Killing Your (I Mean "My") Darlings
I have had an idea for a book for at least eight years. I don't know where the idea came from but I really love it. The problem is that it's not really an idea for a book as it's an idea for a character, or even a plot point. It's basically a power that a character has, and I really like it. And I have beat my head against this thing for eight years and it has never worked.
I'm just going to tell you what the idea is, because maybe by spitting it out it'll get out of my brain and I can get past it:
Why Do I Write?
I've been working on a draft of a book for the first time in five years, and it has caused me to reflect on why I'm doing this in the first place.
(I should note that this entire conversation has also been going on in therapy once a week, because there's a whole lot of emotions tied up in this, and I've got my own issues to deal with.)
My Top Five Favorite Video Games
I get asked a lot if I play video games and what they are, and my answers are never quite satisfying for people. I have very specific tastes in video games which I think reveal a lot about me as a person.
Putting Things in Boxes
For those who haven't been following my every movement (shame on you) I ran a website dedicated to miniature wargaming. It got very very popular and ran for many years, but the fickleness of the Google algorithm updates did a lot of damage to me and it eventually became more expensive to maintain--it stopped paying off.
This Is Not Writing Advice
So, I wrote a book. Or, at least a draft. And I'm really, really happy with it. And here is how I did it, and here is not writing advice for anyone.
First, I have been struggling for some time with serious depression, as I have mentioned here and here. And this depression puts me in bed most of the time at 3:00pm, and it's been doing this for the past three years and it super, super sucks.
Well, as mentioned previously, my doctor changed my meds about three months ago at the same time that my therapist gave me some really high quality advice about behaviorism, and things have changed.