The Grinding of the Wheel

This isn't working, but I'm not done trying. This time last year, I wrote an entry about midpoints - the points of no return that lie in the center of any journey. As the wheel has turned another four seasons, each significantly more demanding than years prior (all preexisting unresolved trauma considered), I find myself wondering what it was I thought I ever knew about midpoints. Life itself doesn’t seem to offer much in the way of stopping points along this journey that feel very much like the midpoints in well-crafted stories. From what I've experienced thus far, real life tends towards cyclical moments of reflection rather than clear, definable benchmarks of progress. That said, the thing about real life is that every passing moment can be its own midpoint, or its own denouement, climax, or inciting action - every moment can spark its own leg of the longer journey, it just depends on how you utilize it.

Is this entry really going to be yet another where I ramble quasi-philosophically around a vague theme? Yeah, I guess so, it's just what we do this year (and you can expect more of the same for next month's entry, I'd wager). In fact, I will admit this is another entry wherein I started writing before I had any idea what it was going to be about. I've never really offered much in this blog besides a window into my personal experience of attempting to become a real-ass, published novelist; the tips and strategies I've written about here were not tools long mastered, but tricks and methods I've been happy to share as soon as I discovered them for myself. As the year darkens, I can't escape reflection, so please overlook me restating my purpose. Where am I going with all this? I'll be happy to do my best to figure that out, right after this month's writing updates.

I've continued to make progress on the most recent update of Codetta - a book I first drafted five years ago (though I'd been writing it for decades prior... Yes, it's one of those life-long cringe books, I actually have a couple of them). I'm getting very close to finishing my initial pass following editing services I requested back in September. 

I've already taken time in my previous entry to provide a little insight into my experiences with the process. In short, it seems like the investment in time, money, and energy has paid off to some extent, as I legitimately feel more confident in my skills as a writer than before. For the first time, I feel like I conceptually understand how a novel is written; I understand all the major parts to a story, how they're supposed to function, and why my previous efforts were falling flat on the page. However, with all that said, the other trade off is that I now think I really hate Codetta - and thus, I hate myself and my choices in kind. Maybe that sounds dramatic to you, but I like to think that these days I don't have a dramatic bone in my body... Or at least none that I’d consider vestigial.

The funny thing is that if you go back to my entries from around this time last year, you’ll find that I was also working on a pass of Codetta and claiming that was to be my last attempt at it. I don’t know what it was about quarantine madness that made me go back on this - I shudder to think that I may actually love my characters and have a deep urge to see them grow and move on to their biggest challenges that I’ve long outlined in the form of a seven part series. I still kinda want that now… but at the same time, I have a deep desire to begin moving forward. In truth, I know I just need to finish this pass, wait a month or so, and then maybe consider giving it a read to see if I still hate it. Yet at the same time, a part of me can’t help but feel that it’s some rite of passage as a writer to throw your dearest darlings into that old metaphorical trunk.

When I got serious about writing five years ago and composed my first ever draft of a novel, I followed it up by jumping into a huge number of writing projects in an attempt to catch up on all the lost time spent not writing enough over the years. In that first year and a half, I wrote about half a dozen shorts, over a hundred micros, and an entire other manuscript (the other lifelong book I’ve been struggling to polish up during this hell year, a story I call Shelle’s Island). When I repeat all that crap back on the page, it’s pretty easy to see where my angst is coming from: I just need to move the fuck on to something new.

Last month I alluded to a possible follow up to Codetta, and hinted it would be darker than the first. While I do have an ugly rough draft for a sequel, I think it’s best to use it as mulch for something greater. Some advice I’ve gotten from a couple places recently has suggested that what I really need to do is follow my enthusiasm. There’s absolutely nothing hard to grasp about that concept as I myself long said that if one’s not enjoying the process, then in some respects, it may be possible that one is doing it wrong. Not always, but often.

So fuck Codetta, I say, fuck my dreams. I want to write horrifying things better fitting what I think of this beautiful and endlessly kind world. Really, someone who writes like this probably has little business writing for teens - I mean, I don’t want to encourage anyone to think like me at all, especially not the kids. The world’s pretty gnarly for them already, they don’t need my YA trauma books, do they? We’ll circle back to it. Maybe… Maybe even in another form altogether.

If I had to guess, this entry reads a little dark, and I don’t really care anymore. I’m the edgiest of all time now and forever, lest it ever be forgotten. I blame the holidays, they bring out the worst in folks, especially me. That said, maybe I should at least attempt to cheer up since we’re all looking to have a gloomy one in the coming weeks as it is - misery loving company and all that… So as the deep, dark abyss that is the 2020 holiday season approaches, let’s all figuratively join hands and hope our collective exhaustion with the bullshit forces something to change in our shared subconscious. I’ll check back in with ya’ll on how that’s looking next month. Until then, thanks for taking the time, it means more than you’d likely guess.