The Incomparable Ecstasy of Completion and the Crushing Inevitability of "What's Next?"

My book is finished.

This is notable because, well, any accomplishment -- any completion of any sizable undertaking -- is worth noting, plain and simple.

It's worth noting because the book has been written, line-edited, and proofed by a third party. It's also worth noting because it's the longest book, screenplay, or anything I've ever written.

After working up those final proof edits, I started the process of publishing the novel to Amazon Kindle. 

The hardest part of this process is writing the description. Most authors will agree -- and most authors will be quick to point out the irony -- we're writers (some even professional!), and it's our own story we need to describe, a story we've been living with for god knows how long, a story we couldn't be more intimately familiar with.

But summarize it? Allow me to invite you to fuck right the hell off.

Fortunately, since this particular story has gestated in a few different forms, I had already written a few draft descriptions.

Unfortunately, this didn't make the process of writing the description any easier. I'll now invite myself to fuck right the hell off.

Descriptions suck, no matter how foundational they are to the process. I've described the book a few times to a handful of people recently by using its most basic premise:

Abraham Owens has a problem with empathy and the only way he can drown out other people's emotions is with booze. Lots of booze. He also has a problem with money -- he doesn't have any of it. So he takes a job to earn some of that much-needed booze money and finds himself at the heart of an alt-right rally where he has no choice but to start punching Nazis.

See? I meant to copy a once-sentence pitch I've been casually tossing around, and I even failed at that. Descriptions are fucking hard.

And then there's the superhero aspect. Yeah, that empathy I mentioned? For years, the originating premise that plagued me was an idea about a big brawler-type action hero with the worst possible superpower: empathy. It's so bad it cripples him, constantly being bombarded by and drowning in other people's feelings. As the inevitable completion of the novel drew closer, I realized I should start downplaying the superhero aspect of the story.

(Abraham Owens is just a guy who happens to have super empathy, so he's not really a superhero in the traditional sense.)

My thought was that pitching a superhero angle for a story about a city being overwhelmed with white supremacists, culminating in a violent alt-right rally ... well, I was afraid that the "superhero" genre would paint my story with a brush it didn't deserve.

For the last month, I had been intentionally downplaying or eliminating the "super" references.

And then, while setting up the book for Kindle, I discovered that Amazon had carved out a specific category for superhero stories. This could mean that even casual readers are coming to expect more from the genre.

So ... I'll just invite myself to fuck right the hell off. Again.

After one more day of work, the book is described, packaged, and published. The only thing left is to tell the world about it. A few minutes later, I whip up a Twitter post featuring an animation I produced two years prior, and I publish a similar post on LinkedIn (cause I'm a professional, dammit!).

And then I straight up laughed for like twenty minutes.

Big, manic, tears-in-the-eyes laughs. It was as funny as it was depressing.

The hardest part of publishing is writing the description.

The stupidest part of publishing is announcing it on social media.

This is probably the most important book I've ever written. Not because of the story -- while it involves serious subjects like racism, religion, and hateful ideologies, this novel is nothing more than a stupid little story about punching Nazis. I'm not on any soapbox. I'm not trying to change minds or change the world. I only want to deliver a small bit of cathartic release after (during?!) such an abjectly dark timeline.

No, it's important because I wrote it, dammit. It's the longest, most substantive book (or screenplay) I've written, and it's a mile marker on this new creative highway I'm starting down.

It's important, substantive, long-form creative that I'm desperate to share with the world.

So I shared it on the most ADHD, short-form obsessed, useless social media networks imaginable.

That's the joke. Get it? It's so funny it's guaranteed to make you cry.

I don't know if this joke is an indictment of social media (it deserves it), or the people who use it (I kinda use it, but I also hate myself for it, so there's that). But I do know the idea of trying to sell my Very Important Long Form Creative to an audience of ADHD doom-scrolling endorphin chasers is about as useless as asking the Republican Party to be moral and ethical.

And if you want to really laugh, take a minute to look at that grand Twitter institution, the #writingcommunity. I'll forgo another political metaphor for science: it's like colonizing Mars. Sure, we can eventually get some humans over there, but what fucking good is that going to do in the short term? Mars can't fucking sustain human life.

Just like Twitter can't sustain creative beyond a 5-second scroll.

So I laughed. Then I cried. Then I turned the page, closed the book, and moved on to what's next. Because that's the creative path I'm on right now: enjoying the writing process and finding a way to release my work without actually caring about where (or how) it lands.

So far, so good.

I'm more than halfway through sketching out the second Abe Owens book: "Abraham Owens is Red, Dead, & Guilty as F*ck!"; the next big writing project (already outlined) is about a mutant monster dick; and when I get bored of writing new material, I have a screenplay waiting to be adapted into a novel -- a story that plays heavily into the Abraham Owens/City of Saint Charles lore.

Any creative act is a constant struggle between the process of creation and the audience of consumption because -- existentially -- what's the point of creating if there is no one to consume? I've struggled with this my whole life -- a product of growing up homeschooled, mostly friendless, and, to paraphrase a Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom line, an extraordinarily different person from the rest of my family.

It took me a long time to find someone -- anyone -- who was actually eager and excited to read my work. Someone supportive beyond simple performative, low-effort statements (such as "I support your creative work! But never mind that I will absolutely never consume it!"). Someone I would immediately print a recently-completed chapter and handoff for them to read because we were equally excited for this new material.

You know who you are. I might have eventually gotten around to this book, but it wouldn't have been now. Not without you, your support, and your eagerness to read what I write.

And that's pretty fucking huge.

Way better than Twitter, at least.

So ... "Abraham Owens is Punched, Drunk, & All Out of F*cks!" is done, and I've already moved on to what's next. Which means, as all authors do, I have to say thanks.

To my First Reader and my Eager Proofer ... you have my gratitude, love, and appreciation. The process should always be its own reward. Still, even the best process can't compare to the enthusiasm, support, and encouragement you two have graced me with.

Thank you.

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