Well That Went Off the Rails (#IWSG October 2018)

So that closet in the title of the blog? You know the one, it's mentioned just a couple of inches above this line on your screen. Yes, the closet in which I purport to find all my stories. That one.

Here's a closeup, if that makes it easier.

The Closet is actually a real place. It's a small room under the stairs in the basement of my house in Ottawa. Sometimes I also refer to The Closet in a more metaphorical way as well, like it's the space in my head where my stories come from. But in the most literal sense, it is a real, physical place where (among many other things) I store all my old writings and note books, a veritable cornucopia of unfinished novels, unpolished manuscripts, forgotten short stories and more scraps of ideas and outlines than I could shake a stick at. There's also a box of rejection letters in there somewhere, which I used to covet and refer to regularly, but I've lately lost track of it. I don't think I've even put copies of my last few rejections in there.

Anyway, my wife and I recently decided to clear out The Closet, which besides my old writing contained Christmas decorations, board games, the cat's bed and litter box, and every piece of clothing my children have ever worn. My wife organized and sold/donated all of the clothes, so we have surprisingly more space than previously (seriously, it was a shitload of clothes). We've decided to move the cat to another corner of the house, paint the room and lay down some old laminate flooring that was leftover when we did the rest of the house, and make myself an honest-to-goodness writing space for the first time in years.

For those who may not remember, this is where I wrote my last book.

I was actually excited. As mentioned in the last few IWSG posts, I had been scraping to find extra writing time lately, so having a proper desk and my own corner sounded wonderful. This was going to be a good thing! I would develop a writing routine and I would be productive and that creative part of me that's always fighting to get out would finally be satisfied! Sure, I would lost my extra writing time for a week or two while I did the minor renovations, but it would be worth it! How could this awesome new project possibly be making me feel crappy and insecure?

It's been a month and my "week or two" project still isn't finished.

I finished the painting, which took longer than planned because I didn't have enough paint and had to beg and borrow to get enough (we are doing this on literally no budget). The walls of The Closet are now five separate shades of blue, which I don't mind because it's a fucking closet, after all. Three of the shades are quite nice.

Then I discovered I didn't have quite as much flooring as I thought, so much debate was had about which part of the floor to do. This decision changed a couple of times, forcing me to change my plan midway through and I ended up wasting a bunch of wood, so now I have my fingers crossed I actually have enough to finish my tiny corner,  which will now basically just be laminate floor around my desk and chair.

Then we had a tornado. We were fine, we just lost power for 24 hours, and I can't complain because many people lost their houses. But it still ruined the weekend and prevented me from getting any work done (it's rather tricky to do renovations in a pitch-black basement).

Is that my saw or the cat? And what did I just step in?

My wife and I were supposed to go away this past weekend to visit friends near Toronto. It was going to be our first time away overnight by ourselves since the kids were born (almost seven years). I was willing to give up my time for that. Except then my wife and I both got the flu, came down with a fever, and we had to cancel our trip. And because I felt so cruddy I could't get any work or writing done.

So yeah. It's been a month, and I haven't gotten The Closet finished, nor have I done any writing of note. Plus the rest of the basement is an absolute disaster because all the shelves and boxes that are supposed to go back in are all over the place, not to mention all the tools and garbage that goes along with any work of this kind.

I wrote a little bit on my lunch break yesterday, which is something, but I'm still feeling pretty bummed.

So that's my rant for this month. Fingers crossed that next month I can report that The Closet is back together and open for business, and maybe I'll even share some pictures of my work. But until then, I hope your writing month was better than mine.

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The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Writers post their thoughts on their blogs, talking about their doubts and the fears they have conquered. It's a chance for writers to commiserate and offer a word of encouragement to each other. Check out the group at http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/.

IWSG July: Plugging Away

Another month, another update. How are we doing?

I think I've returned to the "insecure" part of the group's title.

Sales of my first book Ten Thousand Days tanked after the first month. I ran out of friends, family members and acquaintances to convince to buy it, and after a half-dozen guest blogs and interviews, my marketing campaign kind of fizzled out as I didn't have the time to keep on the hustle every day. I would rather spend what available time I do have working on the next book.

I haven't completely given up on Days, though. I'm in the middle of a promotion right now for Canada Day (and the Fourth of July): To help stock up on your summer reading, Ten Thousand Days is on sale for just $0.99. It's actually less than 99 cents on Amazon.com - the Canadian prince is $0.99 so they adjusted it accordingly. I actually even put a few bucks in Facebook marketing to see if it helps get the word out there. So far the ad hasn't generated any sales, but it has reached thousands of new eyes that wouldn't have seen it previously. I will give a full breakdown and detail on how the promotion went after it's done, for those who are interested.

