That Time I Almost Gave up on my Dream and Why I learned to Never do that Again

Wow, I haven't posted in like two weeks...

Darn being sick. 

Anyways. Let's get back into it.

I remember the time I almost gave up on my dream.

I was in Las Vegas at the time. I was working a full time job with very little progress being made on Under A Crimson Sky. I was frustrated and unsure of where to go. I had no clear direction.

In short, it was a mess.

Have you ever been there? 

How did I get through it? Well I'm not really 100% sure. For some reason Under A Crimson Sky just wouldn't let me put it down.

I don't even remember what I was having difficulty with. I think in part it was motivation and something in the story wasn't clicking.

I tried for so long before I just figured it would never come to me. I had lost it.

 I didn't even touch the word doc that had my book in it for the longest time. 

I wanted nothing to do with it.

For a while I didn't even think of it.

About a month later after I had completely given up and just decided to be a doctor I had something strange happen to me.

I felt guilty.

I felt bad for Dag and Kor-Voda and Oremothe and Gottrak that their story might never be told. It was as if history would just forget about them and they would become like chaff on the wind.

They and I had went through so much. They had been there when I was alone and when I needed help. They suffered with me. they shared in my pain.

The worst part was after I felt all that I felt even worse for throwing them to the side. I remember the first place this happened to me. It was in my car driving home from work as I drove over the bridge that crossed the freeway.

Then I got sad.

How was I to let this happen? I couldn't I wouldn't! I had to get to work at once. 

I had to be there to tell their story.

After all nobody else would. I was the only one who knew it.

It wasn't easy, it never is. But I enjoyed every minute of writing after that. I simply couldn't put down my work.

I wrote and edited a chapter a day. Compared to before when I was lucky to write a chapter a week it was like night and day.

You can find the finished product HERE.

That was when I knew I had to make a choice. I knew I couldn't be both a doctor and a author. I have to either be all other nothing in my work. There was just no other way around it.

It took a long time to officially decide, but at last I finally did.

I had to be a writer. My mind is always just full of stories and thoughts and little bits to add.

The only way to silence them is to write.

I went  through a lot of rejection on my book before I was certain I wanted to be an author full time. I got so many rejection letters for my book. I was crushed, but after my little epiphany on while driving home I found myself with faith and patience that the way would become clear to me eventually.

What helped me most through all the rejection was the patience that I learned and the fact that I was just doing what I loved. Sure, I didn't make money doing, it, but hey, I WAS doing it.

 I talk more about that HERE, but in short I learned it while writing my first book and I am grateful for it. I don't think I ever would have finished if I didn't know that if I continued on I would one day be finished and be published.

I'm glad I stuck with it.

I'm glad that I got to tell Dag and the others story.

I know that if I hadn't I would have regretted it for the rest of my life.

What are some of your success stories? What hard times did you go through?

Let me know down below.

Don't do what I did. Don't turn your back on what you love.

Keep at it and have patience and one day you will reach your goals.

Hey everyone as a side note I've started live streaming video games. I'm using it as a chance to play the games I love and do it for people. Come check it out if you want to hang out and chat! We can talk books, video games and whatever you like! You can find a link below. You can also find all of my past streams on Youtube. Link also down below.

Brett Currah is author of Under a Crimson Sky.

It is here on his old blog that he brings to life

his story of writing his first fantasy novel.

Pick up a copy of Under A Crimson Sky Today!

Follow me on:

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Adventuring and How it Helped My Writing

I don't know how anyone could write a story without going on one adventure in their lifetime.

From personal experience alone I believe that is vital to live life in order to write a book.

We can read books and we can watch movies, but how are we to be inspired to write without going out and seeing the world.

I am sure that different writers gain inspiration in different ways. Some may just need to read a book and have an amazing idea.

I learned that just doesn't work for me...

I have to get down and dirty with life. I have to get in the trenches as it were.

Believe me I tried writing a story before I had really experienced anything.  I got six words for how that turned out.

It did not turn out good!

There was nothing original in it. It was parts of stories that I found interesting at the time. 

There was nothing that was my own.

With that in mind I knew that I had to experience what this world had to offer. I had to make mistakes, fall in love and lose something important to me just to name a few.

To be fair there was a lot to be said about writing that first story of mine. I learned what not to do.

