Holding Your Published Book for the First Time

Today three copies of '13: The Anthology' arrived at my doorstep. The postman handed them to me and I went all fuzzy on the inside. It was a regular amazon packaged, erm, package, the same amalgamation of cardboard and sticker that I've received so many times before, except this time our book was inside, and inside the book was one of my stories. Printed. In an actual paperback. For real. Jeezuz.

Half Way

Here's a rather depressing thought. 

Have you ever gone into something with the utmost passion and motivation, only to come to the world shattering realization that you just don't want to do it anymore? This, annoyingly, has hit me right at the half-way point.

It's pretty horrible actually.

I want a different life. But it's a ridiculous notion that I could have that life now without first finishing what was started. And finishing that seems impossible with my current attitude.

Human nature is strange in this way. We want it all and the image is always the ideal, and then when we find out that, surprise surprise, the dream isn't real, we change the ideal. Now we have a new striving. But I bet that's just as unfulfilling as the current life. Or maybe not. Maybe, like the first ideal, the dream will last a while and you'll love it for what it is, but then after a certain amount of time, you'll want something else...

We're stuck with this. We can't achieve what we most desire and so we strive to save our current situation, despite the fact that we don't want it anymore. And here begins the rat race. Cornering ourselves more and more until all that's left is the view. We're stuck in a room with a view tormenting us. Or we're trying to find a way to live in that ideal world outside.

It's a great fear to arrive in that heaven with the apprehension that the trees will turn to walls, the sky to ceiling, and our acquisition will close in on us until there is, as there always was, a window.

Miserable hell.

Smashing Conventions

I have an overwhelming compulsion to hate and destroy things, and hopefully that’s just the fact that I’m insane and not a universal emotion, but as writers, I believe we should all take a sadistic enjoyment in smashing those things called “rules and conventions” to pieces and sending their remains back to the abominations that created them.

I hate rules. And I hate conventions. But that can be brought down to a more encompassing fact: Familiarity breeds contempt. 

Inspirations and influences are all well and good, but being swayed by anything but our instincts often leads us to creating something that, to put it bluntly, has been done before. And sadly it can get pigeonholed.

I for one hate the idea of that. Never be afraid to build four walls around yourself and lose your mind inside them. This is your mind. Your world.

Your story.

And the thing about radically individualised and unconventional stories, and to a further extent, things, is this: they stay with the reader after they finish them.

When I began my contribution to the anthology I had no clue what I was doing. I sat down with pen and paper (I’m not being metaphorical by the way, I live in the past) and started scribbling. Pages and pages of crazy philosophies and weird poems went by and still I had no clue where I was going with it. I finished the first draft and knew I’d come to a solid conslusion when I said to myself: This is some sort of drama, or something.

And that’s the closest I’ve come. I guess I’ll leave that conclusion to whoever ends up reading it. But one thing I hadn’t done (or at least I fucking hope I haven’t!) is write a conventional story. There were no heroes or villains, justice wasn’t served to those who deserved it, and it was completely cockeyed.

That’s one thing at least that I’m pleased with. The fact that I broke a few rules and expectations. Maybe you’ll disagree and call me a pretentious twat, and fair play, but that’s still an achievement in my eyes. In fact if I’d done anything predictable my self-loathe would have dropped to an all time low.

Uniqueness. That’s something we should all strive for, and something that every writer involved in this anthology has achieved, as you will soon see!

Max Watt

@Maxx_Watt