Page Turn/A Lifelong Dream Realized/And Away We Go (Personal Update)

The Yrarbil is a great place to get work done.
Image description: Writer who didn't
flip the image in front of a Library.

Raw unfettered shit- 82,098 

Slightly polished turd-80,042 

Superpolishedfragileshitstick- 44,754    

These numbers have not changed from my last update, or if they have it is not by enough that I need to "count" it. I know I got a couple of sessions in there between being sick and starting summer school, and  However, it's going to start being part of a regular Monday personal update posts again. Accountability and all.


I'm sitting in the Lafayette library typing this. Around me a dozen people are working on laptops and an old guy is reading the paper. Outside on a "reading deck" a guy with a cup of coffee looks like he's taking a break from whatever he's doing on his laptop every few minutes to breathe deep and look at the sky as if he's in a Grape Nuts commercial.

I woke up early, got ready, got all of my non serious Facebooking out of the way, dressed like I was going to work (for I was), bagged up my laptop and was standing at the door to the library when they open (10am). And I will work at least six hours, although now that my Monday evening plans have been cancelled, I might just work until the library closes.

Someday I may get to take advantage of the fact that I have a job where one can clock a full day without ever putting on pants, but not until I've established some good habits first.

I am a full time writer now.

*pauses*

*looks at that sentence*

*writes it again, in disbelief*

I am a full time writer now.

Holy shit.

The Badish News

For those wondering the results of the last six weeks of Patreon "fundraiser," we did not hit our goal. It is a tragical story of tragic tragedy. Do not even attempt to contain your tears.

I'm sorry you didn't hit your goals. I'm so sorry.

We gained a number of smaller donors, which was absolutely top among the goals of running the "pledge drive" in the first place, but it was like that "Good news/Bad news" kid's story and we actually lost a bigger donor.  Illustrating (with a bit of cutting irony) precisely why sometimes a lot of little donors makes for a less vulnerable support structure for a content creator.

If I thought it would help. I would die this episode.
Heck, why don't I do it anyway.

In the end we only got 73% the way to the goal. And given that we started at 65% six weeks ago, that is a touch on the disappointing side. Lots of wonderful people and lots of smaller donations that I cherish, but we fell pretty short.

I will cry until I can't breathe!

So when it was all over, and even during that last week when it was very clear that there wasn't going to be a trope effect like a slow clap (except with one dollar donations culminating in a stadium roar of money being thrown at me), I had myself a bit of an emotional moment.

Know those feels, Chris. Like this one time.....

But at least I didn't star in Batman vs. Superman or something.

I hate everyone. But you most of all Chris.

HOWEVER......


The Unequivocated Good News

There was a second number. A "back up" goal if you will. Not my dream or target goals, but the "safety" goal. A number I was keeping close track of as a sort of fallback position if (as became increasingly obvious we wouldn't) we didn't make our primary goal.

And we reached that one.

By four dollars.

All the best smiling Gifs are evil.

That number is unsustainable in the long-term. More nanny hours will dry up next year, and I can only put off contributing to a retirement fund for so long. But for now–for the next few months– it can provide juuuuuuuust enough that with the pet sitting I do, and the limited nanny hours I get each week, I can keep from needing to dip into the Kickstarter funds and watch myself slowly, inexorably run out of time that I don't need to go get a job waiting tables or something. There's not much wiggle room, and I'm fucked if the side gigs go pear shaped for some reason, but still, I can't underscore how unbelievable that is: Surviving off of writing.

I couldn't believe it when I looked at the calculator. I had to add it up three times and triple check my expenses.

I guess I'm a full-time working writer now.

So what does that mean for the blog?

It means we can postpone the question of ads on Writing About Writing for probably about another year, and we'll see where we are then. I am torn between not wanting to having ads and the income they would bring in, but a lot can happen in a year–and hopefully not like the lemur thing that happened this last year.

Lastly....thank you all so much.

I couldn't do this without you. In a very real, non-hyperbolic sense, everything set up here is because of your small (and sometimes not-at-all-small) donations. I will continue to work hard to get you the content you crave. 

