Tag: Writing

Voice

“Fuck critics, you can kiss my whole arsehole.”
-Jay Z.

I recently caught up with a friend of mine who just like myself, is penning her way through the early stages of what she hopes to be an illustrious writing career. While our writing journeys are very similar in many ways: that is to say we seem to have catalysts and compulsions that are very akin to one another, I’m a little further along the path of completing a manuscript and seeing my work make it into print. That’s not to detract from her abilities at all. In fact, her script sounds like it’s a million times better than mine. Once it’s finished I’m sure that you’ll see her name in lights a hell of a lot quicker than you see this narcissistic arsehole’s. When I say I’m further ahead I simply mean that while she’s currently putting the finishing touches on her first draft, I’ve already had my story edited and it is currently being reviewed for potential representation by a number of agencies.

During the course of our conversation the idea of finding an editor came up. Once her manuscript is complete she’ll need to start undergoing that heinous task of refining her novel until it is perfect and ready for publication. A task that I myself have already undertaken, loathing every minute until it was finally complete. As we talked about editors the concept of the writer’s voice entered the conversation and she expressed concern that the wrong editor would destroy everything that makes her script, her script. It was an interesting point, and one that got me thinking about myself and my works.

Every writer has a unique style, a voice if you will. Just like every single man, woman, or child has their own distinct sound built up of tone, pitch, inflections, and a hundred other variables. So too does a writer have a sound that is their own. Take a second to think about the writers you admire, is it necessarily the stories that they tell that you fall in love with? We all know that there are just seven basic themes in literature (as per the theory created by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch). Or is it the unique idiosyncrasies that the writer weaves into their tales that leaves us swan diving into their worlds of love, fantasy, ruin and woe?

For me, it’s the voice of the writer that keeps me engaged. Therefore if I hope to be successful, if I hope to become the writer I have always dreamed of being, I have to nurture the very things that make me unique. I have to (quoting myself here) become a singularity, and I have to devote all of my time and energy to honing my voice and weaving it through my works with a sleight of hand so smooth and subtle that the reader is left dumbfounded. And when working with an editor, publisher, agent, a friend, or a critic, one must learn to be acutely aware of those external influences and the damaging effect they can have on your manuscripts in their quest to be helpful. An editor or agent should seek to draw out those unique idiosyncrasies of their artist rather than manipulate and destroy them.

Thankfully when I undertook the editing process with Midas my editor did exactly that. She helped me, challenged me, and inspired me to be the best writer that I could possibly be. The result? Right now things are looking pretty damn good for my writing. So to all of you out there who are looking at entering that bastard editing stage I wish you the best. Find an editor that is right for you, let them help you find your voice, then scream your story from the fucking rooftops. Silence the critics and be the best damn writer you can be. There’s no one more qualified to tell your story than you.

The purge of the aggressive creative

I’ve always struggled to define myself as a writer. I’m creative, but logical. I’m a dreamer, but my feet are still planted firmly on the ground. I’m not your typical artsy writer who spends his days in a laze contemplating the wonders of the universe and coming up with whimsical tales that highlight a deep seeded emotional turmoil or tranquility that bubbles away beneath the surface of my façade. Nor am I your boy genius. I don’t have a freakish I.Q, and my writing isn’t going to reshape the way man views the world (at least not yet). So, if I’m not the artsy writer or boy genius type, what am I?

Well, recently a co-worker of mine described me as aggressive creative, and the term somehow seemed to fit. I’m a creative perfectionist who labours over every inch of my works until I break down in tears or set the manuscript alight (and yes, both have happened multiple times). I’m confident in my works, to the point where I can become narcissistic, purely because I push myself to breaking point every single time I create. My process is self-destructive and mentally taxing, to the point where I sometimes consider myself to be an emotional masochist, deriving gratification and inspiration from my own damaged psyche.

Which would explain why I often feel the need to purge much from my life. See, I’ve been doing a bit of research just recently into my own fickle idiosyncrasies in the hopes of better understanding why I do what I do, and I’ve come to realise that on some subconscious level I don’t really like myself. Maybe I resent the fact that I chose a career with no clearly defined path; or that I spent my youth striving so hard to be fundamentally different to my peers that I now feel a complete disconnection from them. Whatever it is, I go through these moments in my life where I just want to eradicate the writer from my soul and the dreamer from my heart and move forward as just another ordinary person frittering through life blissfully unaware of his many short comings.

