Darkest Time of the Year

I know it doesn’t take a lot of effort to brood on the holidays, but you gotta believe me, I’m far past the point in my life where I’d want to spend the last few weeks of the year in misery—or decade for that matter. Usually I make a reasonable attempt at going through the motions of my own winter traditions, but this year was something altogether indomitable. That is to say, despite best efforts, it was a rough one.

However, that doesn’t mean that it’s all bad, or that misery doesn’t come with it’s own sort of fun. These parts of the year were made for writing, lights and celebrations, for indulging in all the slow, reflective proclivities of a full tilt introvert. There’s a lot for someone like myself to like about this time of the year and all the darkness that comes with it.

Hell, even at the time of the initial writing of this entry (though maybe not a time of publishing—I typically write and publish these entries at different times) I’m writing these words in the middle of a neighborhood blackout, which I wouldn’t have included if it wasn’t exquisite timing. Yes, it’s been a comically hard one this year, but here I am ready to look back on the past few weeks and recount some of the good things. I’ll start with the updates.

November’s goals were more intensive than either October’s or December’s—which I state to preface that I ran about a chapter or so behind when it came to November’s checklist. This hit at the same time as a lot of the other things I’ve been dealing with, such as my day job getting pretty wild in response to the holiday rush—but I won’t talk much about that here. Anyway, for these reasons and more, I was in a dreary headspace and had planned to muse on that when it came time for this entry. The plan was to have the blog be the last thing I did this year—or decade I guess (I don’t have the energy to even beginning musing on the closing decade, woof)—my hope being that I could talk about the recent draft of Codetta from a place of accomplishment and completion. Given that you’re reading this now means I was successful in that. I’m happy to say I’ve completed the current draft of my oldest novel with enough time to spare to even throw in that prologue and epilogue I was planning on ditching. It’s a nice feeling, especially given that I feel a lot more proud of it upon finishing it than I did last month in the middle of act two. Maybe this one’s still worth developing after all.

For 2020, I got my next two projects lined up: Q1 will be spent proofreading the novel I wrote last year at this time—this should be a little less intensive than Codetta’s redraft, so I’m hoping to also use the time to develop myself some on a personal level. After that, I hope to start working on Shelle’s Island—my second novel, originally written back in the summer of 2016, and one of the oldest stories I’ve been lugging around in my backlog. My current goal is to get most of the books I’ve already written punched up to my current level of quality. Wasn’t sure what I was going to do after that, until the other day, when I listened to an obscure song from my past, one that I won’t give you any details on at present, but will say I associate with a pretty strong era of my life. Listening to that song made me realize that I was pretty much bound to the destiny of working through my entire novel backlog, i.e., all those novels I said I wanted to write back before I ever successfully committed to finishing one. Honestly, I’m further along than I realized, and reflecting back upon the journey of gaining practice as a novelist, I believe that simply going down one’s own novel backlog (I assume most writers have these), as humbling an experience though it may be, is a fairly meritorious path towards experience. If you have your own collection of three to five novels you’ve wanted to write over the course of your lifetime, I’d recommend writing all of them, editing each to the point it becomes a serviceable work, before expecting to be good at the craft. That should be a good start for any novelist.

Wow, these are some thick, rambling paragraphs, even for me. I apologize for that, I’ve really been on that sorta vibe, more than usual. Maybe it’s the stress, or maybe it’s from dedicating so much time to the old literary pursuits. I’ve basically been mostly in my head for weeks straight, which usually happens when I near the end of a long project. But I’ve finally got my holiday time, so I hope you see the comfortable rambling as something a little more lazily festive and intimate. I’m somehow managing to get some celebrating in, so let’s both think of this entry as a way for me to share that with you.

It’s the darkness of winter after all, that makes us more prone to that sort of feeling. It makes us the right sort of melancholy, which in turn lets us have these little quiet moments—tiny glows that glow brighter in the dark, winter vibes, that sort of thing.

Anyway, it would probably be wise to take some time to reflect on what this draft of Codetta has taught me. So, I guess I have to admit that the strongest lesson I learned on this pass was one of the most basic things about editing—while intellectually I’ve known the difference between structural editing and line editing, this pass has show me why it’s useful that these elements be examined and improved at different times in the process. For this reason, I think Codetta would benefit with another proofread (though I’m likely to say something similar forever if I’m not careful), as there were quite a few structural changes I had to make, particularly in the already kinda tricky latter part of the second act. That said, I got it done—oh and look, the power came on! Really, right when I typed that last sentence. Hopefully I won’t lose the magic of that while editing, anyway where was I… (Editor’s note: I’ll keep this in.)

I think at the end of the day, Codetta is just more good practice. I’m thinking of seeking out another manuscript evaluation soon, get another opinion about the query-ability of Codetta, while I follow a similar process of quality update and query prep for my other completed novels, well, all of them except the actual sequel to Codetta—no point in fine tuning that one until Codetta is actually finished for keeps. If anything I’ve gained experience and confidence. That’s good enough for where we are right now.

I guess I’ll publish this on the last day of 2019. It was a decade of tribulations, which has been true of all three that I’ve muddled through, though I think I grew and accomplished the most in this one. Let’s be ready for anything the future may have in store for us and trust in the experiences of our past to prepare us for whatever 2020 will bring—I know I’m just getting started myself, it’s a good time for a new decade. It’s a good time for the future. So, bitter or sweet, hopefully a bit of both, may this one go out with a bang or with a long silence, just so long as it goes.