Alistair Reynolds, In the Garden, With the Vibrator, Diddling Becky Chambers and Elizabeth Bear

To make my writing feel different from the other stuff I do, I've been disconnecting my laptop from my setup with my TV and sitting with it in my lap in my big comfy chair. It's been helping me focus. I think because it feels different. Kind of like the difference between being at home and being at work. Your brain slides into those needed routines because they are routine. Things have changed. Well, whatever it is, it's been helping.

I've been playing some chiptune music for background, but I really like it. Lol. Might be too distracting for me. Again, I respond well to routines. Not always. If it's a routine that I set and I enjoy, I respond well. If I have to follow someone else's routine, I do terribly. But this is my routine, so I feel good. Got about 10,000 words on my novel so far and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. I'm usually an outliner and I think that part of the fun is that I'm not outlining this one. I have a reasonably clear picture in my head of where I want the story to go in broader strokes. Some possible answers to mysteries that I've presented and some possible developments to story hooks that I've drawn. But the basics of it is still unknown to me. And I love basics.

I'm doing my best to avoid filler, and when I can't, I find it during editing and zap it. I fucking hate reading a book with any usage of filler. Yeah. I'm that guy. Don't describe that fucking door. Just walk through it or don't. Really? A three-page scene of the humans playing with what turns out to be an advanced human spacesuit from another country and not alien technology? I'm talking to you, Alistair Reynolds. Motherfucker. I read Pushing Ice.

That brings me to another thing. Goddamn social commentary and politics in a novel. Back the fuck off. I think they disguise these things as fiction because they know that no one with read their political tirades any other way. I actually DNF'd a book on page three (almost never DNF) because I could tell the author was an idiot who wanted to shoehorn their political bullshit in between the pages. A few people recommended a series by Elizabeth Bear (I read a lot of space opera) and I tried the first one. It was called Ancestral Night. And in the first few pages, we got a same sex couple (oh the scandal!) and the casual note that it is illegal to own any sentient being in the galaxy.

I have no issues with the first bit, but the second bit threw me out of the book completely. I actually put the book in the garbage can. Also, I never do that. But here is the answer to the inevitable why that you must be asking. Why would that drive me insane?

Just think about that.

You know what, fuck it. Don't think about that. I'm getting a quote. Okay, I was wrong about the exact quote, but here it is. She's talking about a ship AI here.

"We called him Singer. If Singer had an opinion on the issue, he’d never registered it—but he never complained. Singer was the shipmind as well as the ship—or at least, he inhabited the ship’s virtual spaces the same way we inhabited the physical ones—but my partner Connla and I didn’t own him. You can’t own a sentience in civilized space."

There is a lot going on with this passage. For one, it's lukewarm. Make up your mind. Is he a fucking ship or a ship AI? Does he have a goddamn name or not? Oh really, that's how computer's work? By inhabiting the virtual spaces in the same ways that we inhabit the physical ones? Good god. And how do you know he identifies as a man?

The only thing she's not lukewarm about is this ridiculous proclamation that it's illegal to own a sentience in civilized space. How would you possibly enforce that? Even if you had instantaneous travel and numerous nodes or autonomous algorithms (oh wait, you can't own those). That's the other thing. What is the limit between sentience and non-sentience? Why even have a living ship if it can just choose to disobey your commands because you can't own it?

Anyway, this was a clear ramp up (at least to me) for this author to start yammering about the undoubtedly vital political issues that must penetrate her every waking thought. And some people like that. I've read good read reviews where people have said "I was hoping for more exploration of modern politics in this outer space fantasy". I really have. Don't make me quote it.

More Stupid Musings That No One Will Read

Writing is fun. It's hard, but it's still fun. Even if I never get anything out of it, I'm still having a good time. And I guess that's to be given some weight. And honestly, writing GameLit or LitRPG (or whatever it is that I'm writing) is the most fun that I've ever had writing. And again, that should say something. I have a tendency to get obsessed. You may have noticed. Lol. And that obsession leads into a kind of Stockholme's reaction, I guess. I get interested in a genre because it's popular, even though my own taste in books is pretty narrow. I tend to get the idea than anything is easier to write than my favorite genre. It's a weird, kind of toxic reaction, maybe?

I've dabbled in crime fiction. Detective fiction. Sci fi was actually my first followed by medieval fantasy. I did some erotica. Urban fantasy. Space opera. Dystopian. Cyberpunk. And now I'm into LitRPG. I honestly couldn't tell you if any of them are my favorite. For a long time, it was space opera, but I think the pressure of actually writing one was too much for me. I end up going impossibly grand and dense. And ultimately fluffy.