During these times I want to completely start again. It takes every ounce of strength not to throw away my job, my writing, and my relationships and simply wander into the sunset in a quest to be reborn as something other than a tormented writer, emotional loner, and arsehole. I move throughout the world wearing a mask of composure, when inside my mind is tearing itself in two as every single component of my life is called into question and judged against my current spate of self-loathing. The aggressive creative in me sees the failures, missed opportunities and shortcomings that have befallen me and seeks to purge the weakness from my mind and flesh.

The funniest thing about these purges that occur is that people often fail to notice the cracks in the masks that I wear, and I force myself to suffer alone. I suffer alone because long ago I learned something about myself that allows it: and that is that I am an excellent liar. And I lie a lot. There are just a handful of people in this world that actually know me. And by that I mean really know me. They understand my thoughts and feelings and recognise the signs that I’m sinking into a downward spiral while everyone else sees what I lead them to believe. Call it a slate of hand, call it a fear of intimacy, call it whatever you want. I keep people at arm’s length because I don’t want to them to see the instabilities and shortcomings of a man who wishes to be so much more than he actually is.

It’s a rather interesting predicament that I find myself in. I can convince everyone around me that I am ordinary, that I am normal, when the reality is that I’m anything but. The mundane scares me, and the fear of spending my whole life in a state of perpetual torment like this causes my pulse to spike. I want to be different, and I want to be able to accept that. But the crippling loneliness that accompanies the differentiation of myself to my brethren leaves me desperate to be regular. So I try to force myself to conform to what I believe to be normal, simply because it would be easier if I could be like everyone else.

But if that’s the case then why am I writing this? Why am I pouring my heart out to readers across the globe that I have never even met? Well, because I have to. I have to change the person that I am; the aggressive creative who piles so much pressure onto himself knowing that he will eventually crumble. I have to purge him from my soul and allow myself to re-enter the world I’ve spent so long trying to differentiate myself from. I have to form friendships that are more than just a façade, and I have to do it so that I can continue to grow as a writer and as a man. I once wrote that life is sempiternal; that I will forever ride a wave of emotion that rises and falls from elation to bitter depression, but I’m not prepared to accept that anymore.

I’m not prepared to accept that I will forever feel the need to undergo the eradication of the writer and dreamer simply because I wish to feel normal in those moments where I believe I’m failing. Screw that. I shouldn’t have to give up who I am just because I’m different. Instead I must seek to purge myself of the emotional masochist and neurotic mess that dwells within me. They say nothing positive was ever achieved with a negative mindset, so until I can remove those demons plucking at the chords of my heart how can I ever achieve something incredible?

It’s time to ease up on the pressure. Accept myself for what I truly am: a writer, a dreamer, a success and a failure, and embrace everything that I am still yet to be. By doing that I can be both different and normal at the same time. My acceptance of my uniqueness and my ability to accept my failings will see a normality in my life that has been absent for so long. Purge the toxicity from my soul and embrace myself. Only then can I calm my tormented mind.

Two Weeks

“Fuck what you know. Fuck what you believe. I am the architect of my destiny.”
-James “Buddy” Neilsen.

With language like that in the epigraph, I think that it’s fair to say that this post won’t ever be making an appearance on the freshly pressed page. But then, my language is abrasive at the best of times, so I guess I’ll have to live without the vindication of being a pressed writer for a little while yet. Nevertheless, let’s kick this off and get down to why I’ve chosen to feature the lyrics of a post-hardcore band in my epigraph, and what it has to do with a page dedicated to the trials and tribulations of my writing career.

Well, the simple answer as to why I chose Neilsen’s lyrics is this: I like them. And I like hardcore music, so I thought that I would feature them just as I have before with artists like Adrian Fitiplades and Max Bemis. But the more in depth answer, the one that actually makes this whole post worthwhile is that right now those three little phrases resonate with me more than anyone could ever truly understand. In fact, the lyrics of the entire album the epigraph was chosen from resonate with me to such an extent that I spent the better part of two hours today deciding between the lines I chose to use and the following:

When you look in the mirror
Are you proud of what you see?
When you look in the mirror
Are you the person you thought you’d be?

The truth is that I’m not quite the person that I thought I’d be right now. I thought that a few things in my personal life would have panned out a little differently than how they have. I’ve been a little emotionally fragile lately, and thankfully I’ve had something constructive to focus my time on…But on a writing front, I’m more than I ever thought possible. That’s right; with less than two weeks to go until I head to New York, I’m so fucking confident in myself and what I have created that I can’t wait to pitch my heart out. Right now when I look in the mirror, I’m damned proud of what I see. I’m a writer with passion and a goal. And regardless of whether I secure a contract in the USA, I know that I’m taking positive steps in the right direction for my career.

