I’ve been sitting here for the last few hours staring at the edits I received from my editor. It’s only 20 pages out of a 90 page document. And they aren’t pages that are in order either, they’re a few pages here and there with whole sections marked up and commented on.

I can see the frustration of my editor clearly through her comments as she struggled through the story.

I can see the worry of my friends as we all begin to wonder whether this book is possible.

I have been racking my brain with possible solutions to fix the mess that I have created and begging the people around me to bear with me just a little bit longer.

I know where I went wrong

I got desperate. So desperate, I threw shit on a page and hoped no one would notice. In places, I left wide open plot holes and tried to cover them with descriptive details of a world that was just as incomprehensive as the rest of the book. Sure, you could spot the plot hidden between the characters’ over explained actions, but it’s an Easter hunt with the eggs all hidden on a nearly un-climbable cliff.

I blamed bad syntax on my dyslexia and my schooling. I rushed to defend my characters’ dialogue with “That’s just how they speak”. Or walked away from people pointing out the flaws of my work because I didn’t want to hear the negative stuff about something I have been pouring myself into for almost 2 and half years. I became so focus on telling a story, that I didn’t tell a story at all. Just slapped words on a page and shoved it into people’s faces screaming “LOVE IT!”

Of course that back fired. Some saw the gems hidden beneath the crap. Most threw their hands in the air and walked away.

Those 20 pages were a slap to my face, a reality check if you well.

I was forced to realize that all my excuses and desperation had killed my story before it even got to the second page. And then I was angry for a different reason.

I furious with myself. Again I blamed dyslexia for my short comings but dyslexia isn’t my only problem.  It’s my DESPERATION for recognition, for validation, for something that’ll tell me all my hard work paid off.

I told a guy recently that when I spell a word right, I wanted there to be a god damn parade celebrating the accplemishment occmplisment my success. Or when I put a comma in the right place, I wanted whistling fireworks to erupt in the sky.

But that isn’t going to happen.

Some people spend a life time searching for recognition and validation, and I’m afraid I’ll become one of them. I’m afraid I’ll become so focus on seeking people’s approval I’ll forget what my goal really is.

Current Goal: To be a published author.

It’s not an easy thing, this writing business.

Writing is a battle field, where you sometimes have to confront your inner demons.

I’m at WAR with dyslexia which is armed with bombs of misspelled words and guns of bad grammar. I’m fighting back with whatever tools I can find, but it isn’t easy when dyslexia allies with my inner demons and pumps them with my desperation.

So what I do?

Well, to be honest I received these edits about a week before my GDC trip. I spent GDC moping, then the week after raging, and the next week worrying for my future.

Last week I took a step back and really looked at everything.

I came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was to start fresh. So I pretty much trashed everything I wrote the first time around and have begun to rewrite. This time I know the story I want to tell. I know the struggles I want to show. I know the end game.

I’m trying to push aside my worries of the future, and not to focus on wondering if anyone will like this. I know there will be the haters out there. I can’t please the world and I’ll just kill myself trying.

So the update:

I wrote nine pages and turned them over to my editor so she could see where I am heading now. She seems to like this new version a lot better.

I also had to change my main character’s name. Turns out there are just too many Ambroses out there. So her name is now Virrell. I’ll still call it Project Ambrose though, simply because of the content of the book.

OH and I opened up a google+ thing, but I can’t figure it out at all.