I just finished my work day, and I’m starting to feel a little punchy. I may take a nap before I play video games with my friends, like we do every Wednesday night. But first, I must complete day 3 of the 366 marathon!
Personal News
I feel like I should say a little bit more about the depression I’ve lived with the last couple of months. The season contributes to it, but the lack of writing seals it. All of the dark voices in my head grow in volume, and I start to believe the terrible lies that linger in the shadows of my mind.
I’m not working on any fiction at the moment, but I’m writing every day in this blog. It helps. I’m already more productive at work. Some of my confidence is returning. I feel more in control of my emotions.
But the darkness is still inside, and the lies still linger like a bad aftertaste.
I don’t want to dwell too much on it because I still want to keep things positive around here. I’m sure I’ll talk more about it this year, though.
Upcoming Events and Such
Arisia is still looming. Melissa and I will fly out on Thursday the 11th, and fly back on the following Monday. I’m going to miss a couple of days of work, and considering we have a new person starting that week, I will be missed. But this was planned out well in advance, so they’ll just have to soldier on without me.
I am not on the program for Arisia. I’ll be in the dealer’s room most of the time. I’ll bring my microphone, and we may have a Live at Arisia episode of the Small Publishing in a Big Universe, if the recording comes out well.
The Topic: Jennifer Brozek Made me a Better Writer
I’ve mentioned Jennifer several times on this blog. She’s my go-to example of someone that is a great outliner. She’s organized and efficient, and she does a great job teaching her techniques. Once or twice, I have attended courses taught by her and Cat Rambo.
When I was putting together One for the Road to give to Melissa, I knew I wanted to make it a Christmas present, and I knew I didn’t have time to let the story rest. I like to let my stories sit for a month or two before working on revisions, just so that I can get some distance and fresh eyes. I didn’t have months for Melissa’s story, though. I had days. So I reached out to Jennifer to see if she could take a look at it for me.
She agreed to help me, and rather than just sent me the story back with some comments, she sent me a full edit. It was incredible. There is a reason she’s a Hugo nominated editor.
I… uhm… didn’t give Melissa that version of the story. I read it, though, and I studied the places Jennifer changed. I went back to Scrivener, revised according to what I’d learned from Jennifer’s edit, and gave that revision to Melissa.
One of the key things I learned from Jennifer’s edit was that I tend to overstate things. I still do from time to time, but now I know to look for it. Jennifer left a note suggesting that I don’t trust the reader enough. The truth is, I don’t trust myself, so I cram more words onto the page when fewer would be better.
Over time, my critique group has gone over my story, and I ran it through a Writing Excuses Workshop in Utah. I’ve also worked with an editor with Water Dragon.
Jennifer isn’t the editor of One for the Road, but I made sure to include her in the acknowledgements, because she not only helped make the story better, she made me a better writer.
Good evening, friends! It’s 6:30PM on the first Tuesday of 2024. I’m full of words and pizza. Let’s see which I pour into this blog post.
Personal News
Today began a bunch of pair programming with one of my developers. I’m trying to build him back up, and it started rough. We had a fundamental disagreement, and he wasn’t seeing where I was going with the project until late in the day. When he finally saw it, it was very satisfying. We’ll continue the pair programming tomorrow.
There’s some other stuff I would love to talk about, but I’ll save it for another time. I think that my commitment to writing a blog post every day is helping my general outlook, because today was the easiest day for me to manage in weeks.
The writing here may not be much, but it’s something.
Upcoming Events and Such
Arisia is coming up quickly. I’ve never been to that convention. Come to think of it, I don’t remember visiting Boston before. I probably won’t see very much of it because of the convention, but a visit is a visit. If something stands out that I should check out, maybe we can head to Boston a little earlier in February.
It Started with the Final Convolution
One More for the Road comes out on January 12th, with physical copies available in Boston at Arisia. I will post links and such, and maybe update the picture at the top of my blog around that time, too. It’s a very sweet story, and I really hope people check it out!
The story would not have happened if Melissa and I had not attended the last Convolution. It was it’s 4th year, and the 3rd I attended. It was never huge, but it was something special. It had a lot of potential, and it’s a shame that it died the way it did.
The last Convolution was different than the rest in that it was more workshop oriented. Most of the time when I go to writing conventions, the programming amounts to several rooms occupied by 2 to 5 people behind a table, having a conversation about a topic in front of an audience. The topic is almost always world building in disguise, though sometimes there is some light information on the business of writing.
I might be overgeneralizing a little bit. We’re not here to talk about other conventions. We’re here to talk about the last Convolution.
Most of the programming involved joining a group of people in a room, pulling out pen and paper, and then following instructions to go through some sort of writing exercise. It was excellent! I was fully in my element and really enjoying it.
Melissa, on the other hand, did not like it. Not at first, anyway. She’s nervous about her writing. She doesn’t want to share it. She doesn’t think she can do it. But then as she worked through her fears and produced some words with the rest of us, I think she got to see that she’s got some writing muscles.