Just as Neilsen growls in the song Canine, I am the architect of my destiny. Every single time I sit down and put pen to page I am constructing the blueprints of not just a tale of fiction, but of my life and how I want it to be. When I submit those blueprints to an editor for revision they are given the opportunity to improve and come one step closer to being completed. And when I pitch my story to agents in a foreign city I’ll have the opportunity to see those blueprints come to life. All I need is for one person to say yes and the foundation of my story and my vision will come to life.

But if I’m feeling so confident, and so enthused, why did I chose lyrics that are so explicit? Well, because that’s just who I am. When I’m confident I feel indestructible. And in true Chris Nicholas fashion I have constructed a novel and a pitch that defies what is considered the norm within the publishing industry. When I start my pitch I don’t want to be perceived as just another aspiring author; I want to be seen as a force to be reckoned with. I want to be seen as a man capable of rising above the slush pile with a story to tell and the fire in his stomach to do it. So fuck what you know about publishing. And fuck what you believe is acceptable within the industry. Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

Two weeks. That’s how long I have to wait until I can pitch myself against the best in the industry and see how I compare. And for all of my bravado I am fully aware that I could walk away from the whole experience with nothing. But even if I do, just by making it this far I have achieved something incredible.

An unconventional mission statement

“All I want is to dethrone God so that I can be crucified.”
-Max Bemis.

With just over three weeks remaining until I head to New York and pitch my heart out to dozens of publishers and agents, I haven’t really had a great deal of time to blog. I’ve been so busy brushing up on my pitch and tweaking my manuscript that this poor page has sat dormant, its daily hit count slowly withering away until all that I have worked so hard to create seems forgotten. I’m not sorry though. The past couple of weeks have been integral to my preparation and I’ve grown so much as a writer in such a short time that it feels refreshing to be able to step back into the world of weblogs once more.

In addition to the hours spent labouring over my manuscript and pitch, I have also devoted a fair amount of time to gaining a better understanding of myself as a writer. I mean, I know that I started doing this to cope with the demons inside my head, but I started to realise that what was once my motivation to create wasn’t necessarily the reason I put pen to page anymore. That’s not to say I don’t still have a few issues; I can assure you that my head is just as fucked up now as it has ever been, I’ve just learned to accept my fractured perception of normality for what it is.

So while I was trying to rediscover who I am as a writer I stopped and started to catalogue what defines me an aspiring author, and I came up with a rather obscure little list.
• I’ve fought depression a few times. Writing helps clear my head.
• I’m arrogant and over opinionated. But I’m OK with that.
• I want to be published. Not because I want to make millions of dollars (although it would be nice). But because I want to reach inside the mind of my reader and alter their perceptions on art and the world at large.
• I tend to write about characters that I aspire to be like. But they are often incredibly flawed narcissists and megalomaniacs.

It’s a bit of a strange list. But nevertheless those four points define me as an author. I’m egotistical, yet my own toughest critic. I’m a narcissist but only because I believe that I can open the reader’s eyes to new concepts and ideas. And just like Max Bemis above, I’ve recently decided that I want to dethrone God so that I can be crucified.

Obviously I’m not talking about this in a literal sense. If anyone shows up at my house with a bucket of nails and a cross I’d be less than impressed. And I’m not even talking about God as the omnipresent being mankind believes to be above us. I’m no Aleister Crowley, and there will be no bathing in blood. But I’m talking about the gods of literature. The big name authors who have transcended the medium and become ingrained into the fabric of our society. I want to be one of them. I want to be better than them. But only because I want to know what it feels like to be crucified for my work. I want feel the elation of success, so that I can also feel the crippling sensation of failure.

It sounds counter intuitive doesn’t it? My mission statement as a writer is to become immensely successful so that I can fail. And I want to do this so that I can peel back the layers of my soul and examine where I went wrong so that I can rebuild myself as a more formidable writer once again. I actually don’t expect anyone to understand this. How could they? I, Chris Nicholas, the narcissistic writer, want to succeed so that I can fail. But that’s not to say I will ever intentionally produce a piece of work of substandard quality in order to taste failure. Rather I want produce something so fantastic that whatever comes next fails in comparison. Only then will I ever be able to truly test myself as a writer as I try to do the impossible and out do myself.

