It’s been an insane amount of time since my last post, but more important than addressing that is addressing that it’s been an insane amount of time since I published a book. And I have reasons for that – legitimate reasons, and reasons that I don’t have the time or inclination to talk about here. So get to the point old man – what are you here to talk about?
I’m here to talk about, first and foremost, the importance of listening to people who are way more experienced than you. Not smarter, not more successful, but more experienced.
Because of my long, shall we say, “hiatus” away from my writing projects, I felt it necessary to revisit my older writing projects to get me excited for writing again. Not to mention, being an old man, I tend to forget things and needed a little refresher on my own stories. When I revisited Blood of the Mother, I was reminded of how much I love the story and the world I created. But I was also reminded of the flaws in the story and how many gaps were in the world I created. And while one could find problems in any creative endeavor after letting it lie untouched for a while and revisiting it, I had to seriously consider the problems of this one. You see, Blood of the Mother was always meant to be part of a series (hence “The Godblood Chronicles” obviously), and I had future events planned out for the next several books… sort of.
It’s that “sort of” that became my downfall. I’ve never been what you would call a planner. I’ve never been that organized. Oh sure, I’ve gotten better in my old age – with much thanks to my wife and her dogged persistence – but I’m a far cry from someone who typically has all his ducks in a row. Instead, I’m happily watching my ducks run amuck and enjoying themselves while trying to keep track of them all at once. This, unfortunately, does not work in the writing world. At least, not for me.
So, in an effort to smooth out some of the wrinkles in the fabric of The Godblood Chronicles, I set about doing some more intensive and detailed world building. After about a week of this, I began to realize that as I was filling in a lot of things that had previously been nebulous at best, there were parts of the Blood of the Mother that were shifting like tectonic plates, dropping whole chunks of story into the waters of uncertainty. I was being left with questions like “Do I really need this aspect of the story?” and “How can I get this piece of the story to work now that the backstory has changed to something else?” Things were going to have to be *gasp* rewritten in order for the story to work, as well as for the next books to follow.
In addition to the world building, I also took a stab at something that I’ve never really relished doing – outlining my stories. I’ve rebelled so much against this over the many years that I’ve written, and most of the time it comes back to bite me in the ass. I’ve even refused it after rereading my “bible” on writing over and over and over, that being Sometimes the Magic Works by Terry Brooks. And this is where my starting premise – pay attention to those with more experience – stems from. If I had just listed to Terry after one of my many readings of his advice, I wouldn’t be in this predicament. If I said, “You know, Terry is a successful author and a fairly good writer… perhaps I should buckle down, step out of my comfort zone, stop being a prickly and rebellious young turd, and give it a try.”
But I guess existentially looking at it, if I had, I wouldn’t have had this experience to learn from in the first place. So which is better – to follow and succeed or to learn and eventually succeed? Maybe neither is better, but knowing how stubborn I am I will most likely continue to learn from my own experiences and – hopefully – eventually succeed. And I can share my experiences with others who may choose to follow or rebel, thus continuing the cycle.
(Author’s note: As of the posting of the entry, all ebook and print copies of the Blood of the Mother are unavailable. I am shooting for the rewrite to be done in late 2020 or early 2021. If you purchased either or both in the past, I will offer compensation at the time of publishing the new version.)