TLDR
I am still alive, and have barely stopped writing over the past year, but I am going slower than I hoped I would.
Project statuses:
Tyrantfall (Troupe Prequel Novella): Has been in Beta for ages, but I still haven’t gotten around to actioning my Beta reader feedback. Out first half of next year probably (sorry!)
Troupe 2 (Working Title): Turned into a bit of a tricky book to write. It’s more ambitious and takes some risks, so hopefully the strife will be worth it. I’d predict (but not promise) late next year or early the year after.
Unrelated Novel: Two drafts in but needs another edit. No idea when it’ll show up.
Why everything is so late: Life circumstances, the end of covid lockdown, and me making some questionable time-management decisions.
The Long Version
So, I’ve been going back and forth over whether or not to post something along these lines. My combined following on social media is dozens, so who cares, right? On the one hand, a decent number of people read Troupe of Shadows, and seemed to like it, so perhaps some people are actually interested. On the other hand, I don’t want to sound like a self-important narcissist.
Ultimately though, I feel like I want to get a few things off my chest. They’re weighing me down a bit. So here goes…
Troupe of Shadows was written as part of the 2021 Inkfort Press Publishing Derby. This is a contest where premade covers (including book title and penname) are semi-randomly assigned to about a hundred authors. Everyone has to go from receiving their cover prompt to self-publishing a novel in a three to four months (changes each year a little bit).
I blitzed Troupe out in a very short space of time. On reflection, I only managed this because covid lockdown was still in full force, and I had become what I like to call a “writing goblin.” I didn’t go outside and socialize much, or look after myself probably, and I’d long tired of just sitting around playing video games in all my free time, so I wrote.
I woke up whenever the sunlight hit my windows, wrote until it was time for work, thought about writing all day whilst working, then clocked off and wrote some more until bedtime. From the start of lockdown to the end, I actually wrote three books, Troupe being the last and (in my opinion) best. The other two are… not really ready for the light of day and may never be.
The book came out and I gave away a lot of copies and the small number of reviews I got were very encouraging.
“That was easy,” I thought. “I’ll write a few more of those!”
This was late 2021. I’d heard newsletter “freebie” books where a good way to build engagement with an audience in self-publishing, and I had an idea for a prequel to Troupe that probably wasn’t quite a novel, so I decided to write Tyrantfall. I basically got it beta-ready before the end of the year and would be ready to send it out to beta readers soon.
So far so good, right?
On January 1st I had “a seizure”.
Okay, that sounds really dramatic. Sorry. It was, I guess, but as I learned more about what actually happened it became a lot less dramatic.
I was at my parents’ for new year’s dinner. Carrying dirty plates away from the table, my hands were full obviously, so I decided to open the kitchen door with my foot, which requires lifting my leg to grip the knob in my toes and twist. I’ve done this hundreds of times, but I must have stretched a little bit too far this time, because something tore in my right butt cheek.
I’ve not lived a very dangerous life, so I don’t know how to tell a sprain from a tear, but it was easily in my top five most painful experiences. I was fine for the first minute or two, but then my head began to swim and I started to sweat and shake. I sat down in a chair and fell unconscious.
When I came to, I was surrounded by my family. I no longer felt any pain, but I was dizzy and confused and I’d pissed my pants. They said “you’ve had a seizure” kinda’ had to take their word for it. Men my age with no history of that sort of thing shouldn’t have seizures unless something is very wrong. So, I go to A&E and they ask me how long my seizure lasted, and I look to my mum who drove me there (because I actually don’t know for myself, I was unconscious) and she blurts out “a really long time! Five minutes!”
Five minutes is a very long seizure, apparently.
Later, I would ask the rest of my family how long I was out, and the number varied from ten seconds to one minute. I love my mother dearly, but she is not a cool head in a crisis, she cares about people a bit too much for that, and I suppose time moves pretty slowly when your favorite son is unconscious.