So there it is: my unconventional mission statement. I want to become so good at what I do that I spend my entire life competing with myself; constantly striving to outperform the person that I was yesterday. I want to dethrone god, and I want to be crucified so that I can rise again and continue to grow.

The Narcissist Veneer

Karma is a bitch. One of my most recent posts was directed at writers who take to their keyboards to bitch and moan about their lives as artists, and their struggles with financial hardship or whatever the hell else they have to complain about. The post was dripping in narcissism and self-indulgence. I claimed that I could bring a better class of post to my readers, and that I would do exactly that. I would not be one of those artists who turn their weblog into a soapbox from which to complain… Then everything fell apart again. Someone pulled back the thin veneer of narcissism that protects me and discovered a soul warped with depression and fear underneath.

Before we go any further I feel that I need to detail exactly what a narcissist is for those of you who may not be aware. Narcissism is most commonly described as follows:

The erotic gratification derived from admiration of one’s own physical or mental attributes.

And if I’m going to be honest, that does kind of sound like me. I do thoroughly enjoy the admiration of my own mental attributes (not so much the physical), and I do tend to consider myself to be better or more intelligent than my peers. I have created this whole persona for myself where I am Chris Nicholas: the self-indulgent, slightly arrogant writer who cares very little about the opinions or merits of those around him. I write what I want to write, and I associate with who I choose to, meaning that I often forcibly alienate myself from everyone simply because mankind baffles me and I can’t be bothered to change who I am in order to fit in. I’ve established myself as a lone wolf, with a head full of stories and a tongue laced with acid. My opinions mean more to me than anything and I will literally screw myself out of a promotion/friendship/whatever else, simply because I’d rather be brutally honest with people than kiss arse and do what is socially acceptable.

But like I said, this whole narcissist veneer is nothing more than a ruse. It’s a coping mechanism to hide myself from the world and prevent anyone from discovering just how afraid and alone I can sometimes be. By slipping on my mask of confidence and assertiveness I have learned how to parade myself through life as a normal functioning member of society who suffers from nothing worse than a slight attitude problem. People often comment on my characteristics, hint at my charm, and admire my ability to remain fluid and adaptable to almost any situation. But rather than feel pride in the kindness of their words, I feel a deep sense of sorrow and regret. I am now hidden so far beneath this false surface that no one can even recognise when I am struggling and when I truly need somebody to save me from the torment of my own vicious mind.

I’ve been through depression a few times now, and I can recognise the signs of an oncoming wave of apathy and self-loathing long before it arrives. But what I still can’t seem to do is find a way to actually prevent the self-destructive mindset that becomes all-consuming, threatening to derail my life. I still can’t find a way to stop my soul from becoming increasingly twisted and warped beneath the smooth veneer that shields it. When these waves of indifference wash through my head I throw away everything that I love. I stop writing, I shut out anyone who is close to me, and I batten down the hatches to weather the storm. It’s why I’m often alone. I have a partner, but she can’t ever possibly understand the depths of my despair when it hits. So she watches from a distance, revolted at the sight of a mind quite literally tearing itself in two, purging everything it has previously worked so hard to create.

I’m like this because I create such unrealistic expectations of myself. Although I call my narcissistic streak a veneer, there is a touch of the bastard gene cursing through my weakened flesh and soul. Pride means everything to me and whenever I take to my keyboard I do so with the intention of being the best writer the world has ever seen. When I submit enquiries to agents and publishers I assume that I am guaranteed a contract and that my work is infallible, leaving me vulnerable and distraught if they don’t share my unrelenting enthusiasm for my work. When I started writing at the age of eighteen I just assumed that I would have something in print just as soon as I finished my first manuscript. Now seven years later I’ve failed to achieve that rather ambitious goal, and a piece of me dies with every single rejection letter that I receive.

So why do I continue to torture myself like this? Because I feel that I have to. I don’t feel like I’m normal. I have an innate disconnection from the reality that everyone else seems so willing to accept. That is normality. I can’t see myself doing anything other than writing, and as each day passes and I fail again and again, finding myself perpetually stuck in the world of conventional employment, I grow increasingly distant from those around me. At my peak, I am a knowledge hungry aspiring writer with the world in front of me. At my lowest, I’m a boy lost and alone within a world that he struggles to connect with. Right now I’m feeling more like the latter and my writing is suffering greatly. But with a little positivity and a load of baby steps I’m hoping that I can survive this most recent purge and return to my writing with the narcissistic vigour that has gotten me as far as I have already.

