State of the CW

So. Mission Earth flogging WILL continue tomorrow (oh god) but we need to take a break for a moment and discuss the boring stuff. Or whatever.

First up: God, you guys are awesome. The response to Starbleached has been better than I expected. Not hugely wonderful OMG I CANNOT BELEIVE THIS I have hope now awesome, but I know that, as of right now? Half of my regular readers have a copy. That is kick ass. Please tell me how you feel about it. Also? The books sold, not the books bought during the freebie peroid, the books I have actually gotten money for, account for, like, a third of that. And if you do not have a copy, go get one. I plan on continuing that story, I am SO INCREDIBLY PROUD of that story, please please please please PLEASE let me share the awesomeness of that story with you.

Okay. Next up: Blue Ghosts is the next lil book in line. This is an Exiles story. What is Exiles? The Exiles are Faerie creatures trapped on Earth. Yes, kids. Paranormal romance involving Faeries and ghosts and the Lexington, one of the coolest locations in Corpus Christi. Casey Winter and Marco Creed investigate a ghost. Who may not be a ghost. It's complicated. And it's due out in October! It picks up where Silver Bullet left off.

Also, November/December (depending on wheither or not I take a months break from this self-imposed publishing schedule) will also pick up from where a Silver Bullet story left off. As in, minutes after it ended.  And because I know that very few of you have read Silver Bullet, much as it pains me to do it, Silver Bullet is free on Smashwords until October 13th. Code is GX35X
  
As for how I'm doing...I am not doing good. 

I am hugely, monumentally, cataclysmically depressed. Which is not good when you have a history of S/I issues. I am dealing, my friends. I am dealing. But it is hard. This month (as mentioned in the Mission Earth flog where I kind of got personal issues all over our happy fun times) does not make it easy. But the hardest part has been accepting something really, really hard.

I'm not writing this part now because I want to flail and moan and cry. I'm writing it because I believe that it needs to be written. Because it's a part of a story that hasn't ended yet. But I want this to be here, where everybody can see it, so that in a year, or two or ten, when this is over, I can point over here and say, this is where I was going, this is where I ended up.

I'm putting a cut here, because once again I'm about to get personal stuff all over the fun place.So once more, here's the unfunny cut kitty:

If you don't want to get sad and depressed, ignore the cut and watch the kitty.

 
I'm working on accepting that I am not, and never will be, talented enough to be a professional writer. And I can already hear the eye rolling through the screen. I know you guys like my writing (otherwise you wouldn't be here) I know you have a knee-jerk response to me bellyaching about my life. Most of you are my friends and family. I love you. I get it. Knock it off.

What brought me to this conclusion was not what any one person said. Not any one rejection. Not any one single thing. It was...

...sigh...

I'm a Christian, okay? Most of you know this. I'm a pretty big, devout one. I don't put it all over where the public can see it, in part because it squicks people out and in part I know (because my boss is this way) that mentioning religion turns some people's brains off. But I believe that God sets things up, and I've kind of learned to notice when things are being set up, because it's kind of like watching a pool hustler set up a bank shot. 

So in April I got a chance to do a thing. And someday, when I have more time between it and me and the other principal parties, I will elaborate on what that thing was (I am actually a little ashamed of how the whole thing turned out). Suffice to say that at the start of The Chance, I knew I would not get to do The Thing. The Thing was, in fact, completely and utterly beyond my capability to acheive. Because Things like this Thing do not happen to me. I do not win things. I do not get recognised for acheivements (usually because I do not acheive things). I am not complaining. I am stating the facts. If there is a thing to be done you can bet I will do it wrong. 

But this time? I got the Chance. I won it, as a matter of fact. I was blown away. And I knew that if the Thing worked out, the end result would be a published book, maybe. Everything lined up. I could see the bank shot. If there is a hand of God and it does move, it was moving then. There is no way God was not behind what happened. I should not have gotten that Chance, I should not have gotten the Chance to the point where I could actually do The Thing (It involved an awful lot of money) and it all just worked out beautifully.

