Writing Update: 28-03-25

Change: +7,435

Year to Date: 63,814

Once up a time, I really used to be into anime and manga.

I sort of grew up with the stuff at a time before it gained its cultural ubiquitiness, before you found shelves of manga in every bookstore. As a kid, it was Robotech (Macross), Gatchaman (Battle of the Planets), Goldorak (Grendizer), Captain Harlock, and a few others. But the one that made the strongest, indelible impression had to be Akira. I watched it one night as a high school student with my best friend on a tv screen too small to do it justice, getting pissed drinking beer, and it blew me away, though by the time Tetsuo went all Cronenberg I was far too drunk to make any sense of it.

Later, at university, I tracked down dodgy little local shops that rented out bootlegged copies of imported anime, usually subbed, often badly. These were things like Record of Lodoss War, Bubblegum Crisis, Fist of the North Star, Sailor Moon OAVs or movies, Vampire Hunter D, some Gundam/Mecha stuff whose names I've forgotten, and more. I bought some, too, though money as a student was tight. The best of these was easily Ghost in the Shell. Big screen options were limited, but one of the most memorable animes from that period was a late night screening of Legend of the Overfiend at a local arthouse theatre, which remains one of the weirdest cinematic viewing of my life (up there with, maybe, Eraserhead).

All this to say that unsurprisingly, some of the earliest writing I ever attempted was fanfiction.

I really got into that stuff, once upon a time. Wrote, and published, a bunch under a different name. It makes a weird parallel with my current writing, in that I kept my writing secret from friends then as well. Even won an award from a con submission, which was kind of cool, and picked up some fanart along the way, which was awesome. What I'd forgotten is that I'd actually posted a bunch of it to fanfiction.net  and--to my surprise--it's all still there. (I'm kind of surprised fanfiction.net is still there, to be honest, but then again, FM's still around, so why not?) Even more surprising, I was able to get into my old account and I looked at these old stories written quite some time ago, before I even started Constant.

I'd completely forgotten how much I'd written. There's a couple hundred thousand words there, across multiple stories. And, much to my surprise, people are still reading them, still commenting--still enjoying them, reacting to them, getting angry at my portrayal of their favourite characters, feeling invested in these words I wrote quite some time ago. There are quite a few reviews, some of them recent.

What to make of comments on stuff you wrote when you were a very different person? In some ways, this stuff a younger me wrote gained more traction than my current efforts. Fanfiction's a bit of a cheat, of course: you've got a baked in audience already invested in characters you never created. A pro's done all the grunt work of worldbuilding and character development, winning an audience over, and you're playing with their toys. Though glancing at my old stuff, I wonder whether maybe my writing had a certain vividness or paciness, a youthful energy (or arrogance?) I've since lost. I certainly had more free time for writing, then.

In any case, I wrote that stuff for a couple of years, then stopped; didn't write anything for many years after that, for reasons; then started Constant as a way back into writing. In fact, I started Constant not just as practice, but to test whether I could successfully write -anything- based around original characters.

All of which is a very roundabout way of saying that I was feeling a bit down about my writing this week, or the past several weeks, to be honest. For those who've been around for awhile, you'll know this is a semi-regular thing. Maybe anyone engaged in any kind of creative endeavour goes through periods of discouragement. It might be connected to the weather, a seasonal dip linked to grey skies . Or maybe it's just because I had a nasty cold this week which knocked me off my feet for a few days, from which I'm still recovering. Or the general exhaustion of daily life. Or gnawing existential dread at the current state of the world; who knows?

But going back and looking at that -really- old stuff, and the comments people left, it was--encouraging, a real pick-me-up. There were some very kind words, and some angry ones--and sad ones, too, people moved to tears over specific scenes. And that's amazing, to provoke emotions in a reader feels wonderful.

I can't say whether I wrote better or worse back then; I wrote differently. And it's not really for me to say whether the stuff I'm putting out now is any good, either; I'm too close to it. I feel the stuff I'm putting out now is well-written, but I lack the ability to look at it objectively. There's only a few metrics I can judge my work by.

The most important one is whether I'm enjoying writing it, whether I'm still invested in telling that story. Which I am, with both Constant and this new one I've started, Who Made the Lamb, and others, still lurking untold in my brain. I take immense pleasure out of writing, even when it's challenging and the words don't come easily. I've gotten myself to a place where, despite the exhausting distractions of normal life, I'm still churning out my five thousand a week, and I think that's worth something. I have scenes in my head patiently waiting to be written. I look forward to the surprises these characters have in store for me.

But by other metrics, I'm a failure.

Recently, I had a poke around at other Patreons, looking at what's out there. And--there's a lot out there! I have zero interest in casting shade on these other writers. From Razmagurk to Cooper, The Spiralled Eye to Foxface, Dorley to Zoe Storm, these are all creatives who are absolutely crushing it, and giving their readership what they want. I'm thrilled for them--and terribly envious, obviously--but can't help but wonder, what are they doing right that I'm not? By that metric, the one where success is measured through readership numbers , I'm doing poorly.

Don't get me wrong! The fact that anyone's willing to pay -anything- to read the stuff I'm putting out there is pretty amazing. But this Patreon hasn't really grown over the past year. I look at some of those other writers who've reached a sustainable level, are bringing in enough paying members to pay the rent and--yeah, obviously, I wish I had that too.

At some point, I suppose I'll have to step back and take a hard look at what I'm doing here. As much as I enjoy what I'm doing, it can be hard to justify the time and effort I'm putting into this 'hobby' - no matter how much it means to me, or how much I enjoy it - when it comes as an opportunity cost to other areas of life.

It may simply be that I've mostly been a one-trick pony with a single story on offer. It might be the way I run this thing, too many posts and updates, early drafts and rambling commentaries (like this one), or the fact I don't run a Discord or something. Perhaps there's a fundamental disconnect between what I want to write and what the audience wants to read. Or maybe the hard truth is that my writing simply isn't as good as I want to believe it is.

Whatever happens, I can't see much changing until I get Constant finished, which still has several more months to go before it's done. At that point, it might be that this Patreon has run its course and it'll be time to wind thing down and move on to other interests. Or maybe I'll have other stories still to tell, and an audience interested in reading them.

Hmm. That turned out rather longer than expected. Apologies for the rambling update.

Next week: 

Having spent the past two weeks working on Who Made the Lamb, I'll now be returning to Constant for awhile, filling in the connective tissue between Book 4 and Book 5.

Monday: the next chapter of Constant, Book 5 released to all members.

Wednesday: hopefully, a sneak peek at the next chapter of Constant in All Other Things, Book 4. 

Thursday: a sneak peek at chapter two of Who Made the Lamb.