Until then my faithful readers, I apologise for the lapse back into whiney writing that I so often condemn.

Take Two

A little while ago I posted a snippet from a scene that I had been working on. What I posted was fairly rough, including all of the spelling and grammatical errors one would expect from a rough draft. Despite its flaws I wanted to post the scene to show the dismal number of followers I had at the time what I was working on. So, after many months and a little bit of polishing I thought that I would provide a ‘take two’ entry of the same scene. Please excuse the formatting, it’s gone a little crazy during the conversion across to WordPress. Nevertheless, I hope that you like it…

The spring sun had set over Marseille, France’s second-largest city and its largest commercial port. Though the daytime temperature had been a mild eighteen degrees Celsius, the trade wind known as the Mistral blew through the valleys of the Rhone as the day diminished, unleashing its bitter assault on the city as night had fallen. The harsh, cold wind was an unwelcome change from the warm early spring days the city had experienced over the past week, and many residents had locked themselves indoors for the night. High above the city sat the Notre-Dame de la Garde, a huge basilica positioned on the city’s highest natural point, a limestone outcropping on the south side of the old port. The de la Garde looked grand against the moonlight, the cold winds lashing over its stone surface, leaving a faint smell of limestone in the air. The basilica was a tourist mecca and a local place of worship for Marseille’s religious population, but right now the holy building had been closed down for the night, abandoned save for the four men standing on its limestone balcony, gazing out over the city below. Lights glistened in the windows of houses, and streets cut an intricate maze through the buildings as far as the eye could see. To the south, the moon’s light reflected off the deep blue surface of the Mediterranean Sea, its usual calm broken by small whitecaps rolling silently towards the shoreline.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were brothers by blood, but their appearances were startling different, even when concealed by the heavy robes they now wore, just as their namesakes would have worn. Pestilence, the eldest brother was tall, his features dark and handsome, his hazel eyes endless and deadly. His body was lean, yet surprisingly muscular; his age was indeterminable beneath his priest’s robes and hood. Concealed beneath his robes were two pearl-white handguns, held in pancake holsters against his ribs.

The second brother was huge. Taller and broader than his siblings, he physically dominated the foursome. His shoulders were wide and his chest shaped as though Da Vinci himself has chiselled it from the finest of stone. His hair was dark brown and his eyes a fiery emerald green. He wore a beard, thick and woolly, poking out from within the hood of his robe. In his right hand he held a small flick knife, the blade three inches long and cast from blood-red metal. He spun the knife effortlessly between his fingers as he watched the skyline. Although he was known to his brothers as War, he had once been known in intelligence communities as The Surgeon, such was his abilities to flay open the flesh of his prey. To his left stood the third born son of Chaos—the quiet one, his gaze cast down at the floor.

The quiet one was also the smallest of the foursome, standing at an embarrassing five feet nine inches with thin, sinewy shoulders. Many myths surrounded him; a bastard child with origins unknown. Famine had spent an entire lifetime concealing himself from the world, his face hidden behind a facemask complete with breathing apparatus that could be seen hanging from beneath the hood pulled over his head. Even his brothers had never seen his true face. Some said that he was a prominent military figure who shielded his identity from his kin. Others said that he had no face at all, that he was a ghost capable of moving through walls. His movements had the precision and fluency of a dancer, and he wore full military Special Forces combat attire, all black.

The youngest of the brothers stood apart from his siblings, his face tipped upwards towards the moon. The hood of his robe had been pushed back and draped across his shoulders and neck, revealing a beautifully hideous face to the world. His head was shaved smooth, his features made sharper by the pale green tattoos that covered his face. His entire skeletal system had been tattooed onto his skin. Cheekbones, ribs, phalanges and metatarsals were replicated in soft green ink. He was tall, six feet three inches, and his eyes were a translucent grey. Death incarnate.

The Four Horsemen were the sons of the infamous assassin Chaos; the former United States of America’s “confidential enemy number one”, a man who had been executed eight months ago in Berlin by a unit of MARSOC operatives. Named after their biblical namesakes Pestilence, War, Famine and Death were a closely guarded secret within intelligence circles. There were just a few hundred people across the globe who could accurately say that they had direct knowledge of their movements, only those with the highest security clearances were ever made aware of the vicious reputations the brothers held. Governments had fought tirelessly to keep the atrocities that the brothers had committed out of the public’s eye, just as they had done with Chaos. But the brothers thrived in the secrecy of their actions. Pestilence and War cold move freely. Famine could live another life without his mask, and Death often used makeup to cover his skeleton and move unnoticed throughout the world.

