I'm writing a novel.
If I write that there, I'm hoping the unwritten “trying to,” that makes up the flabby middle of my decision/statement of intent/occasional gross overestimation, will wither and die—leaving me with something so oxymoronically dripping in brevity, Strunk and White would be stricken speechless, captivated, as they were, by it's stark beauty, born of that most elegant of edifying edicts:
“Omit needless words.”
Mike sighs deeply, wondering if this will come across right. He decided not to give a shit, before definitely giving a shit anyway, then decided to cut this section right back—yes, it was a lot longer before publishing. He hoped he managed to cut it off just before it got anno…
Please insert your preferred light music here, being played through an old-timey radio set, underwater, while we return to our regular programming. Are you imagining it?
“I'm writing a novel.” Really cuts to the chase doesn't it? No dragging of the feet, no fuss, just boom: That's all, mic drop.
You've noticed, of course, that I've written it in the present tense:
I AM writing a novel.
Oof. Chills.
But really, as brazenly declarative as that statement might be, its clean design of just six syllables, (when using the contraction,) can only be achieved by omitting many other things. Things that add decorative and useful touches—a little gothic scrollwork and filigree around the Brutalism.
(I honestly can't tell if that's the worst idea in the history of Art and Design, or if I'll look back at this as the beginnings of a new hot design trend, and anyway I'm too old to be a reliable source for that sort of information.)
It needs context, it needs food for the soul as well as information, it needs clarification.
It needs something to reach out to its intended audience.
It needs a genre:
I'm writing a Fantasy novel.
And that, in part, is what this will be about. It's about writing a fantasy novel. For the first time. With only a few finished short stories, a failed, 60k words, started-during-NanoWriMo-that-one-year novel, (yikes,) and little else in the way of experience. With almost certainly undiagnosed adult ADHD and rampant anxiety?
Strap in. You're either going to be able to observe the development of a novel of yet-to-be-determined quality and follow the process as it unfolds—or else you'll get to watch a middle-aged, Gen-X Englishman unravel in near-real time. That's value you can't buy. Donations are, of course, accepted.
Another sigh. Load previous anxiety cycle. Consider starting over.
So, I'm going to write about the book. Sneak peeks of characters, locations, magic systems, etc, but I also might do short form pieces from prompts, Like Reddit's 50 word prompts, #Promptodon or #WritingPrompt on Mastodon. (I'm @narshada@masto.ai, come say hi!)
I'm also going to try to write some writing tips posts, from what little I can claim to know about the craft or how any of this works.
So writing about writing, tips about writing and craft, and short form prompted stuff. Possibly even a silly poem or two, who knows?
And it will come out as often as I have time for/can remember to do.
(Probable ADHD and definite Executive Disfunction == maybe not so regular updates, but I'm going to start a list of post ideas.)
And maybe I'll look into whether I can publish from Ulysses, which is my favourite mobile writing app, but have already sprung for the write free.ly app so I have my bases covered. Ulysses's markdown syntax works slightly differently to here, so maybe writefree.ly might be the better way to go?
I'm currently using Campfire Write to do the actual novel project, and I'll probably write a post or two about writing software too, as I've used several different ones already during this novel's already protracted gestation.
That's it for now.