She was having fun by the end of the convention. That’s when she had the idea.
“A witch pulled over for a DUI. And she’s wearing a red dress. Why was she pulled over? What’s her story?”
Those were her words. She said them several times, and she asked me to write it. And I kept telling her, “No, that’s your story. You write it!”
On January 12th, you will all have the chance to see the result!
In today’s post, I’m going to talk about the following:
A Review of Brian Buhl’s 2023, In Brief
2024 Anticipations
My 2024 Blog Challenge
2023, In Brief
This was the year I published The Repossessed Ghost. It debuted at Baycon, and I felt like a rock star that entire weekend. I participated on the Small Publishing in a Big Universe podcast a couple of times. Huge highlights meant the year could have been great.
On the other hand, my day job became harder and my mental health took a dive. I haven’t been this depressed since before I joined Trimark, and if you know anything about my level of depression back then, you know that’s saying something.
This was the year that my blood pressure became an issue. This was the year that someone I thought was a friend told me that we weren’t, really, because of something that happened years ago. This is the year that I stayed home when others were going out. This is the year I wanted to give up. Like, really give up.
I stopped writing at the beginning of November, and my mind went to dark places. I need to write. When I’m not writing, I get like this. It’s hard to write when I don’t think I’m going to be able to share my stories, but 2023 showed me that I can get my stories and my posts out in the world, even if it’s only to a handful of people.
So, now that I’m safely standing inside 2024, I bit 2023 farewell. You had your high points, but you were mostly a long, difficult time.
2024 Anticipations
Here’s a big one!
One For the Road is a short story about two witches trying to save their modern city by capturing Father Time and delivering him to the annual New Year’s ritual. Without Father Time, the city will fall apart, and it’s up to Tina and Alexa to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Melissa had this idea for a story, and I kept telling her that she should write it. It’s her story. Then just before Christmas several years ago, it dawned on me that she was asking me to write her a very specific story. How could I say no to that? One For the Road is sweet and fun, just like Melissa.
I’ll talk more about One For the Road over the next couple of weeks. It will be available everywhere on January 12th, the first day of Arisia in Boston.
Speaking of which, Melissa and I are going to Arisia in Boston. Then next month, we’re going to Boskone, which appears to take place in the same hotel. We’re front loading this year with some fun writing conventions.
What else am I anticipating this year? There’s something with my day job I’m looking forward to, but I have my doubts about how it’s going to go. We will see.
There’s some Writing Excuses stuff that we still have to decide on. I would love to go to WorldCon, but that’s a lot of money, and if things are uncertain with my day job, I might not want to commit so much money to that kind of trip.
I’m looking forward to writing more this year, which brings me to my final topic.
My 2024 Blog Challenge
I’m going to try and write a blog post every day in 2024.
Are they going to be like what I’ve done in October? Sort of. In October, I plan out the entire month before it begins. I write the posts on the day that they’re to be posted, and I deviate from the schedule when the whim takes me. A lot of the October posts wind up being these long, thoughtful essays, usually about writing or something writing related.
I’m not going to plan out the entire year in advance, but I will plan it out in 2 week chunks. I know that the next couple of weeks, I need to talk about One For the Road. I’m an author, and I need to promote my story. I don’t need to be obnoxious about it, but it still needs to be present and put at the forefront. I can keep it interesting and more than just “buy my book.”
I’m going to try and adhere to a format in order to make it easier to write something every day. The basic format I’m planning is:
Personal news
Upcoming events/promotion/follow-ups to previous posts
The Actual Topic
The Actual Topic can be nearly anything. I will mostly talk about writing, but I’m freeing myself to include video games, programming, and other things I’m into. I contain multitudes.
This is an election year, so as things get spicy, I’m sure some of my political thoughts might take the spotlight. I’m not going to turn this into a political blog or go on any of the rants I’ve enjoyed in the past. At the same time, I’m going to be me, and I’m a person that cares deeply about my world, my country, and the future we’re leaving for our children.
One thing I might do as an Actual Topic is publicly write a story. That is, I will expose my entire process here and write a story out in the open. It won’t be a Mel Walker story, and it won’t be related to anything I’ve already written that hasn’t been published yet. This will be an entirely new thing. Maybe it’ll be a short story. Maybe it’ll be a novel. Once we get to the brainstorming part, I’ll figure that out with you. I think it could be fun, and it will go farther than anything I’ve done before to teach writing.
This is going to be hard, and I’m going to be tempted to treat this like so many other New Year’s resolutions. I’ve proven I’m capable of keeping this up for an entire month, so maybe I’ll re-evaluate this plan when I get to February. I think it’ll be good for me.
This is 2024. Let’s make this year actually great!
