Subplots 7: Five years on the runway, but we have lift-off

What I've been up to this week...

Subplots is my more-or-less weekly snapshot of where I am in life, what I’ve been up to, what’s been preoccupying me etc. The life of a writer is pretty varied, and though much of my time is spent alone at the desk chatting to imaginary people, not all of it by any means. So here’s (some of) the rest…

Wednesday 15th August

Here I am in Reykjavík. I didn’t go there to catch up on my sleep, and it shows.

I’m kind of exhausted right now. But in a good way, I think. I’ve been working hard, and also playing hard. Resting? Not so hard. But then I’m not really sure I know how to rest hard. Maybe it’s not possible. An oxymoron.

Anyway. Work, first. I’m writing a very exciting thing that I’ve been thinking about, and making notes on, for something like five years now. This five year gestation wasn’t because of some well thought out plan, it wasn’t a policy decision. It just sort of happened. I had the idea, and made some notes, but then I shelved the book as it felt like it wasn’t quite ready and it was also something I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I wanted to work on. So I moved on, but this very exciting thing wouldn’t go away, it kept reminding me it existed like a stone in my shoe that I can’t get rid of. So I kept adding to my thoughts every time I had another idea, and due to my gravitational theory of ideas (that the bigger an idea gets, the more it attracts other ideas to it) it got bigger and bigger.

And then, I talked to someone about it. Someone who’s a great writer and a great friend and whose opinion I trust as much as anyone’s. And she had ‘some thoughts’ and felt there were things I still needed to figure out (a good sign, it shows that the person whose opinion you’re hearing actually likes it enough, and cares enough, to do some real thinking about whatever it is you’re showing them, as opposed to just saying 'Great! It’s great!’) but basically she thought it was ‘fucking amazing’, or words to that effect.

This was, like, a year ago or something. A bit more. I was knee deep in another project (which is now finished, my new agent and I just need to decide what to do with it as it’s a little bit different for me), so I still didn’t make a serious start on the very exciting project. Though I did create a file in Scrivener, my writing software of choice, and start collating ideas and thinking about inciting incidents and opening scenes and so on. Making plans, basically.

And now…?

[Continues below, pause for commercial break]

A request: Would you consider upgrading your subscription, so that Compendia can continue? Writing is work and work should be paid, BUT I know things are hard for most of us right now. I’ve therefore lowered my prices as far as I feel I can given the effort I put into Compendia.

It’s just £1 per week (around US$1.30) if you pay for a year in advance, and around £1.40 (US$1.80) per week if you pay monthly.

Bear in mind it’s easy to cancel if you’re not enjoying what I offer.

Most people enjoy Compendia for free, and it’s great to have you on board. But it’s the handful who do pay who allow me to continue writing here, so please consider it.

[Commercial break ends]

A couple of weeks ago, I started working on this new project in earnest. I found I’d written about 5k already, which I liked, and another 10k which was… okay. All good, right? Well, yes, but I also made the decision to restructure it slightly, to lose a narrator and to simplify something else. There was this one element I loved, but which had started to worry me as, every time I described the project to people, when I got to that particular part they tended to go cross-eyed and say, ‘Sorry, what?’

So that had to go, which felt daunting at first. But when I sat down to look at the plan again I found that — perhaps because of the years of thought — I could come up with something new and better in just a couple of hours. So i did the work and rewrote the synopsis and now, when I describe the book to people, they no longer go, ‘Amazing, but what the fuck?’

So that feels good, too. And now, all I have to do is write it. Haha.

It’s going well, though. I think because this particular plane spent so long on the runway it had a lot of momentum and was airborne pretty much as soon as I took the brakes off. The first day I sat down to actually tell the story I managed something like 4k words. Admittedly, a lot of it was just reworking the opening I already had, but still. I was so thrilled I upgraded my regular end-of-the-day gin and tonic to a gin martini (which I still don’t really know how to make taste as good as when others make one for me. Any tips?)

And it’s continued to go well. I even took it away with me when i went to Reykjavík last week for Pride, and though I did no work when I was actually there, I did bang out a few words on the train to the airport, and then a few more on the plane.

Someone said to me yesterday that I have an impressive work ethic. Right now, I’d agree. It’s partly due to joy —  though it’s a dark one, I’m loving the world I’m creating — but also due to fear. I’m worried that if I slow, the plane will drop out of the sky, the book will crash, and I’ll never get it up again. So I drive myself on.

End result? It’s going well, but I’m fucking tired.

As for the rest, the stuff I got up to when I wasn’t working? I think I’m going to write that tomorrow. And make it for my paying subscribers, as there’s some stuff I want to talk about that’s just between me and them…

Cheers

Steve