Status: Writing on A Girl Named Mystery. (2nd draft--2008 version.) Chapter 3. Doing: Writing on this blog; answering e-mails; working out, and well...you know the rest! :0)Watching: Nothing at the moment.Listening to: Taped music.Reading: Kushiel's Scion. Page 414.STAR TREK-BEST DESTINY.TOPIC: FRIDAY'S FOLLOW UP MUSEI couldn't post this yesterday because of my unscheduled trip to the ER for edema problems; as usual.***I often wonder just how insensitive some people are--when it comes to personal bragging rights.
This week?
I think I got part of my answer answered for me.
I frequent Yahoo! Answers quite a bit--cause I like to irritate and annoy the politcal fruitbats that always seem to show up on the weekends.
Plus, they have a section on Authors and Books that have become a personal favorite of mine--though I am not a Top Contributor by any means.
Anyway, I was trying to gauge people's thoughts and reactions when I told them how close I was to breaking the 300,000 word count barrier for my novel, Starchild Duel.
I gave them some philosophy behind the feat--trying to see how CHALLENGED these posters can be.
Well, I rarely have bruised egos over such things these days (because of my thick skin), but some of their responses hit closer to home than I thought.
It made me realize that the world just isn't ready to embrace such radical changes in writing.
At least not the scale I'm presently at.
Most of the responded answers centered on me not being able to tell a story at all--if it took 1200 pages (but the book still isn't done)...another responded by saying that I could easily tell the story in less than 600 pages.
Some suggested that I should break the book up (like I haven't already considered that), another poster said that in order for me to become published, I have to keep my word counts under 70,000 words--and I should use the latest writer's guide as proof of that. (I never got around to telling her that I passed the 70K mark years ago--and haven't bought a new writer's guide since 2001-2002; since dropping out of the mainstream hunt in 2006.)
One poster suggested that I immediately trim it down to a much lower word count; a couple suggested that I limit my use of words in the novel--so that it doesn't sound too wordy, and a third said that unless I was Stephen King, I wouldn't have a chance in hell of getting published that way.
But what shocked me was that there wasn't a SINGLE source of praise for even trying such a feat, no one that responded seemed all that inspired, and most were more focused on my chances of getting in on the graces of the big guns--rather than just being amazed by one writer's personal accomplishment.
Why this happened, I have no idea.
Not one responder had even asked me how I do it--because the few people I've conversed with over the years seemed less interested in how I did it and more obsessed with how I'm going to get a book of that magnitude PUBLISHED.
Which made me think that nobody--outside of a few--really are all that concerned with personal achievements, but are more focused on the monetary and material wealth they could acquire through traditional publishing.
A sad mental state of events--if you ask me.
The other thing is that's been bugging me?
I really WISH people would stop trying to lump me in the same bracket as Stephen King--by using him as a weapon against me!
I don't really care much for him, and he's not what I would call all that "inspirational" for me either. He's a horror author, not a sci-fi buff.
I did not grow up reading any of his books. I still haven't--even though I have a few of his tomes in my collection collecting dust. (Along with everything else of mine.)
It would be like asking a plumber for wedding advice when you should instead go to a certified wedding planner and see what they can do about that jacuzzi.
Y'know?
The only thing that King and I have in common is our coke-bottle glasses and our really bad hair cuts.
From my standpoint, it just doesn't seem accurate enough for me. King's ancient now. Out of date. He had his time in the limelight.
Having someone say: "Well, you're not King--so you're not going to get published"--just makes me think I'm either too inexperienced to be a successful writer, or that I am too old to even make such an attempt in the first place.
But like I went off in my blog on Friday: "I'm not them and they aren't me."
I don't judge my literary feats and accomplishments against someone whose standard isn't even remotely compatible with mine--let alone based solely on monetary gain and...um...what's the word I'm looking for here...?
SOCIAL STATUS.
Secondly? I'm not a robot! I'm not pre-programmed to do *anything* I don't want to do!
Writing for me is a PLEASURE. It's a cross that I alone have to bear. But it's a burden that I carry proudly within me because it makes me who I am--not who I should be in the eyes of society.
Why should I burn more bridges trying to live up to an impossible standard here?
We all write according to our natural gifts--not by someone else's.
I've done all I can with my books. I've tried to be as objective as I can--to take things out, to trim down a few unnecessary spots, but reality-check time?
The way I've written my books is a lot like a construction contractor mapping out the blueprints for the John F. Kennedy Space Center--for the first time.
You just can't use the same formula that was used in building...let's say...the Empire State Building back in 1934.
You have to do it differently than what was put into play decades earlier--based on an entirely different set of engineering principles. The Empire State Building is a natural lightning rod--designed to attract the strikes away from all the lower-end structures.
The Space Center is designed to withstand Category 3 hurricanes.
But you can't expect a writer of my caliber to simply go an adopt someone else's writing style and format because he or she is already published.
You have to look at what they are in before you can start to build a picture of what you want to do as a writer.
