Category: Process · Tags: craft, recursion, fear, mythos
(OR, HOW ONE MAN FOUGHT HIS OWN DRAFTS AND LOST SPECTACULARLY)
People love imagining authors as tranquil beings who commune with the muse while sipping something herbal.
Meanwhile I write like a raccoon who broke into a monastery and found a laptop.
If you want the real view — the myth, the heat, the recursion, the queer chaos, and the absolutely unwise devotion behind my work — welcome backstage.
It’s not dignified.
It’s barely legal.
But it’s honest.
Scrivener is my cathedral and my containment chamber.
It holds my entire psyche together with folders that include:
If Scrivener ever corrupts beyond recovery, I will simply wander into the woods and become folklore.
Drafting is one thing.
Editing in Word is where optimism goes to die.
The cycle is predictable:
Word exists to keep me humble.
Dangerously humble.
Sometimes I reread a paragraph and discover I used the same verb nine times in a row like a ghost with limited vocabulary is steering my hands.
Cue the pilgrimage:
If you ever notice a beautifully chosen word in my prose, assume I fought a small internal war for it.
My books stand on the bones of failed scenes.
Chapters sacrificed because the vibe was wrong.
Entire arcs buried because a single moment didn’t breathe correctly.
My revision cycle looks like:
By the time a chapter is finished, I’ve aged three years and forgotten what daylight looks like.
Writing queer, mythic, emotionally dense fantasy means nothing gets to be shallow.
Not the heat.
Not the memory.
Not the ruin.
Not the desire woven under the ribs of the narrative.
Every scene needs pressure.
Every line needs breath.
Every chapter needs consequence.
So I chase each moment like a man following a mythical creature that keeps whispering, “fix it again,” before slipping into the fog.
I’ve rewritten paragraphs because the emotional temperature felt off by a hair.
I’ve cut scenes because a character blinked like they were lying to me.
I once scrapped a chapter because the vibe walked in wearing the wrong shoes.
My standards are unreasonable.
My devotion is unwise.
My drafts and I communicate through a system built from threat and respect.
If you’ve ever wondered whether I take this seriously…
I spent days spiraling because a character said one word I was convinced they didn’t own.
I argued with them like a man moderating a panel discussion between versions of himself.
I paced.
I rewrote.
I caffeinated myself into new consciousness.
Then it hit me: the word was theirs.
They said it with enough confidence to make me feel like I was the one out of character.
Welcome behind the curtain.
This is how the myth gets made.
This is how I get made too.
This space is for correspondence, not performance. Messages are reviewed and won’t appear publicly by default. If you want to engage—agree or disagree—email is the right channel.