We’re nearly at the end of the year, and I am sure to write some sort of retrospective. Maybe. I’ve been in a foul mood, to put it lightly, and I’m not sure I need to open my heart about it and see what bleeds onto the page. It might not be entirely pretty or healthy.
Tonight, I’ll talk about a lovely little distraction. Backpack Battles, a free demo of a game that I think is scheduled to be out in early 2024.
It looks a bit like this:
At this point in the game, you have the choice between playing a ranger or a reaper. Both classes start with a special bag, with the ranger’s helping turn luck into critical strikes, and the reaper’s turning item activations into poison for their enemy.
This is an autobattler, with two phases. In the first phase, you enter the shop and buy items to put in your bag, including additional bag space. Items can have interesting synergies with each other, and there is a lot of tetris’ing involved, packing your backpack in such a way as to get maximum efficiency. The second phase is the battle, in which you square off with the ghost of an opponent and their bag.
As I said before, this is an autobattler, so during the combat phase, the player can’t really do anything to change the outcome of the fight. They can slow down the action, or speed it up, or pause it. They can look at the log of events, and they can hover over items in their bag or their opponent’s and see how things are going. Whichever player drops to 0 health loses. If it’s the player, they lose a heart. The player has 5 hearts and when they run out, the game is over.
That’s basically it. The game goes until the player loses their hearts, or gets 10 wins and bails, or gets 10 wins and goes on to 6 additional survival rounds.
There is ranked and unranked games. I typically just play ranked because I’m not a coward. Also, I don’t care about my rank in the game. If you’re curious, I’m roughly a mid-diamond player in both ranger and reaper.
Why am I talking about this game instead of writing? I’m getting there. As Ben on Twitch might say, “trust.”
I’ve been in a couple of light arguments with people about the nature of the game, especially with regards to luck. How much of it is skill-based? How much of it just comes down to the random number generator? Does it matter?
The game continues to evolve every week as the developer adds items and tweaks the numbers. One weak, poison ivy builds on ranger were amazing, relying heavily on stone skin potions. The next week, that build was nerfed into the ground and reaper’s chonk reigned — perhaps terrorized — every game. This week, chonk has been neutered, but Bloodthorne remains extremely strong.
This is what conversations look like in the Backpack Battles communities. If you’re not familiar with the game, that whole last paragraph looks like nonsense. If you’ve been playing, though, you’re probably nodding and agreeing with most of my assessments.
So where does luck come into play? I mentioned “builds,” which implies the player has control over how they move through the game, like deck builders. A skilled player understands the meta, and they know what to buy and what to avoid in order to produce the best backpack each round. This makes it sound like a pure strategy game.
Here’s the thing: as a player, you have no control over what appears in the shops during each buying phase. You’re presented 5 items of various rarity, depending on how many rounds have transpired. You can spend gold to restock the shop, and you can lock in items for later purchase, but whatever shows up in the shop is completely up to chance.
Gold is given to the player each round, the amount given increasing as you progress through the rounds. If you don’t spend all your gold in a round, it is carried over into the next. If a high-value item shows up one round and you can’t afford it, you can reserve it and try to purchase it in the next round, or the next after that. Sometimes, items are on sale and can be purchased for half their regular value. You can also sell back items at half their regular value, to a minimum of 1 gold.
This is where the biggest luck factor comes into play, and where the player has to gamble. If you’re knowledgeable about different strategies, you know that you need to buy certain specific items in order for your strategy to work. If the items you need aren’t presented in the list of 5, you can spend gold to restock, but every time you pull the handle to restock, you’re giving up some of your finite gold with no guarantee of finding what you need. The 5 random items that appear might include some of the same 5 random items you just passed on.
Let’s say you’re playing ranger and you want to go for a relatively straight-forward build involving Bloodthorne. In order to create a Bloodthorne, you need to get a Hungry Blade and a Thorn Whip, and those items have to be together in your bag for a round in order to combine. You also need to have some way of generating regeneration, so that your Bloodthorne can scale up, and you probably want to have some ways of speeding up your weapon.
If you’re unlucky, you can go the entire game without seeing a Hungry Blade or a Thorn Whip in the shop at all. It’s possible it is never presented as an option.
You can spend gold to restock, searching for your missing items, but with each pull, you’re reducing your spending power. A player that wisely spends 10 gold will always be stronger than another player that spends 9 gold or 8 gold with the same level of strategy.
Then there is the attack phase. Again, the player is at the whims of the random number generator. A player can make all the right choices during the buying phase, but then still be punished in battle. Their weapon my have a 95% chance of hitting, but still miss. And their opponent may only have a 5% chance to crit, but they’ll still do the excessive damage. You can have a shield which has a 35% chance of preventing damage never go off at all.
As a strategy game, I think luck plays too large a part. There is player skill involved, but the player can be denied making good choices due to bad luck in the shop, or punished even after making good choices in the battle. Players with high skill will tend to have higher ranks. That much is true. But to maintain those ranks, they’ll have to play many, many hours, slogging through losses that happen completely outside of their control.
