The Reader Pie is infinitely large

Recently, I found out that the husband of one of my co-workers is getting published in a few weeks. I also learned yesterday that a guy I’ve known for several years has just received his first copies of his book. I didn’t even know he wrote!

So today is the day to beat the jealousy monster with a stick. A big stick. And forget about speaking softly, jealousy needs to get shouted down and insulted until it slinks back out the side door it snuck in through. Other people getting published does not make it less likely that I will get published. The pie chart of readers doesn’t get divided up among all the authors; the pie chart of readers is infinitely large. I have no reason to be jealous of these other guys. Especially since one of them wrote a western and one wrote a biography, while I can’t get much out of my fingers that isn’t SF.

Jealousy eats at you from the inside out, like a diseased tree. I wanted to take that metaphor further, but I’d end up way out in the blackberries somewhere, and diseased blackberry trees just wouldn’t work.

NaNoWriMo and gratitude.

It’s November, and for write-minded folks (hur, see what I did there?) that means it’s National Novel Writing Month.  It doesn’t necessarily follow that said folk are, in fact writing a novel.  No less a writer than Mur Lafferty blogged about how she is again a non-participant this year.

I’m not writing one this year, either, Mur, and I don’t think you need to fret about skipping it, either.

I did participate last year, but I wouldn’t call it a novel.  I signed up October 27 in a brief moment of wild abandon, with a few anecdotes in mind and not a whiff of plot.  I got ahead; I got behind; I caught up; I reached a denouement November 29th at 9pm.  Total word count: 50,129.  It was a blast.  It changed the direction of my life.

So why not this year?  This year, I have a lot more going on.  I’ve moved from being a departmental admin to a tech editing post.  My wife works outside the home now, so most of my weekend involves actual parenting.

The biggest reason I didn’t sign up this year is my novel.  The story I have rattling around in my head isn’t something I want to slam onto the page in a month.  I’m doing research, creating back story, trying to chart a course in world-building that skirts the uncanny valley.

In other words, I’m having too much fun creating the story to actually write the book.  I know I’ll get to it; I’ve written the first chapter three times.  I have my major plot points, my protagonist and antagonist.  I have the Sensei, the Girl, and the Secret.  I can see the profile of the ending through the fog.  I even have a MacGuffin.  But I’m not writing it this month.

I’m not trying to run down NaNoWriMo; it’s a tremendous accomplishment, and a lot of fun.  I’m also not someone who can tell Mur Lafferty about what or when to write; I’m not trying to do that, either.  I think I’ve realized something important about participating in NaNoWriMo, though.

If you’re going to make a hefty time commitment to something like that, you have to know why you’re doing it. I signed up last year, after years of wanting to do it, to prove to myself that I really could write.  That I could set a goal, put that goal ahead of other needs, and do it.  And I made it.  I’ve scaled that peak and seen the next, higher one.  I’ll come back later on to scale this one again, up a different, more challenging face of the mountain.  Right now, I’m doing other things with my writing.  Starting this blog is one of them.  Besides my attempt at world building, I have a non-fiction book I’m researching (on political eschatologists) and one that can only be described as a screed against Motivation and Personal Development as industries.

Don’t feel bad, Mur.  Look at where you are: a semidecade podcast, editor of Escape Pod, for crying out loud.  Because of people like you, and Steve, and Tony, and Wil, I was able to unchain my creativity, haul it out of the emotional basement, and stand with it to say “I am a writer.”  I realized what was possible for me, because of people like you.  Just people, but cool people.  Smart, funny, successful cool people.  Don’t cut yourself down because of not writing a novel this month.  You are part of the germination of many, many stories, and I’m one of them.

So, thanks.