Am I an Author? (Crashcourse, Day 18)

Welcome to Day 18 of Crashcourse!

Perhaps another creative adventure awaits me …
Hey, look … it’s my adventurer’s hat!

After a few days of being sidelined by my inner critic, I finally got back to writing. Also, I continue to ask questions about my future. Namely, am I just an author? Or am I meant to tell other kinds of stories as well?

Am I An Author?

Yesterday, I wrote about how I got sidetracked by a desire to plan out something in advance, specifically the curriculum at the Madkey school. I lost a little writing time, but hey, at least I’m back to work. I wrote 2,563 words today in three hours and fifteen minutes. That averages out to 789 words per minute, which doesn’t surprise me. I found myself nitpicking A LOT today, making small changes here and there and reversing them multiple times. Overall, I had trouble keeping my inner critic in check. No surprise really, given how I succumbed to it the last few days. Still, I enjoyed writing today.

This blog series has been an interesting experiment for me, especially in helping me realize some of the problems with my work habits. But for now, let’s move beyond self-criticism and do a little dreaming. That blog title up there is really just for show. I’ll be writing books for a long time to come. But I’d like to try other types of storytelling, too. In the past, I’ve considered a lot of mediums. Animation, film, video games, theme park rides, physical adventures, board games … you name it, I’ve considered it. But I’ve never gotten past the point of daydreams.

There’s a good reason for that. The life of an indie author is a solitary one. My wife helps out with editing and my dad pitches a hand with marketing. But for the most part, I work alone. And that’s just fine. But venturing out into other mediums would probably require collaboration. That’s a hard thing to admit, even harder to accept. I’m not even sure how I’d go about recruiting the help of artists, programmers, etc. And once you start working with other people, you have to deal with a whole mess of other things. Yikes. Still, it’s good to talk about this. Maybe it’ll help me move forward. Stay tuned …

Crashcourse Totals

Daily Total: 2,563 words in 3:15. 789 words/hour

Total: 16,573 words in 22:16. 744 words/hour

Leave a Comment