Finally, I believe there is a balance problem with the game. Currently, there are two classes. Reapers own the early game, because their bag is immediately useful. Reapers just have to put items in their bag that can trigger the poison. They don’t even have to have a weapon in the first couple of rounds, especially if they face off against a ranger.
Rangers in the early game start off with a bag that offers very little. For every point of luck they have, they increase their chance to crit by 5%, starting from 0%. In the beginning, rangers have very few options for increasing their luck. At the same time, they have very few ways of dealing with poison, so rangers are at an obvious disadvantage, at least in the early rounds. This isn’t to say that they can’t win against early reapers. It just means that they’re at a disadvantage. They can always get lucky.
After round 7, both classes are able to get their subclass item. This is typically when rangers come online and reapers fall off, with some exceptions.
Again, I’ve been getting very detailed about this silly game, which isn’t even released yet, and I typically talk about writing. So what gives?
I see parallels between my experience as an author and playing this game.
Luck plays a huge factor. Writers may or may not find a publisher. They may get published, and they may or may not find an audience. They might write an amazing story, but things well outside their control might cause their book to tank or never see the light of day.
Really good writers tend to get book deals and get their name out there and find an audience, but luck is such a huge factor that it can overshadow talent. Like the skilled players of Backpack Battles, the wise writer understands that they need to keep trying, over and over, putting in the time and trying to overcome losses that are outside their control.
I was extremely lucky when I found my publisher. I’ve had some luck with sales, though not a ton. And the story I wanted to have out before Christmas, I’ve been exceptionally unlucky. Things happening, outside my control.
There is a lesson to be learned in all of this. I’m just not sure that it is.
I have really good news! A story of mine is coming out very soon, and you’ll be able to buy it as a tiny book. It’ll be a great gift, even if we don’t quite get it out before Christmas.
I’m not exactly sure on the date. We’re just finishing up one detail on the cover and when that’s done, I’ll spend more time here talking about it, the process of putting it together, the story behind the story, etc. I’ll be more present online, more upbeat, and more visible in general.
Before that, though, I want to talk about November. And, I want to talk about listening to Chris Cornell’s music. The rest of this post might be a little bit of a bummer, so it’s okay to bail out now. If so, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
What happened in November? Wasn’t I going to do NaNoWriMo? Why do I think this post is going to be a bummer?
I successfully posted an original post every day in October. Not all of them were absolute winners, but even the worst ones were probably “good enough,” and some of them, in my opinion, are actually quite good. In October, I finished a short story I’d been working on for most of a year, and I received some generally positive feedback from my critique group on the story. With Blogtober, I built up a pattern of writing something every day, and if my math is right, I wrote around 25,000 words just in blog posts. I was setting myself up for a successful, productive time in November.
When November arrived, I disappeared. I struggled to write the outline, and then I struggled to work on the story. I didn’t have it in me.
I found myself needing to listen to music that matched the inside of my brain, so I looked for things that were both beautiful and sad. Here is a good example of what I’m talking about:
I cruised through my depression music, and I didn’t write. I stayed busy with work, and I played a lot of video games, especially Project Zomboid.
Eventually, I found myself focusing almost exclusively on Chris Cornell music. I didn’t shy away from Soundgarden or Audioslave, but I mostly focused on his solo work, especially his very raw acoustic performances. Here are two of my favorites:
Here is one more for good measure:
Why did I start fixating on Chris Cornell specifically?
Listening to his music, I could hear a man voicing a kind of pain that resonated inside me. An artist that lost sight of the beauty of his art. Someone that brought something unique and sweet to the world, but for whatever reason, they became blind to the praise and could only hear their faults, until all that remained was darkness and a need to escape.
Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t know Chris Cornell personally and I don’t know for sure what was going on in his head and his heart when he took his own life. And, I’m not suicidal. I just listened to the music, feeling my feelings, wishing that I could talk to Chris and tell him what his music meant to me.
I listened to the music, and I looked at the lyrics.
In your house, I long to be Room by room, patiently I’ll wait for you there Like a stone I’ll wait for you there Alone
Like a Stone
In Like a Stone, he’s waiting for death. He’s willing to bargain his way to heaven, but ultimately, he’s alone, and I don’t think he wants to be so anymore.
In my shoes Walking sleep In my youth, I pray to keep Heaven send Hell away No one sings like you anymore
Black Hole Sun
Black Hole Sun is more complicated, and more esoteric. To me, in the acoustic version, I hear someone inviting an end to a world that is full of deceit. A world full of disguises and snakes, that only an apocalypse can wash away.
Then there is this one:
The Internet took special interest in Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart because the official video shows Chris getting hung. Given the circumstances of his death, the official video was taken down for a while. I’m not linking to it. When I first listened to the song, I didn’t know anything about the controversy of the video.