Anyway, the hospital people were pretty worried about this five-minute seizure, so they kept me in for lots of questions and tests and scans to make sure I didn’t have a surprise brain tumor. I did keep mentioning that I hurt myself just before I fell unconscious, but no one seemed to be that interested in that aspect, so I started to think it might be a coincidence.
I was in the hospital for about eight hours, and most of that time was waiting. They didn’t find anything, which was far better than the worst-case scenario, but not really the closure I was hoping for. The doctor said I shouldn’t drink, shouldn’t lock myself in the bathroom, be alone for prolonged periods, drive, or operate heavy machinery for at least a month. I lived alone at the time, so that scared me into moving back in with my parents for a bit.
A month and a half later I got a call from a specialist who asked me some questions. They said something along the liens of, “you ripped your butt? Okay, that probably wasn’t a seizure dude. You probably just hurt yourself real bad and passed out. Pretty common in men your age. Maaaybe because you fainted up-right it turned into a seizure, that happens sometimes because the blood doesn’t get back into your brain or something, but also maybe not. Anyway, you’re all good. Go live your life.”
So, crisis over. A bit anti-climactic really.
That’s a mildly interesting anecdote, Jennings, you ask, but what does any of this have to do with writing? Well for that month where I thought there was a possibility that I had a very serious medical issue I was very motivated to get a lot of writing done. Life’s short and all that, especially when you might randomly lose consciousness whilst crossing the street.
I’m not trying to make light of this part. There are people that really do have to live with that fear every day of their lives and always will and I don’t want to steal any sympathy from them. Spending six weeks living with the possibility that I might now be one of those people changed the way I thought about a lot of stuff. It killed off the last vestiges of youthful invincibility and made me want to hurry up and achieve things.
By this point I’d started writing the sequel to Troupe and Tyrantfall was with my beta readers. My plan was to bash out a first draft in a few months, hop back to Tyrantfall after that and do my post-beta edits, then hop back to Troupe 2 and start editing that. Also, my office opened back up to non-remote working and I opted in to going back (I’m the sort of person that really benefits from travelling to a separate location for work and leaving my job behind when I head home). Being back around my colleagues and interacting with them outside a pixelated square sort-of reignited my interest in my daytime career, so I started being more proactive and taking on more responsibility. On top of all this, with lockdown winding down I got to see friends more and picked up some old hobbies that took time away from writing.
None of these things on their own would have been enough to burn me out, but combined, I think I was a little over my limit, and the stress began to build.
Fast forward six months, Troupe 2’s first draft is still only 2/3rds done and I got my feedback for Tyrantfall a long time ago but haven’t had time to go back and edit it. I’m starting to flounder a bit and feel like I need a bit of a break from this story and the world and the characters. But I’m afraid if I stop writing, I might never pick it up again. Around this time the 2022 Publishing Derby is starting up, and I think “hey, perhaps I need to write something else for a bit… something light and low risk that I won’t get too attached to.”
So, yes, I signed up to write another semi-randomly selected book, under another pen name, and yes, this was as silly of an idea as it sounds. If you need a break, take a break! Don’t give yourself another pile of different work. Anyway, I did write the thing, and finish it in October, and I am proud of it. I think it’s pretty good. I serialized it as I went this time, and was happy with the response it got, buuut it needs another edit or two before I really want to bundle it into a book and claim it with my main persona.
Now I have three projects that are work-in-progress. And although all of them are in the latter half of the process, but I can only really work on one at time.
I have done this to myself. There is no one else to blame. I am a fool.
I will sort it out eventually though. And lesson-learned, I really should limit myself to one main project at a time.
Step one will be finally getting around to finishing off Tyrantfall. I know what I want to do with it and it’s close to its final form. After that, I’m not sure what will come next… definitely Troupe 2 will turn up at some point.
Anyway… if you read all that, then thank you, and if you’re one of the people waiting for me to write something new, thank you for your continued patience.
Lots of love,
Jennings
Jennings Zabrinsky 