FULL BLEED: I TRIED TO GET NEARER BUT AS IT GETS CLEARER

I know. Posting here has dropped right off a cliff since I stopped promoting Fake Believe. It's true. I was feeding the machine. Everybody hungry, right? And maybe someone besides me actually reads these. I try not to look at the dashboard on my website. That way lies madness. Truth is, I get a bigger audience for my conglomerated inanities over on Bluesky than here. By a factor of... several.

The other thing is that I started actually writing writing again. Not revisions. Not plotting. Not moving imaginary chunks around in my head in an effort to get things to work together so that I might even have a plot in the first place, which is not the same as plotting. Then there's the various crises which pop up and say "Well this whole thing is fucked because you forgot this keystone event and or relationship and or theme and oops." That'll happen a couple times in the pre-writing. It's even more fun when it happens in the writing phase. And it's guaranteed to. Just counting down those days.

I was worried that the skills have atrophied, just sort of withered up like a lungfish in a riverbed for too long, no amount of monsoonal rain will resurrect. That's a kind of hubris, but a very convenient and powerful one. It'll get in your way all in the guise of trying to protect you from injury. Just stay down there in that caked clay, desiccated. It's safe down there. Cozy. Perfect and untouchable. Ride out the seasonal apocalypse while withered down to something that looks like a brushstroke or if we’re unkind, the spoor of some unknowable thing.

But no. I went back to work. I sat, well, stood there. I sit enough as it is, so I do my drafting standing up. Yes, it's weird. I'm a weird guy. I also stand there and perform an invocation that nobody but me hears, well, maybe the rest of the universe does, but nobody in the house will. So I stood there and did my invocation and just started to work. And it went pretty okay. At least I think it did. I've only given it a quick once over after. I won't know what's missing until I finish the book and know what it's actually about. Yeah, that's kinda weird, right? I'm supposed to know what everything in the book is about when I'm writing it. That's just common sense. I mean, what kind of idiot would start writing a book not knowing exactly precisely what it's about.

I'm gonna say something crazy here. Something which probably explains why I've got tens of readers. So, here goes.

I'm writing the book. My name's on it. I've thought about it (to the point of overthinking it). I've plotted it out. I'm definitely in control of things. You bet. I'm totally in charge. Of everything. I carefully place every single word one at a time. That's what the author does. Everybody knows that. You can print that as fact.

Only I don't write the book. The book reveals itself through the work. I know that this is a dumb thing to say. It doesn't make any sense at all. It's contrary to everything writers say about their work, contrary to what's taught about writing. The book reveals itself through the work. And if I'm doing the work well, I'm not actually thinking about it with the part of my brain that's good at overthinking things. With any luck, and some discipline, that part of the brain is stuck in that dry riverbed where it can't bark orders or ask "what the hell is that about?" or get in the way of the book. Or at least the revealing of the book.

Yeah, that's crazy talk. I'm kidding. I was kidding, everyone! I'm actually in charge of all of it. Nobody would be so nutty as to say they didn't really write the book that they put their name on. That's just insane.

I guess I'm insane. I must be to keep at this.

It's also the only thing that makes sense. Which maybe makes it even worse. In the face of ever increasing devaluation of art in general but writing in particular. There’s lots of reasons for that, mostly that secretly everyone thinks they can write if that question is ever presented to them, but they know they can’t draw because they can’t even imagine that. If only they had the right idea, though. That perfect idea, because surely that’s the secret to writing. Yeah, if only. Anyways, art’s being devalued through profligate reproduction and race to the bottom marketing on nearly every level. Even with all that going on, writing’s the only thing that’s made sense for me. I guess it’s good I’m not trying to make a living off it. And if you are, you have my respect. If you’re actually doing it, you’ve got some awe.

Anyways, thirty pages in. I'm not through a tenth of the book. And this was supposed to be a short one, like The Queen of No Tomorrows short, which was contracted at 40k words and I turned in 60k. Luckily I wasn't asked to cut 30% of the book because I wouldn't have been able to. Lots of load-bearing sentences. This one feels like I'm stretching out a bit more and that's probably... not okay. Unless it turns out to be fine. It'll probably be fine. I won't know until the book's done. I know what I think it's about, but the book knows.

At least I sure hope it does.

Anyways, it's been fun. At least I think it has. That whole "gotta shut the top of the brain off" part means I'm not remembering all of it precisely. That's for the best. That means something unplanned might get revealed, something a little more real than the calculated and polished and polished and polished to the point that the only sensation is frictionless as the book just sorta slides. Maybe that's ideal for other readers. Or for focus groups. I don't do frictionless very well. It's a personal failing.

But yeah, fun. I’ve gotten to revisit one of my favorite characters in the Hazeland series. Reading The Queen of No Tomorrows should make it pretty clear who that is. Ariela is a lot of fun to write. Mostly because she doesn’t and can’t exist. Erudite but street, wise yet mercurial, adult yet still a kid living a kid’s fantasy of adulthood. And she’s in charge, always has been. Of course she’s fun to write and hang out with, metaphorically speaking. The other characters are good too, don’t get me wrong. As is the place itself, which we wouldn’t have a book without.

The best part of all this is after a few good writing days, I get to stand up and do it all again. And again. And again. But that's the only way things get done. It's not the idea. It's not talking about it here (though that's good to get my brain working with another set of gears, so to speak.) The only thing to do to get the writing done, to reveal the book, is to write. Sorry. Hate to let you down. Sorry, everyone. You have a good day and your reward is to do it again.

Until next time.