Well, this could be the start of something big for us all. Who knows where this blog will lead? Perhaps greatness, world domination, published notoriety, jail, or absolutely nowhere. Maybe we’ll save the whales (are they still endangered) or, maybe we’ll spend our time procrastinating.
Speaking of procrastination, it is my biggest downfall as a writer and artist. I spend endless hours and days (sometimes weeks and months) scrolling through the internet (usually pinterest or tumbler) looking for inspirational poses for my next drawing, or hoping to stumble across some snippet or phrase that will thrust me forward, fully inspired, towards the end of my latest novel.
Speaking of which. if you’ve read this far you may be wondering why the hell you’re bothering to read MY blog at all. Good question. The answer is really the same as for the question, why am I writing this blog.
The answer is: I have dabbled with drawing, painting, and writing fiction for a number of years, and when I say dabbled I mean that I have messed around for the odd minute or year churning out oil, watercolor, or pen drawings/paintings and/or the odd story. Most of the art wasn’t up to scratch as far as I was concerned (though it hangs in many a hall, front room, or BDSM dungeon), and most of the stories went unfinished (with the intent of further poking of the beast at a later date) until that was 2016 when I self-published ‘One More Minute’.
This was the turning point for me (or so I thought), the moment when at last I had something out there that people who did not know me could look at, flip the pages of, and decide without trepidation and fear of hurting my feelings whether they liked it or not.
‘One More Minute’ was the story of Michael, a man who only wanted to find one thing, love. That love appeared before him in the form of Donna, a feisty, fun, and out-of-his-league young woman who would fall head over heels in love with him at almost the exact same rate as he became besotted with her. She was just the same really, she had waited such a long time to find ‘the one’ except… well, except she hadn’t quite waited the same length of time as Michael to find her one true love because, he had waited seven hundred years.
OMM was a departure of writing genre, style, and process for me. Up until then I had tried to ferret myself away under silence-filled staircases, secluded back rooms, and late-night dark corners in an effort to find ultimate peace and quiet, a writing utopia. It never worked. Inconsistent times, bill-paying jobs, wives and kids, life in general all disturbed my non-existant flow – and it showed on the page.
In 2015 I decided enough was enough and I would throw everything out that I had previously thought I required to enable me as a writer. As a new singleton I stuck to an after work regimen of writing for at least two to three hours per night, on weekends it would be sometimes four or five hours, and all of it would be in cafes, bars, libraries, and anywhere else I could find somewhere to sit comfortably with my iPad and keyboard. And all of those hours were spent listening on earbuds to anything from P!nk to Pink Floyd. Banished was the silence and the seclusion. Banished was the procrastination of being at home where the fridge, laundry, and television were constant distrations. Now with a world of distration around me in cafes I could knuckle down and do what I had come to do. I wrote for six months admist rattling coffee cups and shoppers, one hundred and ten thousand words spewed forth, and then I edited for another six months. I researched, I visited locations when I could, I spent time at writers groups and I read as much as time would allow. And I learned by mistake after mistake after mistake.
I didn’t even try to get a publisher or agent, all I wanted to do was see the finished novel on Amazon and have people be able to read it. At that time I still lived in Scotland and it was a thrill to learn that I had readers in Australia, America, even Colombia. Not many readers but still, readers that when I heard their feedback they had nice things to say, and were interested enough to ask questions. Questions like, what about… (spoilers!).
The intention with my my new found writing mojo was to churn out the second novel within fifteen months, the summer of 2017 being my self imposed deadline. It didn’t happen. Life got in the way again. Long distance relationships with their intensity, hours and hours of video chatting, and time-zone differences don’t bode well for a good writing environment while trying to hold down a full-time job on three hours sleep each night.
So, the writing went on hold. My world became chaotic as I gave up life in the heart of Scotland in exchange for life in the heart of Ohio. The writer’s brain was still ticking over, still jotting down ideas, making notes on the phone, writing down phrases and one-liners that tickled my fancy but, visas, job-hunting, repeating everything I said for those that couldn’t understand my accent, having a new partner and family, and learning that life was throwing multiple curve balls at me in this strrnge new homeland was not in any way conducive to being creative. I tried but it wasn’t for happening.
Those curve balls included a marriage that lasted only a year, and brief homelessness and hopelessness, where the kindness of work colleagues that I barely knew kept me from ending up on the streets, and out of the ghettos. A pokey apartment beckoned, settling into the new job, and realizing I didn’t know any of the streets I now called home again wasn’t a good environment for writing (you can bet it wasn’t convenient for painting either). I threw myself into the dating scene, spent a few months getting to know the locals (if you know what I mean) and then found myself wondering what I was doing.
It’s alien for those that don’t understand, for those that don’t have the writer’s bug scratching away at their soul, but I knew there was only one thing that would make me happy, give me a foundation to build a new life on, and that was to be a regular, consistent writer. I needed to write, and write every day. I needed to get the stories out of me, onto the page and into the hands of my readers regardless of how many or, how few that would be.
It’s December 12th, 2018 and today I’ve decided to change things up. I’m going to write every day. It may be the latest novel, it may be short stories, it may be the erotica that I’ve delved into occasionally, it may be jokes on Facebook, and it may be this blog but, I will be writing, I will be creating, I will be being true to what I am – a writer (sometimes a smudged fingers artist) and as a writer I need readers. So that’s why I’m writing this blog and if you’re intrigued by what’s ahead then that’s why you’re reading it.
Welcome to you my new readers. Let’s see what we can get up to together. Let’s reach for world domination and if we fall short perhaps we’ll have saved the whales along the way (or improved Cardiff at least). If it works then I won’t have procrastinated and you won’t have contemplated your navel all day.
I love going to the cinema. I go as often as I can. The big blockbusters are fun and I’m addicted to the Marvel movies but, a lot of the time I go see the small Indy films and often they are my favorite finds among all the hype and CGI that takes most of our bucks.
First time in weeks that I’ve written anything on the novel. It’s working title is Bonds and I’m actually on the thirty-third and final chapter. I’ve been saying that since early November though.
On my way to a writing group for the first time in weeks. With all this enthusiasm about a “new me” I’ll probably end up in the gym too.
Scott MacLean Author & Artist 