Here's the link to the ad, by the way. Like my Facebook page while you're over there. ;-)

The real insecurity (discouragement?) this month has been my new book, my WIP that I have been dutifully plugging away at these last few months. I've set certain targets and goals for myself of when I wanted to have each step of writing completed, but at the rate I'm going there's no way I'm going to hit any of my deadlines.

I mentioned before that I wrote the first draft entirely long hand whilst riding on the bus. Now I'm trying to type up and revise that draft, also on the bus, and it's not going well for a number of reasons:

1. I'm writing on a fucking bus.

2. For various perfectly reasonable reasons beyond my control, I haven't been taking the bus every day. Usually that's a good thing, but when my commute is my only writing time, not commuting = not writing.

3. It's a different kind of story that I'm not used to writing, so I'm having trouble keeping everything together. As I revise and change/add things, it's messing up other things and the whole manuscript just feels wonky and sloppy right now. When I do finish this draft it's going to take a major, major revision to put everything back in order, whereas I was hoping that this second draft was going to at least be at a point that I could hand it to a few people to get their feedback.

If I handed you a copy of my manuscript right now, it would basically read like this.

I had set myself a deadline of today to have finished this draft (or at least been within spitting distance) and I'm only about 2/3 of the way through (not including the inevitable 3rd draft to fix all the issues I created by revising the 2nd draft). Today is also the start of my vacation, so while I will enjoy my week off to spend with my family, I won't get any writing done.

So yeah, it's disappointing that I'm not where I wanted to be with my current manuscript, and that it's also not coming out quite the way I wanted it to. I'm not quite at the "am I wasting my time?" point yet, but I fear that day may be coming. I've never had this much trouble putting a book together before. I don't know if that means it will ultimately be a more satisfying experience, or I will eventually give up and just throw the whole thing in the trash. We'll see how it goes.

I'll let you know again how it's going in a month. Maybe I'll have a writing surge sometime in July and come back rejuvenated and excited.

I'm keeping my expectations low, though, just in case.

-CDGK

How Do You Write?

No, I'm actually asking: How - and where, and when - do you write?

Everyone has their favourite setups. Some people like to monopolize space at their local Starbucks. I heard of one writer who had a special desk built so she could walk at a leisurely pace on a treadmill while typing (I actually like the sound of that). Some authors like to write in a home office with the lights dimmed and Mozart playing. Still others prefer to write by oil lamp on parchment made of human flesh, their quill dipped in the blood of virgins with the screams of their next victim ringing in the background.

I'm not quite so fancy.

I used to write on a desk in our office/den on my own snazzy computer. That was where I wrote my first five or six books, including Ten Thousand Days. That was before my computer caught fire, and we moved to a house and had two kids. We no longer have an office or den (every inch of the floor is carpeted with toys). I don't even have a proper desk anymore, not that I would have time to sit at it anyway. See two kids, above.

What DO I have though? An hour and half commute to work every day. EACH WAY.

I used to use this time to watch TV shows or play video games on my iPhone. Or sleep. But I recently discovered I could put this time to much more productive use.

I tried watching Game of Thrones, but it was too embarrassing with all the gratuitous sex and boobs and people watching over my shoulder.

I wrote the first draft of my next book entirely on the bus, scribbling in this notebook by as we bounced along and people elbowed me in the face. It was painful and invigorating at the same time. It also has a neat side effect.

Behold! A very special sneak peek. Good luck reading it, even I can't make out most of these scribbles.

Now that I'm typing up the first draft, I'm revising and editing as I go, and because my handwriting is so awful and because it was basically written as stream of consciousness drivel, I'm forced to make updates and changes as I re-type on my second draft. It's adding in a whole extra pass that I would't usually get. Which I'm also doing on the bus, on my handy-dandy Toshiba Netbook balanced precariously on my lap.

The computer is pretty old and a piece of crap, so I have to use WordPad as Word crashes all the time. I'm discovering some interesting functions of the program. Did you know that if you hit "Undo" on WordPad, it undoes ALL the typing you did since the last time you saved? And did you know that WordPad doesn't have a "Re-do" button? Yeah, I learned that one the hard way.

I've wanted to throw this bastard on the floor a couple of times, but really it's not his fault. It's Microsoft's fault. Screw you, Bill Gates and your philanthropy.

I also learned that just because I started using my bus time for writing doesn't mean I no longer need the nap time. If I'm not careful, I often find myself waking up after my bus trip and my only writing contribution for the day is "lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll."

So I've started drinking a lot more coffee.

At least two of these per day, plus two more regular-sized mugs at my desk at my real job.

So yeah, it's a lot of work, but I'm making it happen. I have to write. I often say I write for the same reason I jog - not because it makes me feel good, but because if I don't do it, I feel terrible.

So I will finish this book, even if if kills me.

At least I had a nice office, right?

I'm serious. I'm writing my book entirely in this seat. This is my Iron Throne.

So where DO YOU write? Please tell me it's somewhere more comfortable...