Me, I didn't have that blueprint. I didn't even have the tools I needed to become a writer.
Everything I learned came from READING. And that's all there ever was for me. I never once broached a famous author's style or writing format when I started out at the age of 14.
Again, I had no guide, no blueprint, NOTHING that could prepare me for what lay ahead.
The only thing I did have was my command of reading, writing, and a little bit of grammar, along with my English studies.
But I also had science, biology, math, geology, physics, basic engineering, world history, horticulture, social sciences, and a few other areas of expertise--including art and computer science.
This is what I drew up for my writing adventures. I was also heavily into current events, astronomy, meteorology, astrophysics, nature, politics, and some other areas of interest.
These many things is what formed the BACKBONE of my writing career. It wasn't proper writing, adjectives, nouns, pronouns, etc, etc, etc..and proper English writing and communication skills, expert character development--which started me.
I had none of those things growing up. Not one class. Not one lecture. Not one visit by a famous author or a convention.
My situation was so unique growing up, I can honestly say I actually did lead an isolated life. And that life has stayed with me this entire time.
The only things that kept me connected to the outside world was the TV and the library. But I never got into writing all that much. I was too busy being a kid--than wanting to be a famous poet like Robert Frost (I lived in Vermont for 14 years growing up) or anyone else whom was a well-known writer and author.
My mother said that I was her little scientist when I was a boy. It was a phrase that stuck with me. Because I was a man of science--of everything around me.
What I couldn't learn in a classroom--I could find out in the real world. Y'know?
So, when I began to become a writer, all I had was what I had learned thus far in school, but the basic mechanics of writing ITSELF was not even available to me for the entire time I was in the public school system.
Even private school lacked the resources. We had no classes, nothing that could prepare me for what lay ahead. So I literally had to learn everything on my own, through the use of books and my love of the things I most enjoyed.
THEY were my teachers. Not anyone else. Not even Stephen King himself. I didn't hear about him until the early-90s--when his books started to get popular with the masses.
But even then, I never paid that much attention to what he was doing--other than the fact that he was published. Things like this...just never entered my mind. I was so fixated on my own problems and other issues; to really worry about what my own path as a writer was doing to me, or where it was going to lead me.
So, I had no experience, no classes, no nothing. Just books and some of my favorite novels that I liked to read--which got me started on some fan-fiction of my own.
But barriers for me were painful to break--even overcome. I didn't get started in my writing career--seriously--until my mid-20s.
Even then--it was hard enough to just overcome the problems of wanting to become a respectable writer; let alone get published.
Where I was at that time, I still didn't have access to classes, courses, conventions--even as my brothers filled me in on going to a STAR TREK convention in 1994 and meeting Mark Lenard (Sarek).
But writing was something I still had to do on my own. It took me 5 years afterwards to break 100,000 words. I hit the 200,000 barrier in 2001-02.
The 300,000 word count barrier was broken only 4 years ago. And what I've written didn't seem all that wordy or long to me at all. Just layers upon layers of carefully constructed story plot elements, subplots, and one large storyline from start to finish.
And despite my best efforts to protect what I've gone and created, I still have people trying to rip it asunder by telling me that it'll never fly, it'll never sell, and I won't get published because I'm not somebody famous.
All they want to do is destroy something that they can't understand.
Why do we base such importance on these little things? Nobody I know writes 300,000 word books. Not even 200,000.
The most I've heard people tell me these days is between 100K and120K. And that's maximum for them.
Mmph.
Honestly, I feel like such a fish out of water--when measured up against my fellow writers--not PEOPLE whom have been published before, but just persons whom are like me.
Still, I often wonder if I'm the only one whom is chasing this impossible dream of mine.
Not getting published, but writing that Great American Novel that will one day stand for something special.
I've tried to do things that would set me apart from everyone else. But overall, it's always been something that came natural: Being different. Acting different. Doing things differently.
And like all things 25 years ago--I still find that people today still harbor the same unintended malice towards those whom don't fit into today's everchanging social network.
Maybe it isn't me, maybe it's them--I don't really know.
But everytime I look out into the world, I see things so differently than others. Everything just reads along a different evolutionary path of reason and possibility--than what we normally come to understand it as.
I wonder if that has something to do with how my brain rewired itself--shortly after I was born with cerebral palsy. Everything had to be saved differently in order to function to some varying degree.
As such, I haven't been able to see things like other people do. No matter how hard I try, I'm always looking for that one unexplainable glitch, that unexplained variable no one else can see but me.
And the way I write is based on the same principle. I don't operate under the same rules and guidelines as others do. It's not resistance to a set idea or standards, but just something that says: "Nothing's on upstairs."
Or: "Nobody's home; can I take a message?"
There's a quiet lack of comprehension going on. I just can't grasp at times the enormity or the complexity of some things, so I just try to make it as simple for myself as I possibly can--and work my way through as I go.
No matter what I do though, I just can't convince the world that I have something worth contributing to the larger whole.
But it never stops me from trying nonetheless.
Sky
