Essay--Finishing

I’ve been writing novels for quite a while now and the journey that is creating a story, imagining details, and bringing characters to life can be exhausting. I typically don’t realize how brain dead I am until after a book is in the hands of readers. That brain death can also lead to confusion, indecision, and general malaise.

In other words, depression?

Have you ever read a series of books, finished a massive RPG campaign or video game, or just watched the final episode of your favorite TV series? Do you remember that feeling of “Shit. Now what?”

There a billion more books to read, millions of movies and TV shows, and thousands upon thousands of other video games and RPGs. So how is that even a question?

Most quests start in the tavern, a place where the miscreants and saints gather for introductions or fate to somehow bring them together. It’s where the journey starts. It’s often where the journey ends, as well. The characters, beat up, transformed, and forever marked by their quest, drink to their wounds and lost comrades and fade out into narrative history.

In today’s world, this means a sequel. One that probably takes place a few months or several years later. That gives the characters time to heal, to grow, to suffer or thrive as a result of their previous adventures. The sequel, more often than not, is merely the same—a new quest, new or stronger enemy, and larger stakes.

New quest, same as the old quest.

If the storyteller has done their job, you’ll miss these characters when they finish their journeys. You’ll wish you had another book to read. You’ll want that sequel. And you’ll curse the author or creators for not having more for you to binge.

Face it—you’re a content junkie and I love you for it.

I’m a content junkie, too, in more than ways than one. But I’m also a journey junkie and every novel is a journey for me, the writer.

The last several books, Ancient Trap, Station 3, and Trident, all resulted in a bit of a spiral for me. I no longer think of it as depression, but as exhaustion. The last few days of Ancient Trap, for instance, were finger cramping, keyboard mashing, machine gun cadence typing. Why wouldn’t I be exhausted?

A friend of mine, Dave Robison, once scolded me for starting another book after finishing one. The book in question was Destruction and he told me I should take a break, celebrate the fact I’d finished it, and pause for a moment. Enjoy the creation and the journey’s end before beginning a new one.

The older I get, the more I think he’s right. Whenever I try and force something, it turns out terrible or it remains unfinished. This isn’t to say I need to be in a certain “mood” to write. I can write anytime. What I can’t do is breathe life into a story that’s dead and there are many digital corpses buried in the archives.

I am, however, a narrative necromancer. While some of those stories will forever remain as fragments never to be read, others demand a second chance. They are resurrected but are missing troublesome organs or features, in new clothes, and sent out to terrify the masses. Okay, that was an extended metaphor, but you catch the drift.

Upon finishing “An Ancient Trap,” I went through my list of stories and stared in disbelief. The WiP pile has to have at least 30 items in it now. Short stories, novels, and even whole series, remain stubbornly unfinished and all but forgotten. So rather than thinking of something new to write, the first thing I do is go back to the WiP pile and see if anything catches my eye.

But maybe it’s not the plot that draws me back to these stories. Maybe it’s something about the characters that haunt those half forgotten pages, or something about the atmosphere and conflict that taunts me to reenter that imaginary space.

Thoughts of sales, marketability, and even popularity enter my mind when I look at the titles and remember the outlines. I have several so called “labors of love” in that list, books I can’t afford to write because I know damned well they won’t sell. Yet I know the moment I have financial bandwidth, I’ll work on one of them in earnest. Strange how that works.

Which story do I bring to life? Which journey do I begin? Am I ready?

Remove the pretentious artist bullshit and what it really comes down to is having a little time to decompress, to congratulate your brain for doing its job, and giving yourself a little time and space to heal up. Finishing up a daunting software sprint or project had the same effect—it drains and exhausts. But rather than giving a team a few days to recover, the very next day it’s back to work on the next massive problem.

Burnout is something I’m quite familiar with, having sacrificed most of my 20s, all of my 30s, and half of my 40s to the software industry. Years of 60-80 hour work weeks, lost opportunities, damaged home life, and financial instability took their toll and I have more or less left the industry.

But I still code. I still create. I still keep up on things, spend a few hours a week tinkering with new programming languages or platforms, and think up incredibly insane projects I’ll never have time to work on. Why? Because, like writing, I love to design and program.

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