Roderick T. Macdonald's Blog, page 30

Countdown Part 1: Strapped In

Well, I’ve gone and done it. The Thief and The Demon, my debut novel, is scheduled to be formatted.

The cover has been designed, so now all I have to do is wait until the formatted text and the cover are united, and it will be time to upload. I feel like I’m in the capsule, strapped in, and waiting for launch. There is no turning back now.

It is a strange feeling, after spending so long striving to get here. The work of writing, re-writing, editing, re-editing, proofing, re-proofing, is all behind me now, when once it seemed as if it would never end.

And there is more to be done. I and my book do not yet truly exist on Facebook, nor on Amazon or Goodreads. I know, for I have seen it stated many times in advice on getting ready for publication, that I should already have been present in online communities, but alas I allowed the work of writing to consume me, until now. If this proves to be something I regret, so be it, I could not have gone another way.

I will read my book over one more time before submitting it to the formatter. And again, when I get it back. Not to make changes, not anymore, just to make sure everything is in place, and ready for launch. I’m calm about that, at long last. I’m looking forward to introducing it to you. I hope you like it.

The Thief and The Demon is ready. So, I hope, am I.

Welcome to My Writing Journey

I’ve blogged sporadically for a few years now, but with the publication of my first novel fast approaching, I thought it appropriate to reintroduce myself.

My name is Roderick T. Macdonald. I am 46. The age surprises me often. Time kept slippin’ away, and here I am, in the future. I am a writer. I have always been a writer, though I have not always been prepared to boldly say so. I write fantasy fiction.

Going forward, I’m going to share with you my experience as a self-publishing author, how I came to fantasy as my favoured genre, how I deal with this writing life, and what I plan to do next.

I am not an expert. I do not claim to be an authority. These will be my perspectives, and reflections on the lessons I have learned. Mistakes have been made in the past, and doubtless more will be made in the future, but as long as I am moving forward, I shall try to be content.

None of us who write are truly alone in our efforts, though often it seems so, wrestling the words in our heads. Join me, if you will, on this journey – companions make the miles pass more easily.

The Strange Highway of Novel Creation

For me, a line from this song really captures the amount of work involved in writing a novel.

“Every time I climbed the mountain, and it turned into a hill…”

So often have I thought I was nearly done, that surely it would all be over soon, only to discover a new mountain of work ahead of me. A look back at some of my early posts is proof of previous foolish hopes.

I look back on the many steps it took to get here, near the top of another mountain, knowing that soon I’ll see a new set of challenges awaiting me, more mountains to climb. I invite you, fellow traveller, to stop here awhile and see if these steps sound familiar to you, and be comforted in the knowledge that they can all be put behind you in the end.

The original idea became an outline in a relative flash.

The first draft started, and the first flush of excitement faded as I got bogged down for the first time, somewhere random where I did not expect it. I worked through it, and thought that the worst was over, and then it happened again. I got through that, and the writing flowed well, until I realised months had gone by, and I was still not half-way through my outline. The story, so streamlined in plan, became much bigger than envisaged when dealing with the nuts and bolts of character and events happening in the world of my creation. The writing is a sequence of mountains that turn into hills as you top each rise, complete each chapter, only to see more mountains of story waiting to be brought to life.

And that was the first draft.

I began to edit. In my case I began to learn how to edit. I thought I’d understood what that meant. I climbed the editorial mountain, told folk I was “almost finished editing” the book, like that would be the end, the mountain defeated. But no, it’s another hill. I learned that what I thought was editing was no more than fiddling around the edges, or “editong”, as I long ago put it. I learnt more, read more about the process, started again with significant structure, and climbed all those mountains again. Finally I reached a new end, having topped so many rises, always hoping to see the valley below, only to see another range of peaks ahead.

I looked at my novel, and was proud, but I knew that despite the tighter text and trimmed fat, it wasn’t really ready.

I realised, if I wanted to do this right, that I needed to hire a pro to edit my novel.

All the effort I had expended was just a preamble to the real work now beginning.

A developmental edit. My book was assessed, strengths and weaknesses identified, advice and ideas offered with the goal of making the story and its presentation stronger. I scheduled time to do rewrites. I decided what key changes needed to be made, and ensured that consistency was maintained throughout the book, no lingering remnants of earlier, now discarded, ideas lurking in the text. I finished all the rewrites. Another mountain climbed.

And it became yet another hill as I faced the line editing process. The long winding road of debating all the changes, line by line, suggested by my editor. Along the way a few lingering remnants I had missed were identified and excised. I climbed the mountain, and completed the line edit review.

Surely now I must be close. I’ve done the line edit, so a copy edit shouldn’t take too long, right?

You may be surprised at how much more the copy edit throws up (I was, and I tried to be ready for it!), and how, even at this stage, you can catch content related issues, just a little fix each time, just a little more cross-checking through the text. Just a little further to go.

Then proofing. Read it all again, aloud, to try to catch any sneaky typos, even though the line and copy edits have already combed over the text multiple times, and to check the rhythm of each sentence and paragraph. Despite everything, word repetitions still jump out, and have to be remedied, or let go. You begin to understand why Patrick Rothfuss can be mired in editing for 9 years.