What pulls me back to that song over and over is this one verse:
Every little key unlocks the door Every little secret has a lie Try to take a picture of the sun And it won’t help you to see the light
Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart
I feel like I’ve known some people that have sought enlightenment by wrapping themselves in the imagery of enlightenment rather than doing the actual work. I may have been that person from time to time.
Chris Cornell had this unique voice, and his lyrics were dark, weighty poems. No one sings like you, Chris. Not anymore.
Now I need to get back to work. Not the Day Job, though that demands more of my attention now, too. I need to get back to writing. I have a unique voice that I’d like to put more solidly into the world, before I, too, am taken to a place where the sky is bruised and the wine is bled.
Going into November, I knew that writing this next novel was going to be extremely difficult without a plan and an outline. The story is more complicated than The Repossessed Ghost, but it needs to maintain the same tone and be easy to consume like the previous novel. Complexity and lightness are not mutually exclusive, but for me to pull it off, I have to come into the story with a much greater sense of what’s going on.
I’ve spent the beginning of November doing that prep work. I know what the emotional core of the story is, and I’ve been working out details for each of the supporting characters. One character in particular, I needed to figure out her entire timeline in the story, since it’s very complicated and, from Mel’s perspective, non-linear.
In a nutshell, here’s what I’m trying to do: I’m trying to write a story that rewards people for figuring out the entire timeline, while at the same time, does not punish people that just want to read the story and have a good time. Lightness and complexity. Exactly the kind of story I enjoy.
Today, I went to the November Shut Up and Write mini-marathon, which takes place on the first Saturday of every month. This seemed like a great opportunity to finish the outline and finalize some of the background details I need in order to write the story without getting lost. During the first part of the day, I did just that. I created the project in Scrivener, and I spent an hour and a half brainstorming some of the most important pieces of the story. I’m almost ready to start drafting.
After lunch, before we could start the last half of the marathon, I got into a disagreement with a newer member to the Shut Up and Write group. He was extremely pro cryptocurrency, and I am not. I did not agree with him, and then he started saying I was disrespectful towards him. He even said something that could be taken as a vague threat, then tried to make our disagreement about race.
The worst thing I said about him was that he was in the tech industry, because the only people I’ve ever known to be that into crypto are tech bros. I didn’t call him a tech bro. He said something about being in the tech industry and I said, “Of course you are.” And that was enough for him to say I was disrespectful, the ultimate example of white privilege, and that I should watch myself.
Huh.
He left, and I left. I was not in the correct mind space to work at that point, so I went home.
Before it got out of hand, I tried to apologize to him for making him feel uncomfortable. I apologized to the group for my part in the disruption. The leader of the organization told me I really didn’t need to leave, but I felt like I should, if for no other reason than to come home and get my head straight. I tried really hard not to make that a big scene or make people uncomfortable.
I’m really, really not doing NaNoWriMo this month, but I will be writing. It’s still possible that I’ll finish my outline, start drafting, and suddenly write a bunch of words. I’m not giving up on the novel. I’m just not going to feel bad if I fail to write 50k this month, because the stars haven’t aligned for that feat to happen this year, and that’s okay.
The point is to keep writing. And I’ll keep doing that.
Emotions have been a little all over the place the last few days, and today hasn’t been much different. As I showered this morning, I did the math in my head and realized that today marks 35 years since my Dad’s death. I still miss him. I wish I could go back in time and talk to him one more time.
Once out of the shower, I realized I could probably put together a really good The Dude from The Big Lebowski. Here is what I came up with this morning:
Later, when I was getting into meetings, I changed my background, which really tied the whole thing together.
Being The Dude, I spent most of the day abiding. My work day was fine, and I’ve been avoiding stress.
It’s evening, now. The sun has been asleep for a couple of hours, and we’ve had a couple of kids come by. One was a little girl with her Mom. This was her very first time Trick or Treating. She got two full size candy bars from us, plus a Capri Sun. Then a teenager girl dressed as Dorothy knocked on our door. I asked her if she recognized my costume, and she said, “I remember you being the guy that gives out sodas.” I gave her 3 full sized candy bars and an Izzy.
I’m not sure we’re going to see that many kids tonight. I hope we do. We’re stocked and ready to go, and I love handing out the candy.
That first little girl tried to come in our house, which reminded me of the first time Bryanna went Trick or Treating. We were living on base at Holloman, and we went around the base housing neighborhood. She was tiny, barely speaking, but she could move. At that first house, she could smell the chili our neighbors were making, so she hurried inside, climbed up at their table, and waited for a bowl.
We’re having chili tonight. Time is a flat circle. Or perhaps it is a poem that occasionally rhymes.
Bryanna stopped by earlier. She was dressed as a pumpkin. One might say that she was our first Trick or Treater, but since the sun was still high in the sky, and she’s 27, I’m going to say that she didn’t count. I still gave her candy, though. She and her best friend are doing something tonight. I hope they’re having fun.
