Still in the process of banging off the rough edges of By Starlight - Before Dawn. My excitement for quick release is only tempered by my desire to make it as close to perfect as possible. Though, as I'm learning from my previous two books, even when you have multiple sets of eyes on a project, and your own anal retentiveness, it never ends up perfect. Hell, even the Lord of the Rings still has typos in it 61 years later.
And it's stuff like that that makes me paranoid. As a self published author, you have way more scrutiny from the uncaring public because the mass has let them down before. Getting your head above water in a sea of mediocre suck is never easy. I applaud anyone who's done it, even if the product you did it with was absolute stylistic drek. Granted, I write genre fiction like a gonzo journalist. Literary fiction snobs would probably say I churn out nothing but pulpy stylistic drek, so I can't fault anyone making a living off of the same.
But the greater concept of "ruining it for the rest of us" is why gatekeepers existed in the first place. And why there is a huge bloated corporate machine that's had decades and centuries to build itself up into an unstoppable juggernaut that's being slowly bled down to size. We're just in the current phase of figuring out something new from a long history of bad mistakes. And all those bad mistakes are going to die the great death of being forgotten in name by the beast of history. But they will live on in the cracked foundations of human society as all the reasons why we have to live in whatever way we'll be living in the future. Because some stupid asshole in the long ago said they'd do something that's awesome, and they produced anything between jack to shit.
Because of this, creative freedom has been stifled by the gatekeepers and people behind the gates. All by virtue of what they allow to be associated with their names, the ones inspired by those works are forced to work within the perceived parameters dictated by those behind the gates. This can work out great for those that want to work within confines, but it's also a surefire way to wallow in the derivative and plagiarized. It's also stifling to those with bigger aspirations than what's being handed to them.
I spent my teen and adult years living the punk ethos of doing it yourself, and getting shit done as cheaply and excellent as possible. Granted, I'm the type of person that usually ignores production value if the product is awesome enough and has an energy that I vibe with. I've listened to enough 4-track demos that were way more awesome than the slick, overproduced album counterparts to know you need a little dirt on it to be perfect. But not everyone else is like that.
We've cycled into a very antiseptic time. Everything is very clinical, and we're afraid of everything. Allusions could be drawn to classic science fiction literature, but that's for some other asshole to ramble about. I entered my tweens when grunge was exploding, and the world I see now is dull and too formulaic. We've theorycrafted all our little life hacks and now no one deviates from the prime directive. I've heard all about great men having set schedules and all that shit, and it seems everyone took it more seriously than I did. Granted, real life is made more chaotic in thanks to everyone trying to maximize their life and time and meet deadlines they made up. Except when there's a new set of 32 GIFS that only 00's kids with a disability that work retail will get, then set schedules are a myth.
I'm a believer in getting things done when they need to be done. Sometimes it's sooner, sometimes it's later. If it needs to be done, it'll get done, and it'll be complete as soon as possible after starting. However, taking the time to do something right, is always better than just getting it done. Which is why I'm insisting on taking my time with getting By Starlight - Before Dawn into the best shape possible before it's released into the wild.
It will be released by Halloween. How soon before Halloween is up in the air, but by Halloween is for certain. My commitment to that release is why I spent all day fixing drafts instead of making a blog post on Sunday. And this blog post was just a roundabout way to justify procrastinating on writing it. At least it got done.
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