January 31
City Howls and dealing with limits
I found myself looking at City Howls to prep it for new writing with outlining, brainstorming, etc. I found problems, the same kind of problems in Demon Arms. All I do is bitch about how I didn’t realize how fucked my brain was when living in mold. Right now, I’m frustrated I just can’t go back.
If I didn’t have the new perspective, I wouldn’t give a fuck. Good enough would literally be good enough in my mind. It was then. The problem is, how I’m writing now is the only way I know how to write. My brain changed, it can’t go back, and I’m left frustrated at my new pace which requires time, dedication, and a willingness to tear up all the old shit and do the work. Hence, it feels like work and not fun.
I gotta fix my perspective on this stuff. I gotta find the fun.
The biggest issues with City Howls I can see are:
1) the moldy brain made it difficult to visualize scenes, led to a dump of exposition, while at the same time failed to explain concepts well enough and also made the action lag. I want to show how Sage is a thief, how his dreams are messed up, how his brother is violently abusive instead of the info dump of it all. Finding out how his parents die should be pivotal, not a one liner in a paragraph of exposition. I don’t know why my old style was about creating all the character background and just dumping it in the first scene but it requires me to clean it all up and start fresh.
2) I tried to work with the censorship. You couldn’t find the first book on a mainstream platform because of the beast content, so I tried to make episodes 2 and 3 platform friendly. I intentionally wrote less titillating content to conform, and I’m kinda disgusted when I think about it. Seriously, fuck censorship. These books were supposed to be a total dark fuck fest and I held back and grew bored with the series because of it. How fucking exhausting to sit down to write something fun, only to change it because you’re terrified of having your book banned and livelihood lost. It’s bullshit.
So this is the shit I want to remedy when I continue this series. The beginning paces too slowly because of the exposition, and everything needs a more visual, in the scene feel. And I want to push those limits I inadvertently made because of the censors. More taboo, more fun, less stupid safe boring ass bullshit.
Where in the world can I read book one?
Currently, the first episode (and all the ones out atm) are only available through the website subscription option.