My Writing Failures 2025

  

 It's November, so we're heading towards the end of the year.

    Last January I had great hopes for all that I was going to achieve with my writing, but I've had a few failures as well as a few wins.

    So let's unpack it and see what happened.

    I planned to write and publish 3 novels. I only managed two. I was also going to write and publish more blog posts and articles, and a few ebooks, but I haven't managed all that either. Why?

    Well, late last year, we had to sell our home and move into a rental house until we could find a house to buy.

    Then in December, we'd booked a one-month holiday in a house in the country, thinking it was a place to relax and get plenty of writing done. Instead, we fled from there after only 9 days because the place was a filthy tip and the garden was so overgrown it wasn't usable. Plus, there was a rooster on the property that woke us up at first light every morning with its loud crowing.

    We then spent the next few months house hunting, which was so time-consuming.

    Eventually, we found a house, but we had to spend 2 months renovating it, which meant spending 12 hours a day working on the new house, plus taking one day off a week to do  "normal" things like cooking, shopping, cleaning and laundry. As you can imagine, we were exhausted.

    But even though we moved in two months ago, the work on the new house isn't over. I've spent every weekend making curtains, and I also have 2 roman blinds to make too. I’ve also been doing some cleaning on the outside of the house.

    Plus, we've had to adapt to living in a new suburb, which includes finding our way around locally, settling into a new routine in our new home and getting to know our new neighbours.

    Thankfully, our lives are becoming more normal again now, and I've even organised the cupboards so that I know where everything is. And there were all the other disruptions, like attending dozens of open homes, eating up all our chilled and frozen food to empty the fridge freezer before it was moved, all the trips to the DIY store to keep restocking the building materials we needed, choosing and organising flooring and carpets to be fitted, and organising the removalists. We also had to go back to the rental property to do a final clean and mow the lawn.

    We also had fun things to do, like dealing with lawyers and all the forms and legalities of buying a new home.

    As you can imagine, all this was not only time-consuming but also an extreme distraction to my life and my writing routine. But I did write and publish 2 novels, and sold many books too. So despite my low achievements, I still had an income, and I have a beautiful house to live in.

    The good news is that I'm never moving again-NEVER!

    Even if the house falls down or this turns out to be the worst neighbourhood ever-

    I'm going nowhere.

    The Big Question

    The question now, though, is what am I going to change to make next year more successful?

    Right now, I don’t know, but what I do know is that it won’t be disrupted by moving or house hunting or 12-hour days doing house renovations, so I know that I’ll get so much more writing done than I did this year.

    But I am going to give it a lot of thought between now and the end of the year. I’ve already started making a few plans, but I have several more weeks to finalise exactly what I  want to be working on next year.

    I do know one thing for sure about what I’m going to be doing.

    I’m going to stay home and write most of the time.

    It's my mission, after all.

 MISSION CRITICAL FOR LIFE

https://www.cheritonhousepublishing.com/books/MCFL.html

Is Being Straight and White a Disadvantage for a Freelance Writer?

I never give much thought to people being of different races. Racism holds no interest to me. We are all just people. I never give much thought to gay people either. It matters not to me who someone sleeps with.

 But it seems that being straight and white may be a disadvantage when it comes to publishing and freelance writing. And I’ll explain why.

I’m always on the lookout for high-paying freelance writing opportunities. And more and more I’ve been coming across submission guidelines that say things like “We like to publish authors from diverse backgrounds.” And that got me wondering what exactly that means?

Just this week I came across an interesting freelance open submission window that said the company was, "committed to uplifting voices from all walks of life. We actively welcome submissions from writers of every race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, religion, and cultural background. This includes — but is not limited to — BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, disabled/neurodivergent writers, immigrant authors, and those from historically marginalized or underrepresented communities.” Does this mean they have a preference for submissions from a gay person over a straight person? Or a young person over an older person? Or a black person over a white person?

A few months ago, a writer named Aaron Barry, experimented with his submissions. He first tried submitting his work in his own identity, a straight white man, and only had modest success. He then began submitting his work under several different “marginal” identities and had great success. His work was even published in acclaimed literary journals.

And, most importantly, he admits that the work he submitted (and was successful with) was just nonsensical gibberish.

For instance, one of his poems included gibberish like “voodoo prak tik casta oyal drip drip.” Another poem, that he titled Shakespeare’s Cmslt, opens with: “To ?️ or not to ?️ William Shakespeare’s ??? little cmslt ???: that is the question.”

The website that published the article about Aaron’s experiment said that it was interesting that “few questioned the authenticity of the work, until the author’s race and gender were revealed.”

