Rejection
How much rejection do you deal with in your entire life? And at what point to you move away from the camp of sadness, i.e. Camp-I’m-Not-Good-Enough, and turn rejection into one of those inflatable punching bag things. Take a rejection and bounce right back?
I ask the void for two reasons.
Firstly, I have decided that this is my blog of existential questioning and complaining.
And secondly, because today I have received two rejections. One of a professional nature, and another from my creative pursuits.
I still vividly remember trying to join the Army Reserves many years ago, and receiving a letter saying “Thanks, but because your spine is fucked we won’t take you.”
In hindsight, it’s a silly thing, one that has not detracted from my life in any measurable way. But the rejection itself still stung. And that is the way I felt today too.
The professional sting is due to imagining how my life would change with success, then being drawn into the idea that any outcome other than success results in feelings of being trapped in my current situation.
Was that cryptic? Maybe… but either way, it’s silly. Nothing changes, I still need to continue to persevere. So I will.
The creative sting I will discuss more freely.
I wrote another flash fiction story, one about a goblin. I really liked it. And I think I liked it most of all because of the opening line.
“Hargax was a Goblin both in name and activity as he gnawed through the bones of his boiled fish.”
It’s clunky and it only makes sense if you immediately pick up on the A Goblin/A gobbling joke (joke is being generous. Terrible pun?) Otherwise it’s confusing and it jeopardises the rest of the story.
Now to the rejection, it didn’t get called out. And as I write this down I realise how absurd it is that I think it’s good enough to be in the top 30 of over 1000 entries. But I have no idea if I'm close or way off the mark. Maybe my stories just don’t hit the right notes for the judges. Or maybe I’m nowhere near as good as I think I am.
As I said, I enjoyed it, and if there is one person out there that will also enjoy this dumb little story, they can find it HERE.
My next entry will be about the Dunning-Kruger effect, because I find the concept very intriguing and relevant to a lot of human pursuits, including my own.
Now on to other news, (it’s not news, it’s just things that have happened). I finished Patrick Rothfuss’ ‘The Wise Man’s Fear’. It was phenomenal, and now I understand why people are whining about him writing the third book. However I’m not a dick and I won’t get shitty at someone for not cracking out the finale to his magnum opus in a timely fashion.
After that I read The Martian by Andy Weir. Joining the rest of society in that book. It was different from anything else I’d read from a framing perspective, but I think it’s just because I've not read much. Like most forms of entertainment I participate in. I thought it was pretty good!
I also read Kurt Vonnegut’s classic ‘Slaughterhouse Five’, a weird time travelling account of the bombing of Dresden. It was depressing. Mostly because I'd come off the back of finishing the Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History series on the Pacific Theatre of WW2. It contained some incredibly graphic first hand accounts of Japanese cities being firebombed and a mention of Dresden too. Heavy shit.
Next book on the list is the short story ‘Legion: Eyes of the Beholder’ by Brandon Sanderson. I’m a couple of chapters in, it’s a story of an individual who has multiple characters in their head, they manifest in the MCs vision and no one else can see them.
I really like Sanderson’s short story ‘Snapshot’, so I figure I'll enjoy this one too.
That’s enough rambling from me. If you’ve got some unique ways of dealing with rejection, let me know!
Look after yourself and the ones you love, until next time.
The Wise Man’s Fear
The start of this year I finally finished reading the infamous ‘Name of the Wind’ by Patrick Rothfuss. I listened to him do a D&D Podcast a while back and loved his creative streak, it’s shocking to me that it’s taken me this long to get around to reading his first book. I should clarify that I didn’t have a hard time getting into it, it was more that I was intimidated by such a large book. But the moment I started (almost 5 years after first wanting to read it), I devoured it. It occupied my thoughts when I wasn’t reading. So I’d say it’s a pretty good read if you’re into fantasy.
After that I read the newest Tom Clancy book, Red Winter, which was an unexpected throwback to the cold war in 1980-something. I really enjoyed it, it was a quick read and the story was tight. I really enjoy seeing characters that you know become good friends first meet and get to know each other. Not sure why I like that so much, I just do. Which brings up one thing that has just dawned on me, ‘Name of the Wind’ is constructed with the main story being told from the present, with the primary character, Kvothe, telling a story of his life. In the present day he is accompanied by someone named Bast. They appear to be close friends and they have been together for quite some time. I am excited to see how their relationship begins in Kvothe’s tale.
