, it will just be swept aside by anyone I send it to for publication. I know I’m not a terrible writer. I know that I have cultivated my voice and have stories to tell that are often very good. Stories that resonate with people and give them an emotional reaction. And I have had editors send back a form letter saying “It didn’t hold our interest” while a bunch of other crap gets published.
Gatekeeping. Gotta fucking love that.
Where are all the great books? The stories that captivate us? Inspire us? So many people complain that even movies are nothing but remakes or superhero movies. Why is that? Because someone is holding the gate. And they really shouldn’t be.
Anyway, chasing my dreams right now leaves me poor in funds, but rich in spirit. I’ll take the latter.
It just sucks that my measurement of success is a handful of people giving the thumbs up or down at a publishing house, depending on what some pencil pushers predict will make them lots of money based on graphs and charts.
Fuck it. I’m not stopping.
Wendigo Mountain 