“My brothers; tonight is a momentous night,” Pestilence said, dropping down the hood of his robe. “Tonight marks the eight month anniversary of our father’s death and the last time we will meet.”

“Such sentiment,” War mocked, thrusting the blade in his hand towards Pestilence to mark his point. “I have no time for petty bullshit brother. Tell me why you bought us here. Tell us why you killed the arms manufacturer.”

“I had no use for him. Gerard was a turncoat who was planning on ratting us out.”

“We needed him,” War said, trying to keep his voice to a whisper, belying its true thunderous volume. “Gerard had worked for us for years. He worked for our father. He was invaluable to our cause.”

“And yet he was going to betray us,” Pestilence snapped. “He had seen what I was planning and he was weak. He was going to rat me out so I put him down like a dog.”

War fell silent, offering no response. The four brothers were not close on any physical or emotional level, rarely seeing eye to eye. Their only mutual affiliation had been their now-deceased father. Each man would have been perfectly content to operate independently of his siblings, and for a long time they had done so. But right now they needed one another if they were to fulfil their father’s plans and bring the world to its knees. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were inseparable for the moment, no matter how badly they wished otherwise.

“Tomorrow marks phase one of the Rapture,” Pestilence said, taking a moment to scan the faces of his three brothers, lingering a fraction of a second longer on Famine, the brother without a face. “Our father was slain eight months ago today, and the governments of this God-forsaken world are still yet to feel our wrath for their actions. The soldiers responsible for the attack were neutralised, as were their families; but now we must set forth and fulfil our destiny. We must bring about the Rapture, and bring our enemies to their knees just as our father would have wanted. We will tear down every corner of the earth and reduce it to rubble and we will rebuild the world in his image. Chaos and anarchy will reign.”

“Not all of the soldiers were killed,” War spat, casting a glance at the youngest brother, Death.

“Did I ask for you to open your mouth?” Pestilence hissed silencing the brothers before Death had a chance to respond. “We will do as our father has asked of us and we will divide the world into quarters and conquer them. Europe will fall underneath a cloud of disease that will cripple its people and leave its governments powerless to help. The rich will protect themselves and the great unwashed will rise and destroy what remains of them. Then my brothers, your time to rise will come.”

Pride

“This is real pride in my eyes; it’s not a cocky act.”
-Shadrach Kabango.

As a writer I follow a lot of other writers through various blogging platforms such as WordPress, Tumblr and so on. I follow writers with readership bases that range from thirty to hundreds of thousands, and I sift through their posts in a never ending search for inspiration and enlightenment. In the grand scheme of things my own blog has a readership base closer to the thirty mark then the hundreds of thousands. But I’m comfortable with that, because I’ve never really been one who has felt the need to seek out approval from anyone other than myself. If I write a post and believe that it’s good, I’m happy. If someone else enjoys it too then I’m ecstatic.

Until recently I have enjoyed the regular updates from many of the sites that I follow. I’ve found humour in their words, inspiration in their stories, and for a select few I’ve even felt outrage for their plights or one-sided bigotry. But lately I’m feeling disillusioned with many of the writer blogs that I follow. I have my reasons as to why I feel so cynical towards my fellow writer, and I’ll try to say this as diplomatically as possible. It’s going to sound harsh when I say it, so here goes….

….When did being a writer mean that you have to be a whiny bitch?

Seriously, it’s as though we writers are so desperate to post anything in order to grow our readership base that we have resorted to posting pathetic, poorly written articles about sweet nothing. I’ve read the “steps to growing your readership base” articles, and I know that rule number one is blog often, but in my humble experience blogging well trumps blogging often every single time. Real art takes time to produce, and if you’re churning out post after post at lightning speed, chances are what you’re posting is shit.

I don’t give care about your failed relationships or if you’re struggling to make ends meet. Grow some balls and understand that everyone has relationship issues, and get a fucking job. If you’re like me and you haven’t yet reached that point where you can survive solely on the income generated through your writing endeavours, then get a job, bust your arse, and pray that one day you become successful enough to give up the nine-till-five life. The amount of posts I sift through from struggling authors trying to mooch from their readership base or moaning about a lack of funds is disgraceful. No one is going to pay for your dreams, and no one wants to hear about your desire for them to do so.

