Thursday, October 29, 2009

Before I croak

One of the things I want to do some time before I die is to write and publish a novel (or, you know, many wildly successful novels). I've actually finished a few but aside from one query letter, I made no moves to try to get either of them published.

The first was something I wrote back when I was about 15-16 years old. It was terrible. Terribly formulaic. I am ashamed to this day that I let anyone else read it. 

The second book was written more recently, something like three years ago. It was one part an experiment to see whether I could, in fact, finish something on the scale of a full-sized novel. It was also terribly arrogant of me to write it. Why? Well, I went into it with the thought that surely I would have no problem getting something published if I wrote for the Christian market. I arrived at this conclusion after a lifetime of reading bad Christian novels. The cherry on that Sunday was a book by a more successful Christian author that was set during the Revolutionary War. Within the first chapter I walked away in disgust. Who greenlighted a period novel and then let whole paragraphs about dating and being happy to see one's boyfriend slip by? I'm still appalled. 

"I could write any old piece of crap," thought I. "If only I dress it up a bit in Christian colors, it'll still be better than 90% of what is already out there." 

Ugh. I was such a jackass. 

Since that, I've started and stopped a half dozen projects. I more or less abandoned the first blog I had and went from posting nearly every day to posting about once a month. Another series of blogs centering around WoW (something I played heavily while not writing) were started and stopped within a few weeks. I did manage to write a decent amount of a WoW-centric fanfiction during that time, but that's about it. 

Maybe it's because my interest in WoW is waning. Maybe it's because of recent personal events that have re-awoken areas of my life that had been dead. Maybe it's because I've recently had the experience of reading stuffchristianslike.net from start to finish and was challenged and humbled and inspired nearly every post of the way. Maybe it's because I recently discovered Brandon Sanderson and was blown away by his books. Maybe it's a combination of everything I just mentioned. Whatever the reasons, I find myself wanting to write again. 

Unfortunately, all my ideas are very rough. I have no idea what to write. But I'm working on it and that's a pretty good feeling.


Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Obligatory 'why I done started this here blog' post

It's funny.

Not me so much. But the fact that I have created this place for me to come and write about whatever occurs to me with some degree of anonymity and yet I have already spent all this time and effort in trying to make sure that if anyone does come this way it's nice and easy for them to get my updates. Because, clearly, there are going to be tens of tens of people wanting to hear whatever random crap I write down here.

And yet, if this was meant to be solely for me and my own edification, why put it out where anyone, even my mom who has no idea how to find these blog thingies that all the kids are talking about, could come across it? First of all, I don't think that will happen. My mom, your mom, my husband's mom. No one would have any reason to come here, unless I tag myself up with certain keywords. You know the ones I am talking about. And then I hope no one's mom is the one coming here because that would just be awkward.

I have come to learn the value of the wonderful communities that can be had online. And that's really the only reason to put anything out here to be seen by anyone who might stumble upon it and think, wow, this person, this Alas, is pretty lame/weird/interesting/jerky (pick one). The whole beauty is that no one here will have pre-conceived notions of who I am and what I am about. It won't shock a single person if I should come out and say I love kicking puppies. I don't, by the way. But in this space, this blank canvas, it would not matter if I did. I also won't have my in-laws all crawling down my virtual throat because they know where my blog is. That alone is awesome enough to make me want to just come and toss my thoughts out here, whatever they might be.

Anyway, that is why I am here. Who knows what will come next? I don't, but for my own sake and for the purpose of my own being able to look backwards and remember where I have been, I'm probably going to keep talking like I do have an audience and will likely attempt to entertain that imaginary body of people.