I have Melissa’s folding table setup in the middle of the living room. My Surface is setup, and the curtains are open in front of me, giving me a perfect view of the street out front. This would be a great setup to watch for Trick or Treaters, except that I’m wearing my glasses to get the best use of my laptop, which makes it hard for me to see anything more than a few feet away.
The brainstorming I did on The Psychic Out of Time was extremely useful. My story idea rocks, actually. This is one I can really be proud of, and one with an excellent emotional core. I’m excited to write it! I might even love it enough to see it through. But, I still don’t have an outline.
That’s why I’m setup like I am. I’m perched, ready to spring up and give kids candy, and either a soda or a Capri Sun depending on their size. While I’m waiting for the next knock at the door, I can sit here and work on the outline. If I finish it, I’m out of excuses.
How much do I really want to do NaNoWriMo this year, though? I know from personal experience that I don’t need it. I can draft just fine throughout the year. I’m not engaged with the local Nano community. The only deadline hanging over my head has to do with a cover for One More For the Road, which is sort of out of my hands.
This post is the 31st in a row. I have filled the month of October with a daily writing habit, exactly the kind of exercise that I find necessary to prepare for a solid NaNoWriMo. I have a solid story idea, with good notes, and I could have an outline soon enough that I could start writing tomorrow. The only thing left is to determine if that’s what I really want to do.
I just answered the door again. Quite a few kids have shown up, now, and I love it. The kids don’t know I’m The Dude, of course, but some of the parents figure it out when I toss them a clue. Next year, I’ll put some effort into my costume and come up with something that the kids will like and recognize.
NaNoWriMo. I still don’t know. Maybe I’ll just sit here, work on my outline for the next Mel Walker story, and decide tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll start working on the story, but without a commitment to writing 50k in 30 days. It sure would be funny if I completed NaNoWriMo this year without ever actually committing to do so.
Time to get to work.
After tonight, I’m going back to my erratic schedule. I hope you’ve enjoyed the posts this month. If you have any favorites, let me know! Whether or not I do Nano, I’ll try to do some check-ins through November.
Happy Halloween, everyone! Stay safe and have fun!
Only two more posts, and Blogtober will be finished. I’m changing topics again tonight. I was going to record a new video on Sunday and post my first VLOG in 3 and a half years, but I just wasn’t up for it. I’m still not quite 100% physically. Mentally and emotionally, I’m doing even worse.
Why?
I have a good life. Maybe even a great life. My job is rewarding, and I’m respected in my position, and compensated well enough for my time. I published a book this year. I recently finished a short story, which is technically the first sequel I’ve ever allowed myself to write. I’m relatively healthy. My family is fine.
Yet, if I were to describe what I’m feeling, it is hopelessness.
It’s not too different from what I was feeling last year, right after we got into November. I was trying to work on a Cyberpunk story, and the reality of the world around me was too close to what I was writing. I couldn’t do it. And then, in spite of my efforts to avoid it, I felt a little bit of guilt about “failing” another NaNoWriMo.
Looking around, things still seem bad. There is economic uncertainty. People are dying in The Middle East. There is one political party in the US which has lost their way, and there is the other which lacks a fundamental quality that would allow them to succeed. I’m not going to elaborate on any of that right now. This post is not directly about politics.
There are problems I don’t know how to fix. Problems that are bigger than me, that are affecting my children right now, and I don’t see how things will get better in the future.
I look at the problems globally. I look at them locally. And I look at them personally.
I shouldn’t write this. I’m a damn fool to write this. But fuck it. Let’s let it fly.
The best possible scenario for my future is one in which I make a career as an author work. If you know me at all, if you’ve looked at this blog for even a few minutes, you should know that I’m continuously working towards this. I’m putting in the work, facing personal fears, and making plenty of sacrifices to give full-time author Brian C. E. Buhl the best chance he can of being a reality.
The next best possible scenario is dying quickly and relatively young, before my programming skills become so outdated that I’m no longer useful. It must be quick, so that my health doesn’t become a burden on my family. It’d be best to happen while life insurance is still cheap enough that those that survive me get some benefit from my passing.
I’m not trying to be morbid. While I don’t like our capitalist society, I fully understand it, and I can look at things through the lens of this society. I had an HSA going into this year, and just from basic care, it was completely wiped. I didn’t have any major procedures. I just saw my doctor a few times and had some blood drawn.
My blood pressure on Friday, at the doctor’s office, was just about as high as it was when I first went in. The reality is that the low salt diet isn’t really doing that much. The exercise isn’t doing that much. I’ll keep doing those things, because there is a slim line of hope that I won’t have to be permanently on hypertension medicine if I can get my weight low enough. But chances are, I have my Mom’s heart.
