TL;DR

• Read: ‘The Regional Office is Under Attack’ by Manuel Gonzales
• Read: ‘Swann’ by Phil Etherington
• Think about stuff. Be creative even when you should be doing other things.

Yesterday I came across a cartoon that struck home for me.

http://unearthedcomics.com/comics/when-inspiration-hits/

That’s just about as true as truth gets these days – for me at least. When I’m loaded up with work and stressed and busy all I want to do is write and create. But the moment I get home and I have a moment to breathe and relax? All I want to do is vegetate. I want to watch TV or trawl through unimportant things on Facebook or play videogames. 

Such is life, I suppose. 

Creatively, things are slumping a little at the moment. Everyday things have disrupted my headspace enough that I’ve got various projects on hold and I’m treading water on the ones that probably need my attention. Book 3 continues to be a bit of a monster, but it now has enough shape that I can break from it without feeling like I’m going to lose the thread of everything that’s happening. I’m clinging to the belief that I’m not going to enter into a George R. R. Martin-style relationship with my writing where it just continues to expand ad infinitum. Not that there’s anything wrong with George’s work – having developed such an interesting world I can’t imagine the task of trying to work out new and exciting ways to kill off everyone without feeling like I’m cheating my own creativity… I’m sure he’s up to the challenge.

Speaking of challenges: I’ve been trying a reading challenge with goodreads (it’s a personal challenge so don’t get too excited) where I hope to read 40 books this year. And I’m up to 15… Which suggests that I’m moving slower than I thought I was. 

That being said, I’ve read some really great books this year. 

I’ve just finished ‘The Regional Office is Under Attack’ by Manuel Gonzales, which was a strange beast. Gonzales manages to create a world where basically every possible fantasy/science fiction element is in play without spending any time exploring the intricacies of how that world might actually work. He just rolls with the idea that it does work and throws the reader in headlong. Reviews suggest that the book sets a ridiculous pace and that there’s essentially no breathing room between all the words that you should be so desperate to cram into your head as you flip through the pages like Johnny Five. However, I didn’t find it quite so breakneck. It’s fast, sure. It’s fast because the world and the detail of some of the ideas is deliberately vague in order to avoid listless exposition and possible philosophical land mines. But there are still sections which are perhaps overindulgent in the various character’s inner voices, sometimes to the detriment of knowing exactly what’s going on. This doesn’t make the book any less enjoyable – and it is certainly enjoyable. Gonzales tells a frenetic tale where a secretive organization of super-powered women who fight ‘bad guys’ for the powers of ‘good’ come under attack from an outside force. And if that’s not a set-up for an exciting and intriguing story, I don’t know what is. 

However, the book made me reflect on a few things. It made me wonder about my own overindulgence in Reuben Connor’s internal thought process in ‘Swann’. People have commented that the opening chapter is fairly trying for this exact reason, and I was staunchly opposed to dramatically rewriting his mental musings. However, now that the book has been out in the wild for a little while I wonder if I made the right decision. Sure, I could edit a book forever. Every time I return to an idea that I’ve let sit for a little while I want to change things – increase flow, disrupt obvious machinations, obscure plot points, or clarify things that I had once believed were obvious. 

Editing is a delicate thing… At least, it is when it’s not a brutal and demoralizing attack on characters that I have grown to love. If you think of the book as a cake that you’ve spent a long time mixing together and baking – editing is the process of decorating said cake. How much icing should you add? Does it need more than icing? Is it so desperately in need of bling that you want the icing and various decorations to distract from the cake itself so that no one knows what a terrible hash you made of the original bake job? 

It can be tricky. It can be frustrating, but also liberating. With ‘Swann’ my main concern was never really about the plot when it came to editing. I thought I had that pretty well covered. The initial cake of teen love and personal uncertainty seemed like a reasonably tasty marble of flavours. But I was, and still am, worried that maybe Reuben thinks a little too much. 

That might be a really strange comment, but if you’ve read ‘Swann’ you’ll know exactly what I mean. Maybe I could have covered some of his concerns in other ways. Maybe I couldn’t though. I wanted the story to be his. His and his alone. It was meant to be a little alienating, and I think I managed that. 

Gonzales book might be similar. Deliberately alienating so that it begs for reflection – only I don’t know what I should reflect on. It made me want a mechanical arm, and then it really didn’t. Is that it? Is it asking me to consider humanity’s preoccupation with digital and mechanical evolution? Maybe. Or, maybe it wants me to think about how important women are – that they are all super-powered and spectacular once they realise that the only person that should ever answer to is themselves. But I have no problem with that idea, and moreover, the book still relies on a smooth-talking guy to balance out the impressive and emotionally unbalanced women. 

I’m not sure what I’m meant to take from it all. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe the value of a good book is not that it gave me anything specific to think about but rather that it made me want to think at all. 

And now, now that I’ve written this while I was supposed to be working on something else – now that I’m out of time for creative endeavours until I’m probably tired of today and in need of a little R&R – now I just want to write more. I want to puzzle out plot points and save characters from disastrous situations (or surrender them to their fates if that’s how it has to go down – I wonder if George R. R. Martin thinks that way? That he’s not killing them off, he’s just ‘letting them die’?). 

But, alas, now I must return to the world that supports me.