And that brings me to what I’m reading right now, The Wise Man’s Fear, the second book in Rothfuss’ trilogy. And it’s pretty great too, except for a long and weird scene involving a woodland fae nymph. It was weird.
On to other matters, last entry I promised a viewing of the story I wrote for Furious Fiction. I was pretty happy with it, although it didn’t get any notes from the competition judges. As far as i’m concerned it’s another story in the experience vault, and one that I’m not embarrassed to show people. So below is my attempt with the parameters being, 1. Includes a CHAIR 2. Includes the words ALBUM, BRIGHT and CLICK 3. Character must make a choice.
Grandfather’s Coins
Declan reached into his backpack and pulled out a leather folder. The appraiser sitting opposite him took the folder and opened it, revealing a vast coin collection.
“Quite varied,” he says, taking a cursory glance through the album.
Declan squirmed in his chair, his back sticking to the leather.
“Hot out?” asks the appraiser, gesturing to the sweat beading from underneath his askew flat peak snapback
“It’s not bad,” Declan replied, “but I rode my bike in.”
“Of course,” the appraiser responded, “now, do you have your identification with you?”
Declan reached for his back pocket but stopped half way. “I… I lost it.”
“No matter, I can appraise and hold the valuation for three days, you’ll just have to bring in some photo identification.”
“Oh,” Declan said, holding his phone up, “I have a photo of it, I just don’t have the card anymore.”
“This will do just fine. These days everything is all digital anyway, hey?” the appraiser assured, a knowing curve to his smile.
Declan smiled back, he assumed the appraiser was making a joke. He put his phone's brightness to maximum and placed it on the table.
The appraiser took his time, flicking through the album, turning to his computer screen, and then to a sheet of paper. Typing, inspecting, and writing in between his ‘Hmm’s and ‘ah’s.
After what Declan felt was half an hour, the appraiser broke out of his inquisitive fervor. “This is a fine collection,” he stated, “guilders, francs, a VOC Company duit. Your grandfather had taste.”
Declan smiled, pretending that he understood.
“I can offer you twelve-thousand dollars for this collection.”
Declan’s smile disappeared. Up until this point they were just coins, now they had value. His mind raced as morality came into question. This was now real. “I’m not sure I'm ready.”
“I understand. Losing someone is hard. But I assure you I am offering a fair price for this collection, and I also assure you that the collection will remain as one, and go to someone who will appreciate it.”
The phone on the table dinged. Declan read a new message from his friend, Kyle.
“Bro, Jake’s house got broken into. His Pa’s coins are gone…”
Declan froze, staring at three dots dancing on the screen.
They know.
He looked back to the appraiser, “OK, yes, please take them.”
“Wonderful,” the appraiser said. He picked up the album and stood, pushing the papers he scribbled on towards Declan and handing him a pen. “Please sign at the bottom. I will arrange your payment.”
Declan clicked the top of the pen, running his eye over the document. The details looked right. He scrawled his initials.
His phone chimed again, “he’s real upset, let’s take him out for drinks.”
“That sucks. Jager bombs for sure, ” Declan replied.
Twelve minutes later and twelve-thousand dollars richer, Declan tapped on his phone, “drinks are on me btw,” he replied to the text chain. “Unrelated. Do you need a license to ride a jetski?”
I feel like the thing letting me down in this one is the choice isn’t a very strong one. The main character is kind of a dick who has obviously made his choice before he stepped in the appraisers. Either way, let me know what you think below!
Also I just noticed that in my last blog entry I said there was a $500 prize to the winner, that is no longer the case, but the results/review process is a lot more inclusive and in depth. It’s a fair trade.
Until next time, look after yourself!
Furious Writing?
At the start of January I had what I can only assume to be ‘New Year Bluster’, that renewed sense of possibility and excitement that I think most people get at the beginning of a new chapter in their life. I set some lofty goals, that in hindsight, would have been easily achievable if motivation wasn’t something that ebbs and flows.
In putting off writing another blog entry and finishing my first draft of ‘Untitled Fantasy Novel’, I’ve ruined my list of goals in that first month.
But the Earth keeps spinning.
So better late than never, here are some more words from me, to me. What have I been doing instead? Getting inspired by other ideas and exploring those. First off is a project I'm just referring to as a Cyberpunk Romance. I’ve never written romance before, let alone read it. So I checked out some other work from my critiquing group. I have no idea what I'm doing so I'm just going for it. It’ll be a short story that will likely see the light of day never. Maybe I end up writing a super sexy scene and get too embarrassed. Who knows.
