Writing Consequences and Life changes (Patreon)

Actions have consequences, we all know that. Many stories center around a character trying to avoid the consequences of their actions or decisions.

But I think there’s one group of people who tend to forget about the consequences of their decisions.

That group is Writers.

Any time you feel a main character is action out of character, there’s a writer behind them not respecting the consequence of a decision they made along the way, and it’s easy to understand how writers can fall into such a trap. We created the world the characters live in; we decide what happens to them, so of course they have to do what we want.

The problems occur when we, as writers, forget that decisions we make in creating the world, in directing the characters, have consequences.

I encountered such a situation recently. Those who support me on my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/kindar) at the 5$ level will already have the chance to read Chapter 32 and see how it turned out. What you aren’t seeing is the 2 weeks of worry I had after it sunk in that the situation could have a much more disastrous conclusion, and I couldn’t see a way out of until only a day or two before I wrote the chapter.

I’m keeping things vague to avoid spoiling things for those will have to wait a week and 2 to read the chapter.

I made the decision Sto would act the way he did, which led to said situation, back at the end of book 1, as a direct consequence of what he suffered. What I hadn’t realized then, and for a long time, were the consequences of Sto doing what he did. I knew it would lead to the confrontation of chapter 32, but when I envisioned it, it was always something close to what I ended up having, but it was going to be ‘easy’. When I thought about it, the ‘good’ conclusion was always the only possible conclusion; until 2 weeks ago when I realized that there was no way for the conversation to be easy, not after everything that happened to Tibs and the people around him since the start of book 2.

As I said, the result I saw then, was a disaster and for a while I couldn’t see a way to avoid it, so I was trying to look at the ramification for Tibs, Sto, the Town and, more importantly, the plot. That wasn’t a fork in the road. This was someone blowing up the intersection. The story would have kept going, but I suspect it would have been hard to get back to anything resembling the plot.

It could make for an interesting “what if?”

If I did my job correctly, the resolution of chapter 32 doesn’t feel out of character for either Tibs or Sto. If it does, then I’m going to have work to do in draft 2.

I’m not going to say what let to the resolution we have, instead of the disaster, but I think it’d obvious when you read it.

And on to the life part of the post

As I mentioned previously, I am no longer a truck driver.

Writing full time was always the plan. It’s the reason I started my Patreon, the hope it would reach the point where it would let me walk away from trucking. I’d given myself 5 years, and it’s been 6 years now. Covid almost certainly played a part in delaying it.

Rationally, I should now have quit my job. The border is still mostly closed, conventions aren’t really happening reliably, and I don’t even know if book fairs are a thing at the moment. I should really have kept on working until everything was resolved.

What happened is that I have just enough income coming from other source to let me survive without work. It’s not ideal, but it’s doable.

And with that, situations that were tolerable at work because more and more difficult to endure, until, last Monday, I almost walked away from my truck after the trailer I was sent to pickup was blocked by another trailer because a driver just left it there even if there were plenty of parky space available, then the paperwork for the trailer wasn’t sent to the office by the previous driver as is policy, and they never scaled the load. All that on a load that had no leeway whatsoever for the delivery.

Needless to say, the load was late.

But the fact I was tempted to just walk away from the job there and then forced me to reconsider my plan to wait any longer, because it was a sign that every eccentricity from the company that was tolerable before would piss me off each time.

When I was routed to Brampton after the delivery, I decided I was going to tell the manager I was leaving.

It didn’t happen exactly that way, since the manager was at the hospital and I had to deal with the HR rep instead, but it happened.

The manager did call me when he was informed, mainly to find out if it was something the company had done that caused me to leave. I explained the situation, and told him that if writing full time doesn’t work out, I will be working for them again.

I do love trucking, and in an industry where there are no perfect employers, this company isn’t that bad.

Now, what does it mean for my writing and posting schedule.

The official start date for me writing full time is September 13th. It is also when my twitch will be restarting. https://www.twitch.tv/kindar11. like when I was on medical leave, I will have 2 writing blocks Monday to Friday. So I am going from 7 blocks to 10. Monday to Friday, 8 to noon, and 12:30 to 4.

The current posting schedule won’t change. It will still be “Stepping up” on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and “Faith in the Family” Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. That leaves 4 writing block, at least 1 of which will be intermittent since Thursday afternoon will be the day I plan on having ‘medical’ stuff dealt with whenever I can control it.

One block is going to be dedicated to being Bottom Rung up to Full draft 2 status now that I will have the time, and the other 2 will probably be for my ‘pleasure projects’. I do have plans to start on restarting/continuing the previous LitRPG books I started, but for at least 1 of them, I need to find a collaborator who knows the base building type games. Turns out my knowledge of it is much lower than I expected.

I am also considering attempting one of them directly to Royal Road, but that’s… well, it’s still early.

So that’s it, the full update to what’s going on with me. I’ll be setting stuff up over the next two weeks and see those who will join me on Twitch there.

And with that. I, will wish you a good day.