I don’t smoke. I rarely drink. I don’t consume nearly as much greasy food as my Mom. But genetics are genetics, and while I don’t have complete knowledge of the hand I’ve been dealt, I watched what my Mom went through at my age and a little bit older, and the outlook is not good.
The third best scenario is that I continue as I am, and I exercise and diet, and I put in the work to maintain my relevance in technology, or maybe focus more on management, and even though I can never switch to being a full time author, I keep writing and sacrificing and living pretty much exactly as I am living right now. This is a life of constant uncertainty, work, and sacrifice, with no real breaks. I’m constantly working on something, and yet there are always things never getting finished. Never ending effort, yet parts of my life grow increasingly neglected.
Yeah. I shouldn’t have written any of this. This is not an upbeat, happy post. It’s not the kind of thing that endears people, or encourages them to seek escapism in one of my stories. It’s not selling anything.
All this month, I’ve made mention of The Repossessed Ghost, because that’s what an author must do. Like a good writer, I’ve been making the narrative of these posts serve multiple functions. Writing every day in October helps me get in the habit of writing every day in November. Writing about tips and tricks to making fiction better helps remind me of these tips and tricks I’ve learned, so I can use them in November. And including some reasonable or useful content is a great way of buying good faith from the reader, so that they don’t mind a little bit of gentle shilling. It all overlaps and works together, and no one has to walk away feeling like they just stepped into a commercial.
That was going to be the point of the VLOG. I was going to talk about providing engaging content, to essentially pay the way and provide room for talking about the book. Because no one has every been swayed the words “buy my book” when they’re presented alone.
Make your scenes do double duty. Make all of the words count. Don’t just drop naked exposition on the page and hope your reader doesn’t get bored. If you’re going to reveal something about the world that the reader needs to know, make it entertaining! Hit them in the heart and the mind at the same time, and they will love it. They may not know why.
With posts like this, ones that I’m not super excited for people to read, I lean into the double duty thing, because I know that the ones that can handle what I’m putting down will read it all and understand, even if it’s super long. And everyone else will see the length and bounce right off, because who has time to read all that?
I’m not always that sneaky, but sometimes I am. The other long posts this month were mostly because the topics I tackled were big and needed all the words. This one is not one of those. I’ve reached the end of the month, and yesterday, when I was feeling light-headed and just wanted to sleep, I decided that I’m not doing NaNoWriMo. I sat in my chair, growing increasingly uncomfortable, rewatching all of the episodes of Make Some Noise on Dropout.tv, and I played solitaire. This was after spending hours trying to write an outline for a story that I don’t seem to want to write. At least, not at the moment.
Then, as I was falling asleep, the heart of the next novel revealed itself to me. I know what the beginning and middle of The Psychic Out of Time should be. I have a clue about the end. I know what the emotional core of the whole story is, and I think I actually could write it next month. But I still don’t have an outline.
There’s still tomorrow night, I suppose. I’m not doing it tonight. This stream of consciousness works to fill a blog post, and it helps with brainstorming ideas, but it’s… huh. I guess when I’m done with this post, I’m going to do some more brainstorming, and see what happens.
Anyway. Buy my book. If you haven’t done so already.
On Friday, I went and saw my doctor and I received three vaccinations at once: Flu, Covid, and the 2nd Shingles shot. By the afternoon, I was feeling the effects and had to stop working a little early. I laid my head down on my couch and passed out. When I woke up, I was shivering, even though it was 70 in the house. I went to bed early, hoping I would feel better the next day, because I had a lot to do on Saturday.
When I woke up, I wasn’t shivering, but I still felt hot. I made it through the day and all of the events I needed to attend, including my critique group in the afternoon. We went over my short story, The Psychic on the Jury, which is a follow-up to The Repossessed Ghost. They enjoyed it for the most part, which is fair since it’s an early draft that I haven’t had a chance to really revise yet. Maybe I’ll revise it in December.
One of my goals this weekend is to finish the outline for the next Mel Walker novel, which at the moment is called The Psychic Out of Time. I talked about it with my friends on Saturday, and I had every intention of working on in Saturday evening, after the critique.
I didn’t work on it, though. I didn’t feel well, which is a valid excuse. Melissa and I went to bed early and we got caught up on season 2 of Loki.
It’s now Sunday morning, and I don’t have much time. If I don’t finish this outline, I can’t do NaNoWriMo. I could try, but I would fail. I would get about 5k, maybe 10k written, then lose my way, flounder, and give up. I would add it to my long list of stories I hope to finish, eventually.
I feel quite a bit better this morning, though still not at 100%. The shoulder where they gave me the Shingles shot really hurts. I’m finding it difficult to sit at the table in front of my laptop. I keep getting up and walking away from everything, and I keep asking myself, “Don’t you want to work on this story?!?”
Do I want to work on this story?
I think I do, but there is so much uncertainty around it, and I think it’s going to be complicated and a difficult one to pull off. It’s a sequel, which means it has a very limited potential for sales, and I already feel like I’m struggling to reach a wider audience. It’s Urban Fantasy, and I typically think of myself as a SciFi writer.