Nothing changes if nothing changes.

If you’re broke, work. If you’re struggling with your situation, change it. And if you want to be a successful author you need to realise that it isn’t going to happen overnight. You need to put your head down and start producing some incredible manuscripts and you need to want success so bad that it’s your only option.

I used to think that my greatest weakness as a writer was my pride. I’ve always been a man who wants to defy the status quo, and I will forever choose the path of most resistance. The idea of networking with other authors makes me want to head butt a brick wall, and the thought of censoring myself to anyone sends a shiver down my spine. I used to think that this pride in myself would prevent me from ever succeeding, but now I believe that it will be the very thing that sees my work make it into print.

I want to become an author so badly that the thought of failing causes my heart to ache and my breathing to become laboured. I don’t want to be a whiny bitch posting about nonsensical shit. I want to be an author who tries to outdo himself every single time he writes. I want to push myself beyond my own comfort zones and I want to experience the fringes of my own mind. And I want to take the reader with me.

From now on the tone of this blog will change. I’ve had posts in the past that have hinted at my own inner school-girl, but from this moment I aim to bring you a better standard of writing. No more whining. No support me because I’m a broke, lazy as fuck writer styled entries. No shitty half-arsed posts. I don’t blog often, so I plan to blog well. And for those of you do regularly follow my entries, let’s see how far we can take this thing. It’s time to create a blog that I can be proud of. I don’t want to be just another cocky act.

Hail Mary

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Relax. It’s not a religious reference, but rather homage to American Football. For those of you unaware of a Hail Mary Pass, it is an extremely long pass made in desperation that has only a fraction of a chance of success. The pass is usually thrown late in the game when a team offers its last stand in an attempt to win the match. Anyone who has ever seen the Hail Mary Pass thrown will be able to relate to the momentary trepidation that strangles the heart as you watch the spiraling ball in flight, carrying the hopes of the team and its fan base on its pigskin body, usually to no avail.

Yet when a Hail Mary finds its intended receiver the crowd erupts and the entire match spins on an axis and forces the opposition into a play to win situation they hadn’t been anticipating.

So why the football reference? I’m a writer. And let’s be honest, writers aren’t usually great sports people. Yet here I am trying to explain an infamous play in a sport that is foreign to my own country of origin. Well the reason is that right now I feel like I’m standing on my own ten yard line staring at an end zone blocked by my opponents, who will do anything to see me fail. But this isn’t an ordinary end zone. I’m not gunning for a game winning touchdown, I’m eyeing off a far larger dream. On the far side of the field located in front of the grandstands and marching band, is a publishing contract and a life changing moment of triumph.

Right now it’s time out and my opponents are milling around in a loose huddle counting down the minutes until they’ll form a line of scrimmage and attempt to rush me and strip my dreams from my fingers. I say minutes fairly loosely, because the reality of the situation is that my window of opportunity won’t actually appear until eight weeks from now when I touch down in New York City in preparation for my Hail Mary Pass.

Nevertheless I’m using the time afforded me right now to size up my opponents and assess the threats that they pose when they try to blindside me before I break into open ground and race to the end zone.

I can see that arsehole called Finance; the big line backer with the bull-neck and ham-sized fists that grunts as he stares at me. He knows that my money situation is fucked and I’m desperately trying to scrape together any kind of defence I can against the heavyset prick who will attempt to chop me down at the knees.

Beside him is Location; the bastard who has displaced my dreams many times before. He plays dirty and chooses favourites on the field. If he doesn’t like you then he’ll hit you hard at every opportunity; and so some reason the bastard seems to loathe me.

And so the list of my opponents goes on as I run my eyes over the huddle. The other writers are there, arsehole agents too. Fear is smiling and patting self-doubt on the back as they make eyes at me, formulating a plan to hit me simultaneously. But as I stare at the congregation of damned bodies watching me through their helmets and grills, there is only one man who I feel actually has the power to intercept my Hail Mary and destroy the opportunity I’ve worked so hard to create; and he looks a lot like me.

As an aspiring writer my greatest enemy is not the industry, my competitors, publishers, editors, agents, nor my displacement from the larger markets of America and Europe. My greatest enemy is myself, and it always will be. See I’m fairly confident in my abilities as a writer. I wouldn’t have won the competitions I have, or seen my work progress so far through screening processes if there wasn’t some level of skill in what I produce. But I also know that I am a bit of an extroverted introvert sometimes and I just hope and pray that when it comes time to throw that fucking pass and chase down my dreams that I have the balls to give it everything that I have.

