WHAMMO Moments

I suspect no one who is reading my blog thinks writing a book is easy, much less an epic heroic fantasy. I remember thinking I would write Creed of Kings in 6 months while having a full-time job! Can you believe that? I assumed it would be difficult, like running a marathon. Confident in my creativity and inspiration I fiddled around with an idea and started.  Some 300,000 words later…well, you get the idea.

If I wasn’t such a perfectionist, I’d have a pile of rejection letters. I fear failure so much that I never surrendered to the common naiveté of so many wannabe writers. Learning the art is a continuing process. I didn’t slap things together and mail it off to an agent/publisher and cross my fingers. My tombstone will say, “Here lies a writer, whose manuscript just kept getting better, and better, and better…”

I’ve had many breakthroughs. I’ve shed a lot of skin, dropped many illusions, lost and gained confidence. I’ve charged the hill more times than I care to remember. One truly has to love this to bloody ones head tirelessly against the wall. I don’t want to settle out of court. I want to win under the harsh blazing sun. I want what I write to stand in that glare and not only survive but thrive in your heart!

I have 9 followers on this blog now and many who travel in from twitter, Facebook, and various other avenues. I owe to you and all the potential readers to deliver the absolute best that I can. But, before you, there is me. It has to rock my own world. If it’s not obvious, I am a harsh critic of my own work. There are many moments that make me smile in the saga I’m writing. I imagine those moments like Christmas gifts under your tree waiting and waiting for the opening. Until I see you smiling in my dream I will keep up the mission.

I know that I have lots of good parts, but I had not made the plot points and paradigms shifts as stark as they needed to bewhen I got to the end of the Creed of Kings in May of this year. I started revising. I thought I was on the final lap, but in an epic this huge there is necessary back story. One character had an odyssey in his past. As I revised, his back story grew and got better. It was too big and weighing down the story much like the student pictured.

The story has to be told. I’m the only one who can tell it. Given the nature of today’s e-publishing revolution it is highly advantages to have multiple (well done!) books available online.  That was the WHAMMO moment.

WHAMMO moments happen in books, movies, life, and the evolution of a striving writer. I realized I had two books on the verge of completion. I unraveled the back story from the main character in Creed and brought it out as its own unique stand alone story. Now, I basically have one book done that needs revisions and I have another book nearing first draft status. Furthermore, looking at things this way, I see a potential for one or two other books (these books are in my head now) prior to the trilogy Creed of Kings, which is already highly realized.

However, I still need to finish…something! I’ve put so much on the line. Walking away from a successful sales career, and I have a lot less than I’m used to now, for about 4 years now, all so I can pursue this life long dream. But, it’s now or never. Come hell or high water I will have a first draft complete within the next 100 days of my current unnamed project. 2012 will be the year! I’m aiming to release two major works within 6 months.

 

4 Comments on “WHAMMO Moments

  1. I’m a perfectionist, too. As I sit down to write my query letter, I am also in the process of growing thick skin. Rejections are going to come hard and fast and I’m not looking forward to it. But then, it only takes one interested agent to make the rejections fade away to nothing. 🙂

  2. It’s hard to stop tinkering, going back here and there to see how things read months after they were writtem. Multiple novels in one storyline may be easier to handle, especially since few people are publishing long novels these days. Not that that will stop the tinkering.

    Malcolm

    • So true. I can open up docs that I’ve “finished” a hundred times and tinker away. That’s good, I guess. Have you ever walked away from a discussion and while driving home think “Oh I shoulda said that!”? That’s why we tinker with stuff we’ve written. We don’t wanna publish and go “I shoulda said that!”

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