Except, you know, for the Thing itself. That fell apart. The person behind the Thing, who was as nice as they could possibly be, very gently informed me that I have no talent, that there is no value in my writing, and that the best thing I could do is give up.

THEY DID NOT WORD IT LIKE THAT. They were, and are, the most incredibly nice person you could ever hope to meet, I respect them so much. But people lie when they say nice things. They never say "this is crap". They say "This could use a lot of work" and then hunker down and hope you don't throw something at them. 

I've spent six months trying to figure out what this was about. NOT WHAT THE PERSON WITH THE THING SAID. That's just one person's opinion, it doesn't matter, I shouldn't read so much into it, ect. ect. ect. ect I have heard all of this before. 

No. What I've been trying to figure out is this: why God would allow me to even have that chance in the first place, why he would set things up and let me finally have part of what I've wanted my whole life...if the end result is just gonna be the same old failure. It would have been just as easy for him to let me not win the Chance in the first place. Because that's the part I can't get over. It's not what the person said. It's that it happened the way it did. And I have come to the following conclusion. 

Either I am wrong about God, wrong about the way God works, wrong about everything that I believe, or writing is not what God wants me to do. 

And God knows the only way to make me stop writing is to have me fail so hard and so strongly that I stop wanting to do it. I have to come to a point where my well-being is so challenged my my desire to write, I have to turn away from it. And while I'm not there yet, that point is not all that far off. I don't feel like God is telling me to stop writing. What I feel like is that God is telling me to go through this, exactly the way I am doing it, until I reach the point where I feel I have no choice but to quit.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe a hail mary pass will come out of the ether at the last minute and save my dream. I don't know. Maybe the people who have been looking at my book for a solid year (And who sent me "we're still thinking about it" e-mails back when I was actually following up on query letters) will make a decision and that decision will swing my way. 

I don't see that happening. And writing has become a thing that is so very, very toxic for me, the only thing I can do if it isn't going to be successful (and I mean immediately successful) is give it up. And the only way I can ever give it up is to become so sick of it, so dissapointed in it and in myself, that I just plain don't want to do it anymore. 

And that's where I'm going.

So, all that said? I'm going to make you guys some promises:

1. I'm going to keep self-publishing the little books for at least the next year. Starbleached will continue for at least another six books, Exiles and the Winterlord stories...I think I'm going to pick up the pace on those a little bit, but those are going to happen too.

2. There are three Exiles novels. Full leingth, 90K average per book. They are already written. All three will need SERIOUS revisions, as the Exiles storyline has kind of fucked up most of the first book, and I haven't edited the other two yet, but I will self publish all three. You all will get to read them.

3. I have an unfinished YA book involving dragons. I am finishing it in November, for NaNo, which is why I'm probably not going to release anything in November (that, and I need the break). I will self publish that one too. Probably this time next year, if everything goes well.

This means that you guys WILL, I promise, be seeing writing from me for the next two to three years minimum. I need to get it out of my system, and above everything else, above wanting money, wanting to get out of my GOD FUCKING AWFUL JOB, I want these stories to exist. Part of me will be satisfied that these books will exist, and they will be in your heads as well as mine. So four novels, minimum, and a whole bunch of fun little books you can finish in a weekend.  

And hopefully by then I can move on with my life. Everything will be tied up and finished with a neat little bow, and we will all be happy. 

Remember this. It is the plan. 

(AND PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT TELL ME THAT I SHOULD KEEP ON TRYING. PLEASE. Please oh please oh please. If I were persuing a man the way I've been chasing my books every one of you would tell me "Stop that shit right now, it is not healthy". I don't get why it's alright to be obsessive about anything, period. I know that it is not PC to talk about giving up on dreams and moving on to better things, but that is what I have to do so that I can move on to those better things. I am trying to enjoy my life, not feel even more like a failure and a shit than I already do.  PLEASE DO NOT RUB MORE SALT IN THE WOUND. I love you guys. I know you love me too. But this is just something that I have to do for me. Peace, out.)