The point is, this genre I'm in now is a lot of fun and I can see why people like it. But I do see a lot of poorly written novels gaining success, which I find pretty odd. More than anything LitRPG reminds me of the classic sci fi pulp serials. They aren't trying to solve and world issues, or politics, or even speculate on anything. They just want to give their audience a thrill. And the best way to do that is target their daily fantasies. As a kid, I remember video games really infiltrating my fantasy life and I would often imagine I'd brought into a game, or a world from a game or something that worked like a game. But for me, the actually nuts and bolt of the game itself were secondary. Mostly, I don't even think about those things. I'm going for immersion. I want to be that character doing that thing.

Anyway, it makes sense is all I'm driving at. Games are accessible. More accessible even that movies and tv shows. People in my generation want to do something rather than sit there and have the story happen to us. We want to make the decisions rather than seeing someone else make them. I myself am one of those. When I want entertainment, do I pull up a show or a movie? No. I play a game or listen to a book. Probably both at the same.

Things That I Think About and Have Decided to Write Down for Pretty Much No Reason

 Yet again, there is a fair bit of freedom here knowing that there is no audience. In hindsight, I think that may be one of my biggest problems. Rather, the lack of any need or desire for attention. If I really needed attention, I would seek it out desperately to the point that I lost the ability to be creative. Or maybe not, I don't know. But I feel that I know this pretty good about myself. When people are around and I can tell that they're watching, I do things for them. Does that make sense?

Looking over my last blog, I was actually getting some views and tried to make it more interesting and readable accordingly. Most of the views were probably generated from bots, because there really wasn't any engagement going on, but even so, I did things to keep my audience happy, rather than really expressing myself. Without any illusion of an audience, I don't feel the need to do that anymore. No one to dance for. No reason to be a monkey. It's nice, really.

At some point, I'll try to build up an audience again, and I'm really not sure how I'm planning to do that.

Also, I've been thinking that I'm going to branch out a bit into some easier genres. At least see what the competition looks like. In general, self publishing is a hard road no matter what you're writing. But I might create some pen names and try my hand at erotica or romance or romantasy. Get the horny broads all worked up about some oiled stud. Should be easy as fuck. No form of writing is ever truly easy, but, as I've found with LitRPG, I do better if it isn't my favorite thing. Does that make sense? No? It doesn't? I'm just a crazy motherfucker? Ah. Glad we got that cleared up.

I tend to overthink things (nah, really?) and if it's my favorite genre, the quality of writing gets worse. Sounds weird, but it actually makes sense. If I'm enjoying it more, I'm really going to get into it. I'm going to do the fuck out of it, because I'm enjoying it. In writing, this gives me a The Stars Now Unclaimed situation. Probably some cool shit in that book if homeslice would just shut the fuck and let us read it instead of bogging us down with every word he can find in his thesaurus.

Like I said, I do the same. Not to the end of dragging more innocent words into it, but to the degree that I add too much. I can feel myself doing it. Which is actually a good thing because, if I can tell that I'm doing it, I can stop myself too. Haven't gotten there yet, but I'm close. I feel like I'm doing much better with this new one, but I still see myself having to aggressively cut back the words. And that's okay. It's part of editing.

A Surprisingly Focused and Ordinary Journal Post That Doesn't Say Anything Crazy for Once

Yesterday, I used AI to make a pretty good cover for this novel. It's a long way from being published, but something about seeing art and seeing my ideas physically is pretty exciting for me. Which is another thing that I've noticed. I'm actually excited to write this story. That's not really something that I'm used to. I haven't actually been excited about writing anything for a really long time. Even when I was able to do it more regularly, I still had a sort of steady dread and avoidance about it. I'm not feeling that right now, so that's good.

I've always wanted to write sci fi adventure and I think that's what litRPG is in today's landscape. It is a modern version of sci fi adventure. It's easy, fun, pulpy, doesn't stretch your imagination too much and it doesn't expect you to care about boring shit like detectives and lawyers. I hope that this genre still has a good run left in it, because it looks like some other genres that I love (ie cyberpunk, and urban fantasy) don't have much readership these days. Not to say they're dead, but they aren't flying off the shelves faster than they can be written anymore. And that's okay. Readers move on to new genres, writers can do it too.

It occurs to me that I'm getting no readership on this blog because I'm doing nothing to advertise it. No labels or keywords. No pictures. Not sharing the link anywhere. Lol. And yet, knowing that doesn't make me want to go out and promote it. This is not the real work that I'd like to show off, this is just the scratch paper. The back-of-the-napkin notes. That's all. It's not for the goal of gaining readership. That comes later.

Interview with the author - S J Harper

Interviewer: So, you're the author of Low Life, a new litRPG adventure story destined to hit the over-crowded digital shelves of the internet to literally no response or fanfare. That's great. Really great. Tell us, what inspired you to write in this genre?

Harper: I read Dungeon Crawler Carl and thought to myself, "Shit. I can write that." And here I am. After doing some research about other stories in this genre, most of them suck ass and their authors really don't know anything about writing. Figured I could do better.

Interviewer: ...okay. Interesting response.

Harper: What?

Interviewer: Well, I just...I didn't think you'd...well.

