The Pen Is Mightier Than The Keyboard

 Hi,

Welcome, or welcome back if you're new, to the Shores of Night. My name is Grim, an autistic, non-binary person, and I talk about too much stuff here. 

You know how it goes. 

Photo by Igor Kasalovic on Unsplash

I'm sort of just trying to keep going with the blog, and -help! - I'm blogging without a plan! Danger, danger, Will Robinson! 

I usually at least have an idea of what I'm going to write about beforehand, but today's subject literally came to me as I sat down to write. 

So, this post will be a catch-up about writing and how that's going. 

Or more accurately, how it's not going at all. 

I started this year with big plans. I was going to write ten short stories, get them published, finish a setting for gaming (at least to the point where I could play it with my group), and plan a novel to start next year. 

Looking back in September (as in... now - sheesh, where has this year gone?) I have achieved almost none of this. I got a story published earlier in the year and got one rejected. It needs a wee rewrite to make it a bit more accessible, but I still have hope for it. 

I've planned out probably about a third(?) of my novel about a conspiracy in a fantasy country that includes spies, discrimination, and an infant king (hence the conspiracy). So,  it's not that I've achieved nothing, but I certainly haven't managed what I hoped I would. 

I'm also not quite at the stage of panicking, partly because I have always been this way - big plans, small output. 

Honestly, it's hard not to be sick of myself because of that. Even as I realise something needs to change. I wish I were different, but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. 

I have to accept that I need to have a major rethink. More than that, I need to do things differently. 

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

First, I have to stop writing online, or even on my laptop, and put my phone away. I think focusing on using pen and paper for creation, and typing my work up later. The advantage there is that what hits the screen will be a second draft. That means the thing I type up won't be raw, but will already have gone through some improvements. 

Second, I have to take time during my day - not after it - to write. That means lunchtimes have to be about reading and writing now. (To explain: if I'm on site, I'm usually exhausted from masking, and all I want to do in the evening is... nothing. It's not as bad if I'm working at home, but I usually run a game on one of those days, which naturally cuts into writing time.) 

I think I also have to create a way to negotiate more energy for my weekends, too. 

Third, I have to type things up quickly, so I don't lose momentum. 

With gaming, I need to commit to the work I'm doing and get the various settings to the table. There are two things I'm working on. 

The first is a setting called the Cauldron, which is based around the idea of a magical asteroid striking the world and creating a crater. It's meant to be small (though I have started to develop the world around it).

Beyond the whole "there's a magic crater" thing, I'm trying to step away from conventional fantasy by working out what cultures that, say, live underground might actually look like. I'm playing fantasy anthropologist, trying to shift the societies I create away from Tolkien's Shadow (the recycling of Tolkienian ideas within the genre) and into fresher territory. Admittedly, because this is for RPG gaming, I'm not going completely mad with this. I know how conservative with a small c role-players can be; they all too often look for comfort and familiarity, even when the setting promises something shiny and new. 

Illustration by Pragati Choudhari on Unsplash

The second idea is Epitaph of Bone, which is based on an idea that fascinates me: what happens when the saga ends?  I think about it a lot, often in the form of Final Girl figures and what happens to them after they've survived the horror film. 

Epitaph is focused on the idea that an undead emperor has been destroyed, but the realisation is that that doesn't solve the problem. It's a game, I hope, about rebuilding the world and finding hope among the ruins. It's got a strong sense of "what now?" which I find fascinating, even as I write about people squabbling over ruins and the fate of undead workers. My world-building here is about trying to envisage what would happen to a world where necromancy was common, and to extend that to what happens when that power starts to wane. 

And, of course, I'm now starting to think about writing fiction set there... because ideas are easy. 

A little too easy, if I'm honest. 

I have been ambushed by ideas along the way: a science fiction novel about washed-up spies on a prison planet, trying to build a setting that encompasses both my pseudo-Ancient Greek and Ancient Mesopotamian ideas, and various other things. It's stupidly easy to think of new things and enjoy the dopamine hit they give me. (And I'm probably not describing anything new: I imagine everybody with the slightest amount of creativity feels this way - I'm just lacking willpower). 

On the gaming front, I've also been distracted by the process of further delineating what I want to keep and what games I no longer feel attached to. That means slowly shifting out old games and enjoying the extra space I get. I have spent some time looking at games I really enjoyed in the past but now feel like they're less old friends and more mill stones, trying to work out new approaches. But, honestly, I haven't found anything that pleases me, and I've reached a point where I accept that the World of Darkness and I have, largely, parted company. Which is fine; it just means I don't want to keep things for it anymore. 

Of course, I've also bought new shinies, most of which probably need me to find new players because my current group is going to bounce off them hard. Ironically, one of those is the new edition of Ars Magica - which was the game Mark Rein-Hagen created before the World of Darkness games... 

Ack, detour! 

Getting back on track, the main task is to reboot the way I write and get things finished, not just started. I think that looks like starting to actually use the Pomodoro Technique and just focus on the paper in front of me.  

I have enough beginnings, so I need to settle myself down and finish things.