Drawing from the Well
Scenes Arranged: 6
Total Scenes: 124
I’m officially into the Key Event. There are two major plot lines at this point in the book (there’ll be three by the end when one diverges at the Midpoint) so it takes two chapters to lay them both out. One of those two chapters is arranged. Hooray! The other is getting started, but I haven’t made it through yet. There is a lot going on in this chapter as a singular event is going to have effects on most of the characters. Because of that, I’m still ensuring that the right person is the voice for this chapter before I dive too deeply into the specifics.
Filling the Well
Perelandra: 100% (Book 8 of 25 for #ProjectBookworm2019)
The Only Harmless Great Thing: 61%
That Hideous Strength: 1%
As you can see by the header image, I’ve finished Perelandra. It was good, but the ending was a bit out of place. C.S. Lewis is still a masterful world builder (very much literally in the Space Trilogy) and I enjoyed the story with the benevolent, innocent Perelandra herself. The Only Harmless Great Thing makes me sad. It paints us humans in a terrible light, for which we deserve, especially in the context of this story, which, of course, serves as an allegory for so many atrocities we have committed. I’m curious how it will end in such a short form. I’ll let you know what I think.
Polishing the Well
It’s been a really busy couple of days with work, so polishing the well hasn’t been possible. That happens in life sometimes. I’m embracing it and riding the wave to the other side. Tomorrow, things will go back to normal.
Well Chat
The Danger of Comparison
I read an article in a newsletter today that got me a little down. It was a great article about how someone overcame some real adversity and heartache to publish her debut novel. And that’s awesome! I congratulated her in my heart. What got me down was how many books she wrote so quickly to get there. In ten years’ time, she wrote five or six books and finally got one to market. I looked back at my ten years working on this one series, really this one book, and despaired.
Now, why is this dangerous?
It’s dangerous because I’m comparing my Midpoint or Second Pinch Point to someone else’s Resolution. We aren’t at the same point in our journeys. Additionally, no two journeys are the same. If I wrote my story of putting this book together the way she wrote hers, there would be some similar moments, though in a different order from hers, but so many details would be fundamentally different.
You may have noticed by now that this Well Chat is as much a pep talk for myself as it is anyone else and that’s okay. It is important to have positive self-talk and to use that to gain some perspective. And that’s what I’m doing here. I’m great. I’m doing great work, the best I’ve ever done. The scenes I’m composing now are better and better-implemented (as far as fitting into and stitching together multiple plots) than ever before. The draft of Book 1 that I sent to my editor is better than any draft before it by an enormous margin. I have many things to be proud of.
Just because I didn’t get to the best version of my book on the first or even fifth try doesn’t make me a failure. That doesn’t make this author “better” than me. It only means she is further along in her journey than I am. And kudos to her for that. In the meantime, I’m going to keep my head down and keep grinding my blood and bones into this book to make it the best it can be.
And you should do the same. This doesn’t just apply to writing. Americans especially are experts at comparison guilting. We look around at people like us, but that aren’t us, and saying “Look what they have” and then feeling bad that we don’t have what they have. All the while, we are discounting what WE have that “they” don’t or even that no one has. No one has my wife. No one has my kids. No one has exactly my house (we’ve painted to ensure that). No one has my wonderful dogs and cats. No one has my job. And no one anywhere on planet Earth or anywhere else in the entire UNIVERSE has the ideas that tumble around in my head. I am so blessed in so many ways and so are you.
Take a minute (maybe during your stargazing) and truly, literally count your blessings. Every time you start to complain, turn it to a blessing. Instead of saying, “I wish I had a better car. I have to take this thing into the shop to get work done.” say “I’m so grateful that I have a car that has worked so hard for me that it needs work done. I don’t now how I’m going to manage to make that happen, but I’m grateful for the CHALLENGE to figure it out.” It’s a mind game. All of life is. So start changing your plays and win at life.
And stop comparing to your neighbor. The greenest grass is fertilized with bullshit so remember that.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG