Hi Blaze,
I made a decision today that was purely for my soul.
And my ego fought me the entire way.
I decided a while ago that I wanted to release the novel I'm working on as an online serial novel. They're pretty popular, especially for the genre I'm currently working in, but more than that, they are free.
Sharing the story for the story's sake. A gift to fellow readers. An offering if you will.
However. My intention was to write the entire novel, edit it, re-write it, pay someone else to edit it, re-write it, then once it was perfect coughs I would begin the process of sharing it.
I made this decision under the guise of quality control and ensuring continuity across multiple works.
While I do still care about those things deeply. I am fully capable of and indeed prone to plunging myself into such a cycle of excuses and rationalizations that before I realize what I've done, I've strung myself up in a web of reasoning and am 6 months behind on a project because I have found every way possible to Not Share It.
When the truth is, I'm exhausted. I'm tired of my own perfectionism. I'm tired of running drills in my head in the name of contingency planning or finding "the best way" or whatever bullshit I'm coming up with in the moment.
I'm not perfect. I will never be perfect. And neither will my writing. Ever. And if I keep talking myself out of sharing it, I will always, Always find myself writing alone.
And I'm tired of being alone too.
So, I've decided. I'm going to do it as a proper serial release. On its own website. With a few months worth of chapters written in advance just in case something happens. And I'm going to release it into the wild, without picking it to shreds.
I've been struggling to work on this second draft over the last couple of weeks. I've enjoyed the process when I've been motivated to do it, but the motivation has been slim. The thing is, I need other people. I need their support, their excitement, their encouragement. I need feedback and enthusiasm and people to celebrate my victories with and cry to over my disappointments.
But more than needing them...needing you, I need to share myself openly. Without twisting myself in knots. Without questioning myself every step of the way. I need to flow and move and actually let myself fuck up along the way. For me, stillness is stagnation and stagnation might as well be death. In the end, it seems the only way for my soul to be at peace is for me to let go. Always letting go.
Love, Sparky