It’s a confusing contradiction isn’t it? How can someone be an extroverted introvert? And how can they really hope to ever achieve anything if they can’t figure out something as simple as their own personality traits? Well, the thing is that I am incredibly introverted. I like my own company and tend to shy away from others. I don’t have an abundance of people who are close to me because I don’t want to. But for those that are, I aim to protect them with bloody hands if they ever need it. It’s not that I am necessarily shy though. I used to be. Now I’m the complete opposite. I’m confident as hell in myself and my abilities. But I don’t feel the need to take that confidence and turn it into arrogance by shouting it from the rooftops. I’m your quiet self-assured type that doesn’t feel the need to justify myself to anyone… And there in my own mind, lays my problem when I hit the streets of New York in eight weeks’ time.

I have to justify myself. I have to prove to publishers and agents and that I am worth their time and I have to stifle my own ego no matter how much it tells me to revert back the arrogant arsehole I can sometimes be.

So here I stand waiting for the moment when I’ll throw my Hail Mary Pass and try to score a book deal. The clock is winding down and the arseholes in their huddle before me are watching my every move. Finance is watching as I turn my small change into small fortunes. Location scrutinizes my movements as I book flights and accommodation. The other writers gawk at how I present myself and my scripts laden with ruin and woe. The agents watch as I prepare to slide into the chair opposite them and pitch my fucking heart out. And the man that looks like me stares back with an impassive curiosity, knowing that all of his teammates can be beaten and the only man who can defeat me is myself. He watches and waits, knowing that if I am to succeed I have to learn how to be humble and how to grovel. He watches with a sly smirk that says the game is mine to lose.

I may be a superstar in my own mind, but I still need to prove it to others. In eight weeks time when I throw my Hail Mary I need to do so with as much confidence and bravado as I can muster. But I must also do so with a sense of humility that can sometimes be foreign to me.

Dreams

“I have come to believe that coming true is not the only purpose of a dream. Its most important purpose is to get us in touch with where dreams come from, where passion comes from, where happiness comes from.”
– Lisa Bu

Surfacing for air

As a writer I’m an all or nothing kind of guy. If I am going to sit down and flesh out my innermost thoughts for the world to see then I am going to devote my full attention to the task. Often times this means that I completely withdraw from the world and live within the confines of my own head for weeks at a time, barely registering what is taking place around me. I become so egocentric during these times that I often neglect those closest to me and even myself as I focus solely on the men and women that exist only in my mind’s eye. It’s a pretty shallow task to undertake, yet in my youthful arrogance I habitually chose this path of total isolation in my quest to create something of worth.

Yet despite my acknowledgement of my processes I regularly find myself disorientated and confused when I am eventually roused from my state of comatose and returned to the land of the living. Relationships that once prospered are now fractured and require urgent attention, my image has dwindled away to the point where I look like a homeless person, and the house looks like a bomb hit it. I find myself left asking just when the fuck did everything veer off course and why didn’t my prose-fuelled brain notice that something was amiss? I guess the question that I really want to know is why because I choose to be a writer does isolation have to be a by-product?

Well, the truth is that it doesn’t. There’s hundreds of thousands of writers all over the globe that manage to indulge their creative tendencies and still maintain some semblance of normality. Yet here I am retreating into myself every time my creative urges flair. I guess a large part of my behaviour can be attributed back to the fact that I’m actually a pretty timid man. I’ve never been in a fight. I’ve never stood up in the face of great adversity. And If I’m being completely honest I’ve never really expressed myself in an external fashion until I decided to become a writer. Ever since I was a boy I have internalised my thoughts and feelings, pushing them to a place so deep that I must now undertake an expedition to my very soul just to fuel that flame to create.

But what does this all mean? Does it mean that if I want to write then I am destined to be a perpetual disappointment to those closest to me? Well, I sincerely hope not. But it does mean that from now on when I choose to slip into that creative mindset and delve beneath the surface of my own thoughts, I’ll have to make a conscious effort to surface for air a little more often.

Over the past few months I’ve been putting the finishing touches to my manuscript in preparation for my journey abroad. In that time I’ve distanced myself from just about everyone and forgone the pleasures of the real world to focus on the chaotic realities of the one that I have created. But now as the end is in sight and my work feels greater than ever I can take a little more time to surface and show those closest to me that I really do love them, and can’t thank them enough for constantly putting up with the frustrated, egotistical arse that I often am.