While I continue the revisions on my second horror novel Monstrous, I have admittedly begun to despair as I valiantly attempt to stave off depression, anxiety, lack of focus, anger, and the general feeling that either the world or the walls are closing in.
The continually bizarre adjustments one must make during Covid-19 are wearing me down. Everything seems complicated. I'm talking about adjustments besides the necessary sensible ones like wearing a mask when you pass someone on the street or staying distant in all interactions. I am working progressively more at home, trying to juggle family life and being cloistered on the home front amid a lack of in-person socializing. The news out of the U.S. just getting stupider all the time.
Managing my bad habits has become a task, as my habits have developed their own bad habits. I call them bad habit barnacles, or B.H.B.'s. They are often words that begin with the letter 'P'. In fact, I have a holy trinity of bad habit barnacles, the three P's; one stands for 'pints'. You can draw your own conclusions about the others, but they all get along very well in a room.
Trying to focus on the revisions to Monstrous. Admittedly, between family estate law research and talking to a nice customer service rep at Greyhound in Missouri, this research has had an inevitable ripple effect of consequence on most events in the book in terms of realism or verisimilitude from this point onward (this point being chapter four). I am over a third through the manuscript in terms of revisions, and cutting significantly to make the story the best that it wants to be, but I am mired in doubts of completion date, readership or potential audience.
It's horror, creeping, supernatural horror with a dramatic core, a literary sensibility, full of characters I have not published before, including protagonist Sara Jasmine, now a university instructor, and John Newman, a longtime werewolf character. Love the characters, but I just can't see the other end of the process right now.
Despair has gripped me, after failing to sell short fiction these past six years. Maybe my spec-fic is too literary or maybe my spec-fic should go to literary markets. Regardless, my short fiction isn't placing, which has knocked me back significantly in terms of confidence.
My time on the Monstrous revisions has also continued well beyond what I expected. I thought I would complete them in summer and turn over the manuscript to beta readers (trusted first readers who look at a manuscript and give ,writer hopefully invaluable feedback). Instead I was delayed, yet again, in the faint hope of having the book in shape by the late fall. Well, it's early October and I do not see the revisions ending even by November.
So between the pandemic and the arduous, intense revisions, I am going through a lot of emotions a lot of the time. I know that it is unbecoming to complain. I am not fighting for my life in the streets or lying near-death in hospital or fearing for my life if a cop pulls me over or stressing about balancing tele-schooling on top of teleworking or wondering if I will have a roof over my head in the future.
Still, it is hard to see any darkness in this light, and even the possible finish line for the revisions. I will try my best to muddle through, I guess, and keep going and try to get enough sleep at night, but I feel leaden as I continue.
No comments:
Post a Comment