In a strange way I think that is necessary. Learn what not to do. I don't know about the rest of you, but the only way I can do that is through failing. For some reason that is my tried and true way to learning how to write. That, and taking time for life of course.

Where would the Ever Frost Mountains be without the Canadian Rockies? Where would the rolling foothills of Ellom and Jonir be without the Alberta foothills? Where would the Emerald Plains be without Saskatchewan? Where would the Hinterlands be without eastern Canada?

You can see all of these places HERE.

My story would be nothing by a flat plain if it were not for travelling.

There are other experiences in life that are important as well. I talk about them HERE, but today I wanted to focus on travelling and seeing the world.

If you do nothing else but read and one other thing let it be travel.

Your writing will thank you for it.

The other reason I will always endorse travelling is to see how other people act.

 I have only really travelled in Canada and in the United States, but that does not stop the west from being different compared to the east.

In Canada there is divide between the east and the west. You pick up on it as you talk to people. That divide gets even worse when you talk to people from Quebec…

I would never have had my initial incident if Lord Rihm had not hated the west and wanted a Kingdom of his own.

My point is, is if you don't feel like you don't know what to write or if you are having a hard time. Go exploring even just around town. You might be surprised what you will find.

That's the thing it doesn't need to be some big cross country tip. Just go out side your front door. Go have fun, do what you love.

The biggest thing that I do to go on little mini adventures is I go hiking.

It gets me out in the world and its close to home and not expensive.

Those are like three of my favorite things all rolled into one...

Anyways, I'm rambling now.

Get out there and have fun.

The Power of Patience

Patience is a funny thing when it comes to writing.

On one hand you have writers shouting write every day! Write all the time!

While that is vital, I found that sometimes that just isn't possible.

Let my clarify here. If you have writers block. Then write your heart out. Just sit down and start typing or writing with a pen and paper if that is what you are into.

It doesn't really matter how you write.

 Just do it.

The funny thing about doing that is the words most of the time just spill out.

Sometimes, that isn't the case though.

I started writing this book when I was 18-19 years of age. I am 24 now. I realize I am still young, but I just a boy back then. I hardly felt like I knew how to properly conjugate sentences let alone catch the subtleties of humanity so I could put it into words.

But I wrote none the less. 

Sure it was mess, but hey, I did it.

If you want more on how much of a mess I was check out HERE.

At some points in my writing career I learned that no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't think of the words. Writing didn't help. Not even writing garbage helped. It was as if I couldn't recreate what I was seeing. I'm actually not sure that I even knew what I was trying to see at the time.

But thankfully after a few years I had an epiphany.

I found that it wasn't just writers block.

No. It was something far more interesting than that. Something that couldn't be learned through a book, but with time alone. To put it simply, I didn't have the experience necessary to write on what I wanted.

I didn't have emotions to draw on.

In other words I didn't know how to have the characters react because I never had a chance to react to it.

I know that sounds odd, but hear me out.

I had my initial inspiration for this story after my mother passed away. That gave me the base line. There is a reason why Dag says that the darkness spreads like a cancer and devours all that is known.

I had my base line because of a significant loss in my life. That is why the characters were fighting against something that threatened to take everything they loved away from them.

I had my foundation, but I didn't have the whole story yet.

What came next was the complete feeling of hopelessness that Dag and the other's felt as they tried everything they could. You might think that that feeling would have come while watching someone that I loved with cancer get sicker and sicker. That was more like watching death unfold before my very eyes, but I didn't ever feel the same feeling of hopelessness that I had written into my characters.

I had that when I first moved to Las Vegas. As some of you may know I am Canadian and the immigration process was not as easy and quick as my wife and I originally thought.

Don't get me wrong I wouldn't change it for the world, but that didn't make it hard.

Much like the characters I had to go through something hard and frustrating. Something that beat me down and made it feel like I could never make a difference. That is why the characters never have high hopes and don't feel as though they are ever making progress.

The final one that I want to mention is rather simple and I had discovered it first without even knowing.

That is friendship.

Friendship is by far, well to me at least, the most important part of this story. Especially the friendship between Dag and Kor-Voda.

I have to thank my friend Clay for that.

He is in every way Kor-Voda. He is the hairy beast that people give strange looks, but would never hurt a fly unless provoked. Let me tell you when provoked you don't want to stand in his way.