Harper: To be fair, I thought about doing the ol' Stephanie Meyers routine and pretending that I'd never heard of the genre, never read it and thought I was inventing it based on a weird dream that I'd had.

Interviewer: ...okay

Harper: What now?

Interviewer: Most authors don't readily admit to ripping off the ideas of others to use for personal gain.

Harper: So? Everyone does it. Do you think J R R Tolkien invented elves and dwarves? Do you think he just woke up one day and invented goblins out of thin air? No. He drew on history, mythology, epic poetry, and other novels. He really didn't invent very much at all. He just bundled it into a novel package that took a fresh look at those mechanisms. The whole story about finding and getting a magic ring was originally based on a play about a cursed magic ring called Wagner's Ring Cycle (Der Ring des Nibelungen). Not to say that he wasn't a genius--he was, but he just didn't invent the things wrote about.

Interviewer: Why would you go to such great length to look that up? It's a little weird.

Harper: The point is that no author should feel bad about borrowing or spinning off from someone else's idea. That's just how writing works. Lots of awesome stories have been inspired by others. That's all I'm driving at.

Interviewer: Fair enough. 

Wasting Time For Dummies Forward by S J Harper

These journal posts are a waste of time. At best, all they are is a way for me to vent. But making it into something that I technically publish changes my perception of it. I have no illusions about the notion that this will somehow magically help my writing or help me find an audience. All this serves me is as a way to eject my frustration and sadness and get the wiggles out before I start doing serious work on my novel.

So, these will start being more and more limited.

*audience gasp*

Yes, I know. All zero of my readers will be greatly affected by this and saddened to see their favorite source of content dwindle to a mere fraction of what it was.

*people screaming, punching themselves in the face and crotch*

Calm down, calm down. I'll still continue to use this emotional port o potty on a daily basis, since I apparently need that to maintain this hilarious mental balance that I call sanity. So, I will continue to post, just not the huge, expansive pointless rants. We will be moving into smaller pointless rants.

*audience relief, crying for joy, groping each other*

Yes, I'm glad you're all very happy. And wow, you three are REALLY happy. That's great for you.

Honestly, I don't really think anyone is reading blogs anymore. I found a blog update from a writer that had been at it for about 20 years. Pretty good at what she does, but always under the radar. And not very much output, really. But her last post was about wanting feedback from her most recent book, because so far it had been crickets. The post was two years old and with zero comments.

Is this my future? A dozen good but underrated novels under my belt and still no readers? Ghost of Christmas future. I see you.

Really Couldn't Think of Any Witty Titles Today

 Yesterday, I did some research about migrating my blog to another platform. It's not only possible, it's also quite easy to do. My first thought was that I could take my thoughts to a platform that had more readership, and then writing wouldn't feel like such a waste of time. But, it turns out, there is almost zero readership and plain ol boring text blogs. Was a time when you could blog about anything and people would just show up to hear your ranting. But not so much anymore. Now you have to be a celebrity or you have to offer something to reader, like a recipe, news, life advise, so on. And if you don't want to do that, basically no one will read your bullshit.

Going in a dark direction today. Lol.

The funny thing is, I think if I changed my media, I'd probably get more interest. Switch over to a video blog and then focus on the stupid dipshit crap that I do everyday. Here I am washing the dishes. Here I am feeding chickens. But that defeat the purpose of a journal for me. I did also study film in college, once upon a time. It was a deep passion for me. And even though I haven't filmed anything narrative for some fifteen to twenty years, I still daydream about pieces that I could make. I did a couple AI animated videos last year that actually turned out pretty cool. I could make more of those. But it's a lot of time and effort to get it right, for again, zero pay off. Took me about a day to make one minute of video with cuts, music and voice over.

And we get back to the "does it make any money" argument. I did some research about compensation for making content. Basically, it sucks. It wouldn't find any viewership unless it fell into a popular niche. Some niches pay better than others. Tech and investment videos pay pretty well. Cooking videos have a strong viewership.

I feel like my soul is being drained out as I go over this.

It's one of those things where, want you want to do is eat a fish. But it goes beyond the act of buying a pole and line and practicing fishing. Now you have to get a boat. Get a license. Meet the dock authority. Now that you have a boat, you have to staff it with sailors. But your sailors don't want to catch fish. That won't make enough money. They want to catch lobsters. Now you have to rerig your boat.

The metaphor I'm driving at is that I'm getting further and further from reaching what I want, because I'm trying to find an audience. They say you should build an audience. Which is code for "just keep working for free and maybe someone will like you". Which is exactly what you have to do.

I'm thinking that I need to change my perspective before I'm able to enjoy this. I still want it to be a career. But that's not going to happen. No more than strapping a bed sheet to my shoulders will make me fly. I need to think of this like I did my DnD hobby. I'm just painting stuff, writing stuff, and building stuff to have fun with my friends. I don't expect any money or reward out of it. It's just a hobby. But I think the crucial difference here is that there are no friends to share my writing with. Feels like I'll be the only reading it.