Second project is several ideas that were bouncing around in my head that found it’s grounding in the latest episode of Last Podcast on the Left. The framework is a fantasy world of warring factions in a war torn state. Told from a king giving his memoir to his scribe, and a rebel leader pushed to his limit by roving bands of armies and mercenaries. The link I needed to push this forward was the everyday life of peasants in France during the 100 Year War. It’s depressing as hell but if I approach it from a secondary fantasy setting, I can potentially make it a little less so.
The other thing I did was get excited about my shout out for this blog entry, the Furious Fiction competition run by the Australian Writers’ Centre.
It’s free!
It’s now back to a monthly competition of 500 word flash fiction with $500 prize for the winner and 55 hours to complete it. There are prompts/rules to follow and I have really enjoyed it over the last few years. I think I’ve written around 20 stories for the competition to date and I love the challenge. March’s prompts were the below, and what I created was a tale of a Monster Energy drinking dickhead.
Your story must include a CHAIR of some sort.
Your story must include the words ALBUM, BRIGHT and CLICK.
Your story must include a character who has to make a CHOICE between two things.
After the results are released I’ll revise it a little and then share it with you unsuspecting fools.
In conclusion, I didn’t stick to my goals, but I did other things (being a dad of 2 kids takes up a bit of time). And I will still finish that first draft. I only have about 7 chapters to go. I think.
Take care of yourself.
xoxo Gossip Girl.
NaNoWriMo Wrap-up
November came and went in a flash, the end result of writing every day for a month was… (insert drumroll) 42,000 words.
Not quite the 50,000 word target, but it was enough to give me a sense of achievement and an understanding of my limits. The main thing I learned was how to outline a story and stick to it whilst diverging where needed. This process was most apparent when I got towards the end of the story and encountered the patchy notes I didn’t flesh out before November came; I hit a severe slowdown at chapter 23.
At the end of the day I want to shout out the NaNoWriMo community, it’s been a great motivator for me and even though I didn’t actually participate in the community side of things, it was fantastic to see so many people dedicating themselves to something they love.
As it stands I still have about 15,000 to 18,000 words left to go in my first draft.
Truth of the matter is I probably could have had it done by now, but there is this game that I got hooked on again. Satisfactory. It’s a factory building game, Where you build factories with conveyor belts and trains. It’s right in my wheelhouse of nerdy shit and I love it. The problem, of course, is that the free time I was spending in the evenings writing was entirely soaked up by this fantastic game that I cannot recommend enough (If you’re into that sort of thing).
God help me, as of publishing I’ve hit 70 hours since the end of November
So the moral of this entry? I don’t know. Live más?
I don’t think there is a moral, I think that this exercise has taught me some things about planning, time management, and creative output. It also coupled nicely into a book I'm reading called Deep Work, which is about shaping your life around being able to create sections in your day to day where you can focus solely on one task, push away distractions, and commit 100% of your energy to a project. It’s fascinating, however implementing the life lessons to reality is a tricky one. When I’m done I will give a fuller review of my understanding here. It’s not for you, it’s for me. So please don’t read it. This all hinges on me playing less Satisfactory.
So what’s on for 2023? Great question, me. I had initially thought it would be great to have that first draft done by the end of 2022. In hindsight that was ambitious. I’ve never done well with grandiose plans for change. 2023 will be about small and achievable goals. And my writing specific ones are as follows.
Finish the first draft of ‘Unnamed Fantasy Heist Novel’ by the end of January.
Complete first round edit of the Novel by end of June.
Add in a blog entry once a month at minimum.
Outline my next story project, either a Cold War Music based thriller, or a World War II tale of a man who wants to listen to his favourite radio station.
Compete in the NYC Midnight Short Story competition again.
Enter all four Furious Fiction contests.
Add at least six stories to this website.
Participate in NaNoWriMo 2023 and hit the 50k word goal.
That seems pretty achievable, I think.
Stay beautiful and look after yourself and each other. xoxo
NaNoWriMo 2022 approaches…
NaNoWriMo 2022 official banner
At time of writing this I am 5 days away from beginning NaNoWriMo. For those unfamiliar, the gauntlet is thrown down to write 50,000 words in the month of November. That ends up being 1,666 words a day, with an additional 20 words thrown in at the end. It’s a daunting task for me, I’ll be real. I’m used to writing flash fiction, 500 to 1,000 words condensed down to the absolute minimum required for the story to make sense. The idea of sitting down and writing and just not stopping. Not stopping to fix dumb little mistakes. Not turning around half way and deleting everything I've written out of frustration. Not giving up when I hit a creative wall. It’s daunting.
