On the Writing and Blogging Side of Things

Hi everyone,

Well, I just crossed the Gorge of Eternal Peril otherwise known as Black Friday on a Saturday, and yeah, traffic-wise, it was a nightmare.

Sleep was a bit weird last night, but refreshing enough, so I’m bright-eyed but thankfully not bushy tailed, but yeah, ready to blog though I don’t have much to say, and nothing organised. Here goes anyway!

I felt bad Juju about the parody I was going to share, and accepted it wasn’t right.

Chapter two of Three Ways is still live for December, and hopefully I’ll write something challenging for January.

How’s That WIP Going?

Yeah, slow.

I’m on chapter 58 having just re-written a page, and now it’s tricky about what I want to get done with the rest, though an idea just occurred – and I think it’s a goer.

Most of my hesitance is in rewriting after I did a major rewrite, cutting down from 600 pages of War and Peace to 483, now I have writer’s fatigue or apathy, probably both.

But wiping out a subplot that is dealt with elsewhere, and just a repeat of the first act’s ending that is resolved at the end of act three, is the last of the dross, and will hopefully get me closer to 450 pages and cut down the chapter count to a reasonable 75 or less (I’m 77 right now).

It might not be the end of things. I’m yet to have a manuscript assessment, and yet to put the book out to a small audience for feedback and possible review.

But I don’t know what else to cut out.

Cole’s work is important (when I say that, it’s showing he has a day job, and all but these current scenes I’m on are for relaying the romance plots, seeking advice, and growing in character).

Plus, his friends are his colleagues (he’s a quintessential loner), and getting rid of them, while it would trim everything down nice and tight, I know not having them would have dark results, and not suit him in reaching his goal.

Besides this, life has intruded, being in a precarious situation at the moment with the mood stabiliser at least keeping me sane, but the fidgety, distracted, forgetful, dopamine-seeking bipolar side is bubbling right underneath, tended by MacBeth’s witches.

That, and I just got on Bluesky, and it’s quite a dopamine feed, and I’m going to have to watch the doomscrolling. Oh, shameless promotion time, here’s my Bluesky profile, I’ll be there as well as on Facebook because, for all the nonsense, need the advertising as well.

Either way, day off tomorrow, I’m keen to get out of the house and write, so I’ll see how things go.

Man in glasses reading a book in front of a window, representing the author's love of reading, which was how he learned to write.

Untrained except for book and Shakespeare study at high school, I learnt to write from reading books, watching movies, and playing video games

Here’s A Boy Who Loves the Written Word.

And What About Your Blog?

Ahh, yes, this thing you’re looking at now.

Am I going gangbusters? Absolutely not, my readership is in the tens of people. Okay, on average, ten viewers a day (I really don’t get how views/visitors works and I’m happy to leave those alone).

Yet just 1 comment courtesy of the other half, 1 like, so it’s slim pickings at the moment. Based on followers (192 on Faceplant, 385 on Not the Social Media App Formerly Known as Twitter), that’s rather woeful engagment.

But again, I have no product to offer, nothing to sell, I’m just another person with a blog.

I’m not upset or troubled about that. Okay, a little bit.

But it beats when I was boosting posts and getting a metric tonne of likes but absolutely no engagement. Oh, and then there was the post I boosted that was a bunch of people in India saying “nice.”

Yes, I paid money for that. That was probably the second last time I boosted.

I’m not rich, have backing, and being tied to minimum wage, upcoming sales expenses are going to be editor, cover artist, and a Virtual Book Tour, plus hawking my goods to independent book stores, hopefully armed with a polished synopsis and manuscript assessment.

It’s disheartening standing at the foot of Everest in a tee-shirt and shorts hoping to conquer the mountain, enough to want to scream out just to be noticed, but my voice is small and weak at the moment.

So, it’s back to putting it with God, leaving it on His timing, and enjoying the ride. Besides, I’ll be done with the third draft soon, even with all the fidgeting and going for too much of a vape, and there’s things to come after that.

At least where I am now is a bit of a far cry from then, in A Woe of Anxiety and Editing.

But I’m not ashamed to say it, same as why I’m unashamed to say I’m bipolar, bisexual, Catholic, and other things.

Heading, Captain?

I’m aching to move onto a new project.

Three Ways is a ten-year journey, so you can imagine how eager I’d be to put out a 600-page disaster with an out of character subplot and a massive dose of wish fulfilment and the saviour complex.

Luckily, I came to my senses, and I’m very, deeply glad of that.

That new project is floating around the grey matter just waiting to be outlined – some of it is written down, but it’s just the beginning. What I’m hoping for, though, is that it isn’t another ten-year journey, but rather one year, maybe even six months on the first draft.

The problem with this is, I’ve tried outlining before, and good old Emperor Procrastinatus viewed that as project done, and nothing ever became of it.

Probably for the best, it was an outlandish idea.

So, there’s one challenge. The second will be letting go of what makes Three Ways tick, a certain characterisation that will see a second attempt, this time as a support rather than the main picture. And that means getting into another headspace.

It’s “early” in my career enough to face this challenge, and it’ll lead to new characters with drives, motives, back stories, interactions – and as I replied on Bluesky recently, that’s really powerful, not to mention omnipotent.

Here’s to using an unhealthy coping mechanism to generate narrative. Gotta do something good with that!

Here’s me getting back to the authoring, even though this has slipped recently.

C’mon new med, I hate to be hanging out for it, but it might be the last puzzle piece.

And to You, a Good Day

Yep, it’s a short one, a quick 6-minute read. And I’m okay with that.

Happy Advent everyone, that merry time called Christmas is upon us, and the shopping centres. As a car park attendant, please consider the staff and your fellow shoppers, it gets hectic and tension mounts, but where here to help, and get you out of the car park as best we can.

But Happy Holidays, too, as it’s also Hanukkah for the Jewish, Bodhi Day for the Buddhists, and also Kwanzaa – an annual celebration of African-American culture from December 26 to January 1, culminating in a communal feast, Karamu (thanks be to the Google search I did).

May we be peaceful, fruitful, and together no matter our differences or capabilities, and may we also care for and consider those in need.

Take care
T. M.

T.M. Shannon