Relentless. For some reason, the word’s always resonated with me. It implies perseverance. Discipline. Grit. The qualities of the warrior monks that figure prominently in my stories. Qualities I admire in others and try to cultivate in myself – up to a degree.
There’s a fine line between dedication and obsession, and if I’ve learned anything about myself over the years it’s that I don’t have much of an obsessive personality. Some people might disagree, but they see the outside. The truth on the inside is that I’m dedicated to a few pursuits, but I don’t have it in me to obsess over them to the exclusion of everything else.
My interests range too widely for that, and if I don’t watch it closely, I spread myself too thin. So sometimes I only scratch the surface and step back. A few years ago I took a weeklong course on bladesmithing. I loved everything about it. I’m going to do it again some day. But it’s not a pursuit that’ll ever make it onto my A-list. It’s a lack of time and opportunity – and of the bone-deep fascination that would have me learn the skill at any cost.
There are other areas that I’ve delved a lot more deeply into, but not deeply enough for true mastery. I’ve dabbled in the martial arts since I was a kid. I’ve enjoyed the practice. The growing understanding of how my body works. I still dabble, but I know that I’m never going to be a truly accomplished martial artist.
I took a pretty good stab at weightlifting. Strength has always fascinated me. I’ve trained since I was a teenager, but it was only later in life that I started competing in Olympic Lifting. It was as close to an obsession as I’ve ever come, but after ten years, as progress stalled and injuries and age started to take their toll, I got acquainted with the ugly side of obsession. The self-recriminations. The frustration. Not a way I wanted to operate anymore. So I quit. That was a few years ago, and it still hurts.
But through it all, there was writing. I’ve been writing since I was in my teens. Badly and inconsistently and without any thought to craft. I never wanted to publish anything. That wasn’t why I was into it. I was into it for myself and for the characters taking up space in my mind. I wanted to know what happened to them. I wrote what I wanted to read and what clamored to get out of my head and onto the page.
It’s only over the past few years that I’ve been educating myself on the ways of craft and publishing and marketing, and that I show up to the page daily. I still write for myself, first and foremost. But I’ve set my sights on getting published. In part because the more I learn about the publishing industry, the more fascinated I get. And in part because I’m conceited enough to think that my stories might resonate with people whose minds are just as twisted as my own.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that this is how I feel about writing: relentless.