Many other publications have commented on Aaron’s experiment as to whether publishers who claim to be “inclusive” by wanting to promote so-called marginal writers, do value a writer’s identity much more than their work. And do writers from “underrepresented” categories get preferential treatment over straight, white writers? They conclude that they don’t think so. But they don’t know.

Personally, I don’t submit to publications that say they are “committed to” or  “actively welcome” submissions from certain groups of writers. I believe that my work should be judged on merit and not on who I sleep with or the colour of my skin or whether or not I’m physically or mentally disabled, or my religion. I prefer to keep politics out of the art of writing.

But you can be the judge of your own work.

And if you think this is all controversial, well, you’re probably right.

But I have never understood why a publisher needs to know the colour of my skin, or my partner preferences, or my religion. None of that has anything to do with my writing and whether or not it’s suitable for their publication.

Unless, of course, the publication is aimed at a certain group of people. 

But the publications I'm talking about, are not.

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Ideas Just Keep on Coming

Sometimes it's a problem if you want to write, but you just have no idea what to write about.

I find that using prompts is the easiest way to get started. I use online word generators to get three nouns, and then I start writing, even though I have no idea where I'm going. All I know is that I have to use all three words in the first paragraph, and then it all somehow flows from there, and ideas just keep coming.

That's how I wrote my latest novel, Jackolantern. I wanted to write a short story, so I used a random word generator to get my three nouns, and one of them was the word pumpkin.

As I started to write, ideas started popping up like crazy, and when I finished the short story, I realised that it would make a great book. So I set to work on an extensive outline and added loads more creepy action until I had a brilliant outline for a novel.

And because the whole story is centred around a pumpkin, I called it Jackolantern.

The obvious problem with the story being about a pumpkin is that it's an inanimate object, so it can't move or do anything

But when it keeps appearing on the main character's front porch, he naturally thinks that someone is putting it there to annoy him because he hates Halloween. Eventually he wonders if the pumpkin is alive because no matter how many times, or no matter in how many different ways he gets rid of it, it keeps coming back, and its face is looking furious.

I had fun writing this story and inventing so many ways for him to destroy the pumpkin, only to find it back on his porch again, looking more battered and more angry than before.

 At first he is annoyed by it, but eventually, he's frightened of it and feels like he's losing his mind. Then he discovers what is really happening and he’s terrified.

This was definitely one of my favourite stories to write because the ideas just kept coming and coming.

Plus, Halloween is a dark and scary time, which is why there are so many horror stories and horror movies about it.

And, as I discovered, it's fun to write about.

 Jackolantern

Campfire Stories Book Two

https://www.cheritonhousepublishing.com/books/jackolantern.html

It's OK to Hate. It Makes Great Horror Stories

I think all horror stories are based on a dislike of something.

I always used to admonish my kids if they said they hated something (or someone). I'd say," Don't say hate. It's a strong word." I always think that the word 'hate' is dark and threatening.

But boy does it make a great horror story. 

In Stephen King's The Shining, the main character hated being an alcoholic and was looking for a place to escape to avoid alcohol.

In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the main character hated the belief that only God could create humans and tried to make one himself. 

In Iain Reid's psychological horror novel, I'm Thinking of Ending Things (which was made into a Netflix movie in 2020), the main character, Jake, hates his regret-filled and lonely life, so he invents a new one in his mind and plays it out.

In my latest book, Jackolantern, I can easily relate to the main character's hate of Halloween because I dislike all the made-up celebrations that are forced upon us, including Christmas. Most of them are based on fake reasons anyway. 

For instance, take Valentine's Day. It’s originally based on a Christian feast day honouring a martyr named Saint Valentine. 

Or Mother's Day. It originally meant the Mother Church and was a day that families could get together and visit the church where they were baptised or their local church. Hence the term 'Mothering Sunday' because Sunday is the day that Christians attend church.

The modern version of Mother's Day also spawned Father's Day and then Grandparents Day, meaning people have to buy more and more gifts.

All holiday celebrations are now geared towards commercialism and have lost their traditional meaning, including Halloween.

So I can relate 100% with my main character who hates Halloween and doesn't want to have anything to do with it, and is annoyed when he keeps finding a carved pumpkin on his front porch. 

I know that I'm not the only one who doesn't like Halloween. There are millions of others. 

The big problem with Halloween, as opposed to all the other occasions, is that kids going door to door trick-or-treating gives people no privacy in their own homes and little chance to avoid something they want no part of.

On the plus side, this misery that is inflicted on those who dislike Halloween is done by people in scary masks and costumes, which makes for a great horror story.

And my Jackolantern Halloween horror story is unique.

Jackolantern

Campfire Stories Book Two

https://www.cheritonhousepublishing.com/books/jackolantern.html