By the time this blog post rolls out, and if I’m still alive and/or kept to my schedule like I’m supposed to, I should be nearing the halfway point of The Ikessar Falcon, Book 2 of Annals of the Bitch Queen.
Right now, I’m only about 5k words in. Which isn’t a lot, but I only started two days ago. This is going to be the sixth novel that I intend to publish, and quite possibly the sixteenth or so that I’ve ever finished in my lifetime.
A lot goes on in the background while I write these novels. There is a lot I try to say and express, a picture I’m trying to paint. It isn’t nearly as fun as I’d like it to be. Artistic torment, bla bla bla. But I don’t know a life outside of it. 16 novels by age 30 (not counting the stuff I haven’t finished) hasn’t given me a lot of room to explore other options or build up other skills.
Just today, I sent a message to a dear friend that said: “We are a slave to the craft, not the other way around.”
I like the word “slave.” It removes the responsibility of trying to make something more from this than what it is. I don’t get paid, but I have to work. I don’t get recognition, but I have to work. I have to work or I die, that sort of a thing. I have a system, I follow a schedule, but that’s it. I can’t take focus away from the craft part, the storytelling part, the dancing and the music that goes on unheard.
It’s beautiful, in my head. Fucking gorgeous, the beauty of life no matter how low or gritty or downtrodden, revealed with fantasy as a medium. I try to share it. I don’t always succeed.
A couple of months ago, I heard people talking about my work on a podcast, and it was amazing in a way where it sort of made me understand I wasn’t crazy. I work on these stories with a fervour that very few in my world understand. Family asking about my “hobby,” friends wondering if I have a hidden agenda for posting quotes, for example–that bad. Most of the people in my life don’t read. If I hadn’t shoved a few fantasy books into my husband’s hands, he wouldn’t have understood, either. He read A Song of Ice and Fire a few years ago, and then recently started on my books. I think to say that he “liked” them is an understatement–I think when he started reading my stuff, he saw something about this girl he had loved the past sixteen years for the first time.
I’m not crazy. I just write stories. I tell myself this more times than I care to each day. You’re not useless, you’re a storyteller. Welcome to the world of the unknown artist, Kay–you’re in great company. You say whatever makes you feel better so you can throw yourself back on that chair and live to write another day.
So I write. 6th novel. Another, by next year. The plan is to release an entire trilogy in 2018. It’s crazy, but I’m comfortable with crazy. A slave to the craft.
It’s still a lot better than having never put down a single word at all.
