Writing Update: 12-10-25 (Patreon)

Change (since last update): +6,760

Year to date: 164,374

Oof, what a week! 14-hour day at work, and other distractions - specifically, rats crawling up the drain and chewing their way into the bathroom! - haven't made for the best writing. Still, some progress made and I'm a good way into what should be the final chapter of Book 5. The overall shape of the chapter's slowly emerging, and I'm probably trying to squeeze too much into it, but I'm hoping to have it done, or at least close to done, by next weekend. Optimistic, but possible, I think.

Years ago, a colleague of mine, who absolutely detested our job, made an agreement with their partner to take a year off of work and take a stab at writing a novel. Which she did, and now all these years later, she's a successful novelist, living off her writer's income. I never read any of her books but having recently acquired a Kindle (an early birthday gift) decided to give one a read, grabbing it off of Kindle Unlimited.

And--it's pretty bad. Now, obviously I'm biased. I'm filled with jealousy and desperately wish I was in their position, making a living off of writing. But even accounting for gnawing envy, I'm pretty sure the writing's poor. The dialogue is clunky, especially in the opening chapter where it's ripe with exposition. Characterisation is thin. And individual chapter structure is formulaic, with each chapter ending with an obvious hook into the next one.

And yet--success, of a sort I've never found. Now, on the one hand, I'm writing in a -very- niche genre. But also, this former colleague of mine, they've actually - gasp! - finished a novel, and moved on to another, and finished that one, too, and so on. The writing is a hell of a lot pacier than mine, with little descriptive prose and even less introspection, none of that dense inner monologuing that runs through most of my writing. Chapters, at a glance, seem primarily dialogue-driven, say 40-60%.

I have a little time off coming up, and I'm tempted to take a step back from Constant and anything else I've written and try my hand at something similar--to check my instinct every time I feel like dwelling over a passage and just push forward, with an aim at hacking out something short, pacy and simple--to see, even, whether it's a style I can write.