Novel Update 1–Word Count: 0

Image description: Writer getting started.

*cracks knuckles*

Well then....let's write a novel, shall we?

I made it.

Seriously, I actually made it.

For months I've been looking across the hellscape off my life and schedule toward this time–this time way off in the distance–when I would really have time to dig into writing like Scrooge McDuck swan diving into his money. Even though I still write during my slumps, for literally years now, I've been looking ahead to this time when things were actually going to clear up and I would have time to write. Real time to really write, in hours long chunks of fevered creativity instead of stolen hours dug out from deep, hidden crevasses or plucked with meek apologies from needful fingers. But every time I felt like I was actually getting close to a schedule that actually facilitated writing, something (like a baby or a health crisis or a pair of back to back moves during a relationship upheaval) popped up like the monster in the last ten fifteen minutes of an eighties horror flick and the time to write behaved distressingly like the dolly zoom hallway in Poltergeist.

Come back here writing time!
Image description: Hallway seeming to get longer from Poltergeist 1982

But I finally made it. I actually, really, truly, finally made it.

This is the page turn. Right now. Literally today. September 19th, 2016 marks the new chapter of my life. Baring some unforeseeable horror that somehow extends some of this shit, I will look back on everything before today as the three-year-long slump and talk about that as my "Meh period." And everything after it as "That year I worked like Neve Campbell and Antonio Banderas in the late nineties.....combined."

Yes, my readers, now it's time for you to see the "serious shit" that I've been promising, swearing, and threatening for months (and even years) now.

Let's fucking do this thing!
GIF description: Back to the future clip of car time traveling. Back to the Future 1985

Tomorrow I'm going to put out a new schedule for Writing About Writing. One that isn't "I'll get whatever shit up that I have time to write when I have time to write it, OKAY???" The new schedule will include a dedicated weekly day for the Mailbox again, weekend posts, occasional brunch posts, writing for other blogs, at least two "meaty" articles a week.

And of course the no-big-deal job of writing a book.

Totally not panicking.
Gif description: Beeker Muppet....panicking.

On that note, every Monday for the next year will be a word count tracker and meta-novel experience in addition to my return to Monday personal updates. Monday is a long work day for me at both of my part time jobs (nanny and teaching), so a blog post that's a little easier to splurt out will be in order.

This will serve two functions:

Number one, it will keep a measure of transparency. To myself of course, but also to folks who generously contributed to the Kickstarter. A year might seem like a long time, but for a project as involved as "Write a book" (from draft, through draft 2, through revision, through more revision, through alpha reading, through editing, through beta reading, through more editing, through final editing, through galley proofing, through publishing) it is actually going to be a pretty slammin' pace. The normal timeline for a book is between two and five years for a first time author who really sits down with some grim determination and has no research to do, and turning around in 12 months from draft to publication is a pace even an established working writer would be proud of. Posting word counts (and revision word counts) will keep me on my toes and all-too-aware of my charge to everyone who pitched in so that I could work only part time for a year.

The more writing is seen as a job that you just DO, the easier it is to slog through the parts that aren't unicorn farts and pixie spew–which, ironically, gets you back to those magically delicious parts all the faster. And I intend to be accountable.

If I get behind, you'll know the reason why (and it won't be because I was checking Facebook). So none of you will have to dramatically arm yourselves as you say "...or I'll know the reason why!" Folks paid to give me a year to work, and if I get hung up in the publication process or there is something that goes over like a depleted uranium balloon with the alpha readers and sends me back to the drawing board, it'll be clear and obvious what happened, and never that I just wasn't working.

Number two, it will continue the ongoing mission of W.A.W. to not only be advice about writing, but also a real-time, meta blog showing you all the time, energy, and ceaseless dedication it takes to chase the ever elusive "be a writer." For those who think writing a book is a November's work, or even an easy year's work, you will soon see how difficult it can be and how many hours of long, hard WORK go into such an endeavor.

Note: I don't really have zero words written. I'm actually on page 37 or so, but today is the first day of dedicated pacing.