On the other hand, I’ve been thinking about this story off and on for 10 years. There are a couple of characters I can’t wait to write. And, I enjoy Mel. As someone in my critique group put it, he’s a “dirtbag idiot” and dirtbag idiots getting up to shenanigans is almost always a good time.
I was supposed to write a different post today, but I think I needed to write this. First, it’s another excuse to not be working on the outline, which in my current state, I was ready to jump on. Second, this is allowing me to talk my way around the story and try to address some of the fears and concerns that are at the back of my mind, that I haven’t really wanted to deal with. The things that are ultimately getting in the way of working on the story in the first place.
If I don’t finish the outline today, I’m not going to participate in NaNoWriMo, and it will be that much longer before there is another Mel Walker story to submit to Water Dragon for consideration. The stakes are set. Now I just need to bootstrap my way into getting into the story elements, so I can conjure an outline, and maybe fall in love with this new story.
That’s the trick, by the way. That’s the secret sauce. It’s why writers can be so defensive of their work.
Unless you’re some sort of masochist, a writer must love the story they’re working on. They’re giving up parts of their lives in order to take an idea and a pile of words and turn them into something that can be shared and enjoyed by others.
A writer can get tired of working on a story. They can get bored with certain parts of the writing process. But to see a story through, from first draft to final revision, a writer must love the story that they’re creating. Without that love, I can only imagine some sort of cruel abomination coming out the other side of the writing process.
If the writer does not love what they’re writing, how can they expect the reader to love it as well?
We’re getting closer and closer to Halloween, and I’m feeling more and more incentivized to talk about The Repossessed Ghost, because it starts off on a Halloween night, and I would love it if more people picked it up and read it.
As part of the effort to promote the book, let’s talk a little bit about Mel and Isabelle, the main character and a supporting character in The Repossessed Ghost. Specifically, let’s talk about psychics and mages.
In Mel’s world, but there are many different types of magic, and they all operate differently from each other. Does this mean I have several complicated magic systems laid out in excruciating detail? Have I gone full Sanderson in my world building. Does Mel have to eat some metal in order to look into the past?
Well… no. Not really.
I have an idea of how the different types of magic work, and the whole purpose of this post is to describe two of the systems in at least some detail. But these are more or less guidelines and not necessarily hard rules. Whenever these elements become load-bearing, as in, the plot depends on some piece of magic in the world, I provide the information and setup so that it is satisfying. However, I’m not wasting time writing up things like necromancy, because none of the characters within the pages of the current book use that particular magic. To spend a lot of time working out necromancy at this point would be a waste of my time and get in the way of the actual story I’m trying to tell, even though I know that necromancy exists in the world.
Two types of magic that do appear within The Repossessed Ghost are psychic abilities and witchcraft, for lack of a better term. Mel is a psychic, and Bella is a witch.
Psychics awaken into their abilities, and require no special training. They can practice and improve their use of their abilities, but a psychic does not need to study in order to attain their gifts. Imagine someone that is able to wiggle their ears or other weird tricks with their body. Psychics are like that. It’s a part of who they are. It may or may not run in families. A psychic may have a latent ability that manifests later in life, or they may begin using their gifts at a young age.
Witches and warlocks are also born with some innate talent, but they cannot access it until they have studied and practiced. In some cases, they’re ability can be improved through a significant sacrifice. Someone can have the magical ability bestowed upon them by certain powerful, extra-dimensional beings. Witches and warlocks typically require spell components in order to perform magic, though some possess magic items or talismans that allow them to perform some magic without preparation.
Are witches stronger than psychics? Not necessarily. It’s easier for a psychic to access their “mind’s eye.” It’s easier for witches to do things that affect the world. However, there are psychics that can move things with their mind or conjure fire out of the air, and given enough prep time, there is no psychic trick that a witch or a warlock can’t mimic or duplicate.
What have I based this on?
Well… I don’t know. It didn’t come from a video game or any one book I have read. The magic in Mel’s world isn’t particularly compatible with the magic from Jim Butcher’s world.
While considering the things that go bump in the night, I asked myself, “What seems true?” The first thing that came from that was the significance of reflections and mirrors. I knew early on that Mel would be able to see Kate in reflections, and that became a part of the world building. It’s relatively unique, and good flavor for Mel’s world.
And I just kept going from there, with one detail moving into the next. I knew Mel would be able to look into the past. I knew he’d be able to touch things and get visions. And I knew he’d be able to open his mind’s eye and attain supernatural sight, though most of these things weren’t available to him until the story progressed.
Now I’m thinking about what will go into the second book. How do I complicate things and still have it satisfying?
That’s the rundown of psychics versus mages. If you’ve read The Repossessed Ghost, let me know if this description matches what you picked up in the book.
