Wait, that\u2019s hunting humans. \u201cWriting is the loneliest sport\u201d maybe?<\/p>\n
Either way: not a sport. No one loses an eye. Eyesight, maybe… I am getting off topic.<\/p>\n
I used to, back in the day, write a blog to keep my diaspora of school friends up-to-date. I took the name from a scribbled note in a margin of one of my friend’s stories ( *[insert subplot here]). And it went well for a few years.<\/p>\n
Then along came Facebook. So I tried to reinvent my blog as a writing journal, but as I was going through a bad depression and my creativity dried up… yeah.<\/p>\n
RIP, *Insert Subplot Here, 2002-2008.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Here we are in 2016. Four novels later. Six in total.<\/p>\n
Since June 2014–after starting Ashes<\/i>–I\u2019ve made writing a high priority in my life. No more waiting for inspiration to strike: I would treat it like a business. My career. I would set up a home office, I would dedicate myself to routines and deadlines. I would do research. I would sit myself down, no matter my mood. I focused my day job (graphic design) around this goal.<\/p>\n
Naturally, working from home, there have been some slips along the way, but not many. My workshop is quiet, calm. Immersive.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve hacked my writing process; on a good day I do 5K and feel exhilarated (previously it was more \u201cbrain leaking from ears\u201d). I\u2019m decent about hitting milestones.<\/p>\n
I feel on track. Progressing.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m also lonely.<\/p>\n
When Ashes <\/i>was going well, when I was starting to write again for the first time in years, many of my friends were excited for me. Many thought it was my first novel and cheered me on thinking I was accomplishing a bucket-list goal. Perhaps even living vicariously. But after I completed Ashes<\/i>–and\u00a0Creampuffs<\/i>–and started on Embers<\/i>–the questions stopped coming.<\/p>\n
Because it\u2019s my job, now. And no one–<\/p>\n
–NO ONE–<\/p>\n
wants to hear about the minutiae of your day-to-day work life. It\u2019s super-uber boring. That\u2019s what impromptu clusters around the coffee machine are for: dissecting the minor victories and defeats of an ordinary day so that we don\u2019t inflict that tedium on our loved ones.<\/p>\n
But I don\u2019t have co-workers any more.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
My best friend is a writer. My social circle has plenty. And yet… we don\u2019t talk about writing. In fact, I find the opposite: my writer friends are the least likely to want to know. They sometimes ask, of course, the same way that people ask how any work is going, with their eyes glazing over and no follow-up. It\u2019s polite conversation. Social contract.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve done this myself, so I know about the deeper level: when my own writing is stalled the last thing I want to hear about is how so-and-so has just sold another story or did three chapters yesterday. I listen politely, but inside is a well of gloom.<\/p>\n
Jealousy is a lonely thing too.<\/p>\n
I know I\u2019m not alone in that response, I\u2019ve heard similar sentiments expressed by friends and online. So I try to minimize. I avoid mentioning. I don\u2019t want to be boring.<\/p>\n
But writing is such a large part of my life. I have so much that I want to share and discuss. My unsatisfying compromise is to parcel my thoughts out into small, digestible chunks, easily skimmed and skipped as the listener chooses.<\/p>\n
My cutie\u2019s suggestion: why not skip the small-talk and potentially unwilling audience to go straight to a blog? I can ramble as much as I like, and no one has to feign interest.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t believe it took me this long.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Welcome back, Insert Subplot Here. It\u2019s been a while.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The history behind *Insert Subplot Here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[89,88],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-blag","tag-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":818,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions\/818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}