This is… a bit more complex than I thought it’d be.
I’m working over Cold Streets the way Jack Bauer works over someone who knows where the bomb is on Air Force One. Two of the opening scenes have been entirely swapped, and I’m rewriting a major section and introduction of a new character to make more sense and be more interesting. The more I work it over, the more I realize there’s more to do. Other things to add and change. Lines of logic I need to keep untangled. That sort of thing.
And then you have realizations along the lines of “Wait. If I change X, then why wouldn’t Y happen?” So I’m working to incorporate those new ideas, as well. Suffice it to say, the rewrite’s going to take a bit longer than I initially estimated.
Much like some malevolent giant peering over the wall of a nearly defenseless settlement, the dreaded Q4 is upon me at the dayjob. Expectations are high. Work is sure to come fast and furious (and without the benefits of Michelle Rodriguez or Jordana Brewster). I’m going to have to take extra steps to stay on top of things. Bills need to be paid, which means I need this employment, which means I can’t lose it.
This means I need to rearrange my schedule.
The last couple weeks I’ve been catching my breath. Picking at Cold Streets instead of tearing into it. Thinking about Godslayer more than I write about it. Blogging when I feel like it instead of on a schedule. I’ve taken a leisurely pace to things, in an attempt to get my head and heart together. It’s time to put that aside and focus on getting through the next few months intact.
I’ve been losing weight, and I plan to keep doing that. A focus on my physical imperfections and progress will help me focus, in turn, on the imperfections and progress in front of me. That’s the idea, at least. I’ll have to make sacrifices, be it less time for games, or relaxation, or friends. I’ll still make time for those things, and watching things like Agents of SHIELD or Attack on Titan, but these are rewards, not goals in and of themselves. I hope I don’t offend anybody if I disappear for hours at a time from people’s radar. While I do still need the support of friends and family – there’s no way I could have made it this far without them – there’s a large portion of what’s in front of me that I have to face alone.
Surviving to see 2014 in a prosperous and meaningful way means living up to my potential, owning my mistakes (which I am bound to make), writing the stories only I can write, doing everything I can for those around me, and never ever giving up, even if the odds seem stacked in favor of the house.
I know there’s help, and I’m grateful for it. I know there’s ground that’s been tread before, and I’m willing to learn from it. But in the end, when the reports and the edits and the demands come in, it’s all on me.
You know, I had a nice, light post ready for today. I was going to talk more about big robots. Go into a little more detail about where my love of the genre comes from. Give Pacific Rim a bit more love. But I can’t in good conscience do that. Why, you ask?
My government is having a tantrum that puts most four-year-olds to shame right now.
More specifically, the House of Representatives is doing the governmental equivalent of crossing its arms, pouting, and refusing to do anything whatsoever because it didn’t get what it wanted. It didn’t convince the President and the Senate to consider changing the Affordable Care Act. So, this august body of elected officials has decided that if it ain’t happy, nobody’s happy, and has pulled the plug on the federal government. The Library of Congress? Closed. NASA? Shut down. Employees? Out of a job, at least for the time being. A lot of so-called journalists are asking “Who’s to blame?” and pointing fingers at the President, at the House, at the Tea Party…
…and it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter who’s to blame, even if the answer should be fairly obvious to a reasonable human being. I would love to just tell everybody I know what bad news the Tea Party is or has been for years, but Chuck Wendig’s already covered that far better than I ever could. In the end, though, it’s not about blame. It shouldn’t be about who’s at fault for the United States government being in this sorry state. What should matter is, how are people going to live? Why are families with no connection to this particular debate being made to suffer because of obstinate thinking and overblown rhetoric on such a massive scale?
And what can we, the people, do about it?
That’s probably not a question the government wants us to consider. They’d like us to forget that “of the people, by the people, and for the people” is the assumed manner under which they’re meant to operate. Instead, for years the government (Congress in particular) has operated of themselves, by themselves, for themselves. I’m not a big conspiracy nut, but I don’t consider this a conspiracy. In fact, in light of recent events, it seems rather obvious. With rhetoric aimed at instilling fear and pointing fingers, they have taken power away from the constituents and squirreled it away in the hopes of putting the disenfranchised in an even worse position so they can elevate themselves. As much as I think making the blame game the central question of the shutdown is detrimental to progress, it should be clear that no matter how it began, the end result of this is a government uninterested in the common citizen to the point of refusing to do what’s in the population’s best interest.
I’m not saying we should rise up against our leaders. I’m not calling for revolution or anarchy or anything like that. Violence won’t solve this. It’ll just make things worse.
However, I don’t want this to be forgotten.
Sooner or later, the parties will come back to the table. Some sort of compromise will be negotiated. A deal will be struck. And the government, Congress in particular, will hope that we just forget this ever happened.
If you and I have anything to say about it, we will never forget.
We should remain vocal. We should assert our rights. We should make our leaders aware of what this will cost them. We should keep in touch with one another, do what we can to keep ourselves going, share stories, offer comfort. And we should vote.
I’m not calling on my fellow Americans to take up arms. Instead, I want them to remember.
I know the first of October does not lend itself to catchy rhymes as much as the fifth of November does, but…
Hey, I’m just saying.
“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
Unfortunately, I don’t have a great deal to report from the past week. I’m not sure why it’s been difficult to get myself out of bed this past week. Either it’s the change of the seasons, or a side effect of the medication I’m on. Which is more complex than whiskey, before that gets mentioned.
I have taken a bit of time to work over some of the concepts for Godslayer, but I can’t really call that ‘progress’. Some of that might happen next week. Same for editing Cold Streets. Hopefully that won’t take longer than a week or two, and then I can get my very patient test readers-to-be a manuscript to look over.
This weekend I’m going to rest up. Hopefully more progress will be made in the future, because that’s what I’m looking towards.
Due to all sorts of things coming up over the course of the weekend, I did not have nearly enough time this past weekend for editing Cold Streets, writing this week’s flash fiction, or hammering out the world/character bible for Godslayer. Needless to say, there is a lot on my plate that has nothing to do with writing, and I’m trying to get a handle on things so I can be more productive in the future.