All that is done now. I have climbed all the mountains of writing, and I have reached the other side. A cover has been created, formatting is being arranged. I know I’m going to read it again, aloud, when I get the formatted copy, to check every word and line is correct. One more mountain. Then the valley, at last, the valley.

At many many points along this journey, all of it uphill, I have reminded myself of the line that comes after the one quoted at the beginning of this post, and used it to keep myself going. I hope you do too, in any creative endeavour you find taking longer, being harder, than you first thought or expected it would be.

“I promised me that I’d move on, and I will…”

It’s a long road. Keep walking it. You will reach your destination, if you just keep moving on.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m just about to top another rise. There is a neon sign ahead that flashes words at random. Words like publication, marketing, sales. I wonder what they mean…

 

The Wheel Rolls On

***This post contains spoilers about Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, stop here if you have not completed it!***

So I finally finished reading the Wheel of Time, twenty two or three years after starting it.

I am so glad I did. The ending is worth the wait, or it was for me.

I read the last 450 pages in one orgiastic sitting. It was fantastic.

Yes I have quibbles and issues. But I got plenty of page-burning excitement and moments of elation and sadness, pity and joy. It was a fitting finale, and I loved that at last it could be written that it was not the end, just an end. Perfect.

I am a writer. Living in a glass house, I have decided not to throw any more stones than I did last time out, and I threw those with love. I can go join the forums over at dragonmount.com and debate all my crazy pet theories there, and probably get schooled!

The Wheel of Time is an astonishing achievement, vast in breadth and detail. Not everything is going to dovetail nicely together. There will be unresolved conflicts, hanging threads of the pattern, as it were. The story rolls on in our minds – another impressive achievement. I wonder what directions the fanfic has taken!

Okay, one pet theory – just one!

Ourobouros isn’t just a motif on the cover. We’ve been warned from the start that this story never truly begins or ends – so how did we really expect this telling of the tale to end? With the Wheel of Time broken? Then there would be no more beginnings and endings. That rather destroys the conceit Jordan spent years of his life creating and explicitly stated at the outset of every book. I might have liked it to end that way, with Rand being a total badass and breaking the Wheel by destroying the Dark One and essentially daring the Creator to recreate a Dark One, if he, the Creator, thought it so necessary. That would be an intriguing twist.

I did not entirely buy the vision of a world without the Dark One, but I could see why it was shown not to work within the framework of the Wheel of Time universe built around the idea of Yin and Yang. So, in a very real sense, from the beginning of the series this kind of end was predicted. Only the details are allowed to change in the Wheel of Time, the overall structure remains the same, played out again and again. Is that enough for everyone? I have philosophical issues with determinism vs free will in this series. I mean, is Rand truly free to make any decision other than the one he does? Will the pattern let him? He pulls the Dark One into the pattern during the final confrontation, so at that time Rand is also within the pattern as he his physically holding the Dark One, so they must both be exposed to the pattern. So can Rand really resist the pattern’s unfolding in that circumstance? The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills. And even if he, Rand, were still outside of the pattern, everything he is, his instincts and experiences, all are products of the pattern. Hard to escape them. So he imprisons the Dark One as it was before the bore was opened, and the Wheel starts a new cycle. It isn’t the Dark One who always wins, but the Wheel.

The text tries to say that the Dark One had never been the true enemy – the implication being that humanity had been its own enemy all this time, humanity which had foolishly opened the bore, and humanity that needed to have the wisdom to close it again. But can humanity learn anything in a deterministic universe? You could argue that the Wheel, and the pattern it lays out is the real enemy, if you belive that free will is a necessary and good thing. Rand does not appear to come to that conclusion, as his actions ultimately maintain the status quo and keep the Wheel turning. I find it hard at times to look beyond the pattern, and everyone trapped within it but the Dark One, the Creator, and, in very special circumstances, the Creator’s champion, the Dragon. Or is he the pattern’s champion? Either way the effect is pretty similar. For me that creates very significant limitations on what can or should change in this universe. Ever. Moridin’s nihilism becomes a rational response, and the poor bastard is doomed to be spun out over and over again to make the same choices and feel the same insanity and despair! No wonder he just wants it all to end! Is there a worse fate? (I can imagine a few, a minor one being this: who wants to be destined for a trolloc cookpot for eternity, or to be a trolloc??) But as a story, the finale had to unfold that way. It absolutely had to. In my opinion!

I love that these books, in addition to telling me an incredible story with characters and settings that will live with me for the rest of my life, also gave me the opportunity to reflect on such fundamental concepts as free will and determinism in a new way, through the prism of a deeply crafted world. And get a very pleasant brainache from it! Not a standard response to a fantasy novel! Another outstanding triumph for Mr Jordan.  Another reason to thank Mr Sanderson for completing the series and giving everyone the ending Mr Jordan wanted us to have.

There can probably be no endings to such discussions, but I have come to an ending for this one.

My new cat is licking my head. It tickles. Farewell!