Good Omens – Jaye Em Edgecliff

Well, here we are, it’s December. If I were to keep to the schedule for Love or Lust and Ready or Not I ought to be done writing Book 3 in a couple of months, and be ready to publish it this summer.

That’s not looking so likely.

It’s not impossible, but to be honest I’m not making a lot of progress in it right now. The story itself is fine, and it’ll flow and finish pretty easily, I think, but I’m having issues getting any work done on it; Life keeps getting in the way.

What about life? What could be in the way now that wasn’t for the last two books? Aspects of my job itself, the fact that I’m now forced to concentrate on finding a new job as I’ve been laid off (I’ve considered an online tip jar type service to see if my fans are interested in putting forward enough money to let writing be my day job, but I’ve not clear idea how, with whom, and maybe I’m being too humble, but I just don’t think that’d work out), various factors relating to the very real chronic depression I have an on again off again issue with …

Excuses? Some, yes, perhaps, but authors are not machines and some things make writing entirely too difficult to concentrate on. I’m sure, if I tried, I could get a few hundred to a couple thousand words onto a page every day. That’s nothing difficult. If word count were ever my goal, I could do that easily enough in a matter of seconds with a Lorem Ipsum generator and the computer’s clipboard function. I want content, words worth keeping. I’ve none in me right now. I will again, I can promise that. I still hold to my only promise regarding the release of the books: I will finish them. I can’t control disaster, I mean if Ragnarok takes place tomorrow then I can’t keep my promise – but in my own defense, I can’t exactly plan for that so probably shouldn’t be held accountable.

The search for a new job is, so far, seeming to go well. So hopefully I’ll have that much less stress very soon. That doesn’t let me off the hook for everything, but it’s a start. Many of the more promising jobs are for more money, so there’s other stresses gone. I sincerely believe that Book 3 will be finished this year and, depending when this year I finish it, published this year as well.

I understand there are people who get so upset with the likes of Patrick Rothfuss, George R R Martin, and others for long delays between books. I could never understand that. I mean, sure, I’m anxious enough to know what happens next in a series, but if I enjoyed it, it’s worth the wait for the author to make sure that what happens next is something I’ll continue to love. I found out, recently, though, that there are actually people who won’t read another author until they’ve read everything by the author they’re currently reading, and if there’s an incomplete series, they don’t read anything else while they wait for that series to wrap up. I hope that was an exaggeration, but it doesn’t seem to be! That’s an obsessive disorder, like P-OCD, you might want to seek therapy if you’re like that. Really, I’m terribly sorry that Book 3 will, by all probability, not come out this summer, but no worries: lots of other great stories out there you can read in the mean time.

Personally? I do recommend Game of Thrones, and my wife highly recommends Name of the Wind. Sir Terry Pratchett‘s books are phenomenal. Dennis McKeirnan is another good one. A little story called Black Trillium is worthwhile. For more of the sort of stuff I write uhm … I wouldn’t know, actually, I don’t read much romance, but you might stop by the RWA and see if they’ve any suggestions, or you could check out the various places my books are sold to peruse the “customer also bought” or “related titles” listings. Please, enjoy someone else’s work while I get things sorted out enough to give you more of mine – it’s not a competition, I would feel rather better if you liked other people’s books too :).

Good Omens BBC Radio Four Adaptation Promotional Pictures And Broadcast Time Released (theconsultingdetectivesblog.com)
2014 Wrap Up (offthemarkandroaming.wordpress.com)
Sam Harris and The Very Bad Wizards (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
Dementia patients left isolated at Christmas as figures reveal two-thirds of sufferers receive less cards after diagnosis (walesonline.co.uk)
Book Review – Heroes Wanted by Allen Donnelly (themself.org)

Gaiman’s 8 Rules

These, by and large, are really common sense,. But really that’s why I absolutely love reading Neil Gaiman. Not his books, though several of his are on my to-read list, the only one I’ve managed to get around to yet is Good Omens (very awesome, by the way), I mean him.

Really it does all boil down to: If you want to write, have a story or, better yet, have characters and see what story they present you and then try to keep up.

Write! You’ll never get your story told if you put it off.

Once writing, keep at it. I add the corollary of get the idea down, if not now, ASAP! You may truly not be able to get it down right as it happens. Maybe you’re making love, or driving, or cooking, or skydiving. Inspiration hits at inconvenient moments, but as soon as you can spare a moment get it down. Don’t wait. If you wait you’ll forget the tiny key that made it brilliant and you’ll be left with something flat and lukewarm instead of the vivid fizz that might have made that scene one of the greatest of all time.

Finish. See it through to the end. Even if you have to backtrack several times, even start from the beginning again and again. See it through. If you believe in the story tell it.

Write your story. Once upon a time a brilliant story would be published by someone. These days the major publishers are a bit hung up about genre and marketing and other things, but the beauty of today is you can put it out yourself or find a smaller publisher who is looking for brilliance, not trends. Jo Rowling, Stephen King, and Terry Pratchett should write those stories, you shouldn’t, and any agent or editor who tries to convince you to twist your story into that of someone else, fire them. Walk away and find another.

I love what he says too about having friends read it and how to take their advice. It’s quite true too. In one story I wrote, one friend simply asked questions about a scene – it was a scifi tale with odd paper, but she didn’t grok it. I looked at the scene and realised I knew what it meant, and some folks who were fans of certain SF, the newest example of which is Firefly did too, but to everyone else I had to explain the scene for them to get it. I rewrote it. More brilliantly than I’d had it. Another friend, though, pointed out specific passages and started suggesting changes. His suggestions hurt the narrative, broke the flow, and glitched the carefully wrought illusion of reality to bring the reader’s mind back to the fact they’re merely taking in words on a page. He was, in short, horribly wrong.

No matter if you read his work I do suggest one make a point to read his thoughts and anecdotes as much as you can. He’s almost always fun, and so often wise and … bloody brilliant. Take these rules for writing. Now extrapolate them. Make them apply to other things in life. See the wisdom yet?