There are many other subtleties that I had to learn with time, but I believe that my brain has just turned them into unconscious reactions. Sort of like riding a bike.

For example the art of writing is something that I am constantly evolving and working on. I must always have patience when it comes to this skill.

I think it will be something I'm working on till the day that I die.

For those new writers and more experienced writers a like you may know what I am talking about.

That constant pain of never feeling good enough and always wanting to get better.

In a strange way that is what makes us great writer.

We are never satisfied. That is our strength.

For me writing is about putting my experiences into a tangible way my brain can experience them.

Apparently that mean fantasy stories about wizards and warlocks and an all-consuming darkness.

You can find that HERE by the way.

What I'm trying to say is be patient.

You won't have all the answers right now. You will never have all the answers.

But know in time you will. Just be sure to read every day and to go out and experience life.

And most of all have patience.

Don't worry. It will come to you.

Brett Currah is author of Under a Crimson Sky.

It is here on his old blog that he brings to life

his story of writing his first fantasy novel.

Pick up a copy of Under A Crimson Sky Today!

Follow me on:

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads

The Pain's of Learning That I Couldn't Write

I used to use this blog way back in 2015.

 I was so young then.

I have learned a great deal and subsequently I have a learned that there is a great deal more that I don't know.

I did learn one thing though.

I, through blood sweat and tears, learned how to scramble enough words together to make a full length book.

Crazy I know. I can still hardly believe it myself.

I am not writing her to brag about some skill. I here to dictate what I have learned and to put to "paper" my experiences.

It all started right here actually in a simple little blog in the vast void that is the internet.

 I started with an idea of two travelers exploring the world in little adventures. Their names were Dag and Kor-Voda.

As a side note it actually used to be spelled Cor Voda and then Cor-Voda, but as I began fleshing out the minotaurs I learned that they did not have the use of the letter "C" in their alphabet.

There was the spark for my story. Two age old friends travelling the world.

You can check out the final novel HERE.

What I discovered about as fast as I had my idea was that I had no idea how to write a book. Sure I have read before, but that never really quite prepares you for your first draft.

I like to think that is because we read all of these awesome stories that are so well put together that we expect ours to turn out the same. We expect this beautifully crafted piece with scenery so rich we can taste the food or see the mountains or explore the caves as our characters are.

I hate to break it to you, but the reality couldn't be further from the truth.

To put it in simplest terms it was a mess. It was as if I had created a world half remembered. Just as Bubak had in my book, Under A Crimson Sky, it was this weird amalgamation of old and new concepts.

But with time, patience and hard work there is hope!

Hope is all I had to cling onto for four years as I wrote Under A Crimson Sky. 

Hope is all I still have when it comes to selling copies. Now all I hope is that people will like what I write.

I would like to say it was easy to cling onto hope and believe that everything was going to go great. Somehow I would bring everything together in an amazing story that was worth remembering. 

I won't lie though. 

Clinging to that hope is never easy.

I am still not sure that it ever gets easier, but I still grasp onto hope with all the strength I can muster.

I guess I am writing this so aspiring writers out there know that it is okay to be scared about your work. It is okay to be worried that it will not turn out the way you want. 

What is important is continuing to hard work at. 

It is your baby after all. 

Your first love. 

It deserves the respect that such a high office requires.

If you don't give it the respect it needs then don't expect your work to go anywhere.

I know, its hard to keep plugging away at times, but without hard work you will never get to where you want to go.

You may have a job and you may be tired when you get home, but you just have to keep moving on. Keep going. Keep on struggling  with your characters. If you don't, eventually it will become some half finished project on your computer eventually forgotten about when you buy a new one. I know this because that almost happened to me.

Trust me. Put the time in. You'll thank yourself for it.

I may not be rich and famous and a bestselling author. Then again my book has only been out for a couple of weeks.

But that does not make what I have experience any less valid and it doesn't make what you experience any less valid either.

These ideas are still in my head and they need to come out.

So, here they are.

New writers, have faith in yourself and in your work. One day I look forward to reading your work as I look forward to people reading mine.

Brett Currah is author of Under a Crimson Sky. 

It is here on his old blog that he brings to life 

his story of writing his first fantasy novel.

Pick up a copy of Under A Crimson Sky Today!

Follow me on:

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads