I feel like a few years ago, tick, tick... BOOM! (oh wow i'm only going to type that once) would have become my obsession, in the same way Hamilton did in its hayday. Heyday? Anywayday-
It has a lot of things in similar, which makes sense given LMM's involvement, and those similarities - mainly in its message, its sense of urgency - are part of what brought me so close to Hamilton at the time. I was living it up in sixth form, excelling academically, thriving with a group of friends I adored, and writing my little heart out with the first draft of what would become Sylvestus. I was going through some terrible sh*t, but I still look back on that time fondly. Ahh, nostalgia. But something I really miss is... how driven I was. Write like you're running out of time, that was the mantra of those two years - writing for passion, revising, studying, all of them, I did with a fervour I had felt for most of my teen years but never quite so strongly, and have felt only in comparatively muffled, sporadic bursts since.
I didn't super click with tick, tick... BOOM! (i lied) when I watched it a few weeks ago - I enjoyed it, but it didn't lodge right in the brain like Hamilton did. But to be honest, musicals don't tend to for me. I'm... not that huge of a musicals person. I dunno. I'm fairly neutral on them beyond a few phases of the usuals.
But I have been listening to the soundtrack on loop the past week, and it's really starting to dig right into that psyche, and I think I'm getting why. For those who haven't seen it and don't mind spoilers - it's a film about Jonathan Larson, who wrote Rent, before he wrote Rent. Specifically, it's about the week before his 30th birthday and the first workshop for the musical he's written, Superbia, which he's certain isgoing to be his break into the industry and eternal call to fame. He feels like this will be his last chance to be successful because of the impending deadline a 30th birthday brings and how much time and love he's put into Superbia.
The workshop goes well, but he has to move on from Superbia to continue his career and eventually finish Rent and have the legacy we know today. His agent affectionately reminds him that the heartbreak of abandoning projects you've poured years and hours and lifetimes into because they're never going to be The One is part of being a creative.
Yeah, it hit home.
I was considering naming this post 25/22 to make it more personal, but it doesn't have quite the same effect (too many syllables), plus to be honest, I'm not especially stressed about turning 25 in the year 2022 in the same way Jonathan is about turning 30 in 1990. But it... definitely still rings true for me in other parts.
Stop the clock
Take time out
Can you be optimistic?
You're no longer the ingénue.
Man, was I ever?
Cages or wings,
which do you prefer?
Ask the birds
When I was young, I was so desperate and driven to write. I was determined to be the youngest person to ever x, or the best to ever y - I knew I had a talent, a gift, and I was going to blow the world away. When I finished writing The Red Prince, I was certain that this was it, I had done it. It was going to change the world.
It was pretty rubbish and had no deep significance at all. It took me a long time and a lot of heartbreak to move on and start writing something else. After I finished Seeking and Dying Ember, I felt like... like I'd done what I needed to with them. I'd written them, I'd published them, I'd shared them, it was time to move on.
It was different when I finished Sylv. I was terrified to lose him. I felt like there was so much more but I didn't know where it was.
I still don't. I don't know what I want.
The time is flying
and everything is dying
Thought by now I'd have
a dog, a kid, a wife
I want to settle down and be stable and not constantly be stressed about money, I want a house I can stay in for more than a year and can paint and put shelves up in, I want to save up for a nice sofa and to buy new bedding without feeling guilty because my five year-old bedding is technically still usable even if it's a little faded and yellow, I want to be a stay-at-home dad, I want to walk a dog twice a day, I want stability, I want a life.
I want to study for a living, I want to discover new things, I want to be out in nature learning and teaching, I want to make a difference, I want to save a species, I want to tackle climate change, I want to save the world, I want to work with animals, I want to be active every day and excel at something and enjoy what I do.
I want my stories to reach a million eyes and a million hearts, to sell hundreds of thousands of copies, to have fanbases, to be adapted, to be discussed and hated and adored, to be someone's comfort book, to inspire someone else to write, to touch more people than I'll ever meet.
I read a short story once, about a fae who could see the want in people reaching out, could take it like a hand and guide them away into nothingness; it warned about wanting too badly, about yearning for something you weren't and not being grateful for what you were. I recognised the feeling it described because I felt it so strongly every day. I think I've been afraid to want too loudly since I read it. I try not to want, to yearn or to desire or to long, but instead to plan and schedule and work - but it's hard when you won't let yourself acknowledge what it is you want to work for.
Johnny has no guide
Johnny can't decide
Can he settle down
and still not drown?
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I've wasted another evening watching TV, I've wasted another week putting off writing, I've wasted another year in a job I like well enough but that doesn't fit any of my goals. I could work harder or try for a higher-earning job where I make even less of a difference and care about it less, and begin to save money to achieve Life Plan A, but I can't quite bring myself to sell out like that. It's literally like, the villain of every story about a creative person. I could give up on the proverbial a dog a kid a wife for another few years and live off the skin of my teeth with no time for writing doing a course in something I really care about and am passionate for and work towards Life Plan B, but I can't quite bring myself to go back to that. I already served my time as a p*ss-poor student, I'm tired of that life. I could continue as I am now but shift my priorities and actually try to get Sylvestus or another of my books into the mainstream and actually work towards Life Plan C, but... well, why not?
I don't know.
Is it fear of rejection? Is it avoidance anxiety? Is it all the practical considerations - "publishers never accept a first novel over 100,000 words, the publishing industry will force you to sell out, mainstream publishers won't let you keep those aspects of your story, blah blah blah"? Or is it a bigger, deeper, vaguer fear, unnamed and all-encompassing?
I don't know. But this week I ordered a bulk bunch of copies of both volumes of Sylvestus to try and get distributed and sold in local bookshops where I live, the first significant (and even then, barely anything really) financial investment I've made in my writing in years. I plan to do a run of flyers and business cards soon - again, I used to do those for Seeking, never really got any instant feedback from it, never even bothered since then. I'm prioritising writing itself and Getting It Done again.
Fear or love baby,
don't say the answer
Actions speak louder than words
I can't promise that This Will Be It. It takes a lot to acknowledge your deepest anxieties and take action on them. But it's a step, eh? I'll try not to wait til the week of my 30th birthday, at least.