I have prepared, however. I have an outline, I’ve developed the cast, I’ve got the plot squared away to a point where I think it will work. The feelings of inadequacy haven’t hit yet. I’m daunted yet optimistic at this point. Thankfully I have two friends that will be doing this too and I’m very excited to see what their stories entail. It’s also great to have people that I know to do this with, we can cheer each other on, share tips, or cry openly to each other that our fingers, soft from a lack of manual labour, are sore and aching.
What’s my story about? I hear you not ask but I’m going to tell you anyway because I want to get the thoughts in my head down.
My story is about a girl named Isobel in a secondary fantasy world. She’s a ‘legitimate’ thief who breaks into businesses to prove that it can be done easily, and said businesses should therefore pay protection money. She becomes aware of a collection of jewels that enter the city and decides to take back from the merchant class who own every business in the city and are forcing her adoptive parents out of their farmhouse. Like any good heist, it involves a crew, and a plan. And like any bad heist, it’s likely to go wrong.
This story has been swimming around in my mind in one way or another for years, and I believe that NaNoWriMo and my friends participating is giving me the strength and motivation I need to actually put it down in writing. Will it be any good? Probably not, it’s my first novel. My goal is to write the damned thing, and have a friend read it. 2nd draft to fix those big glaring issues that make the story not work. Then have it critiqued once more for a 2nd revision. The 2nd revision I’ll go through with a comb for inconsistencies and smaller issues. Then kick it back out for review. From there on in, who knows. If I feel it’s any good I’ll send it out for a query. But more than likely it’ll be an excellent first attempt at learning how to write a book, and I'll put it away on a shelf and look back on it fondly.
That’s the plan, anyway.
I’ve been writing for 20 minutes now, and that is 526 words. At that pace I could hit 1,666 words in just over an hour. So that’s good news, but can I keep that up? We’ll find out soon.
Why did I do this?
Great question blog header, why did I do this? Why a public facing website, with the professional photographs (taken by the incredibly talented tales_of_taytay), and the stories? It's a solid question and thank you for asking.
For years I’ve felt creativity without having a direction to point it in. I’ve tried many different things without really following through. Writing was something I did as a kid, and I remember really enjoying it, but at some stage it just fell away. The same happened with reading, as a kid I was reading up a storm. After reading the 3rd Harry Potter book at age 13 and then watching the film, I decided that it was a better use of my time to watch the movie; the book was much better but it only took one and half hours to watch instead of read. From that point on I didn’t pick up a book (outside of those against my will) for over a decade, until I found myself on a bus for an hour a day. I was a massive fan of Mass Effect game, and found the prequel novel Mass Effect: Revelation by Drew Karpyshyn. I was once again transported to that place in my mind where the words on the page conjured fascinating imagery. Shortly after, on my honeymoon, I made the snap decision to buy a book at an airport before a 9 hour plane ride to Thailand. That book was Dead or Alive, a Tom Clancy novel written by Grant Blackwood. Apparently in my early 20’s I was rapidly approaching the tastes of a middle aged dad, and from there I started reading again. This leads me to the last couple of years, with prompting from a dear friend I entered a 55 hour, 500 word, flash fiction competition. To date I still haven’t placed in the top 25 list from the 1000+ entries, but I have been able to see a gradual and steady improvement in most elements of my writing. I joined a critiquing community which has also helped immensely, and I’ve devoured 17 years worth of the ‘Writing Excuses’ podcast since the start of 2022 which has opened my eyes to a world of possibilities. Side note, if you’re even remotely interested in writing, I can’t recommend that podcast enough.
All this is leading me to my main point. I want to be a writer, and I am a writer. The real reason I created this website was to showcase the work I am proud of. I’m sure in 2 years time I'll look at those first few stories I uploaded and want to delete them out of shame, but right now I think they’re pretty good. The other side to this, it costs money to buy a domain name, and using SquareSpace also costs money. In view of sunk costs, I'm in the red now so I should probably do the thing I set out to do.
So here I am, showing you the words that I’ve had in my head. The dumb ideas that made me laugh, and the cool stories I’ve wanted to tell without understanding what medium I can unleash the creativity that has wanted to escape for so long. My hope is that at some stage you do one of those laughs where you breath out your nose because laughing when you’re alone makes you look a little insane.
Take care of yourself and your friends.