Some people said it would never happen (we should know, it was us), but luxury periodical & Magazine has made its triumphant return with the long awaited issue 016! We’re taking a detour from the recent string of essays and grim prognostications to share this silly fictionalization of the struggles of the modern writer. Please enjoy before diving into the rest of the fantastic set of misfit submissions that populate the pages of &.
The Fantasist's Grindset
White space, max brightness. Yep, it's writing time.
They call me 'Mr. Ten K Every Day' because the words can't come fast enough. I'm pounding them out now, each crunch of a key under my fingers punching a black letter into the blinding white eternity that lays before me. Letters fall together into words, strung end-to-end into sentences of workman-like prose laid with the loving care of a grandmaster mason on the verge of shitting his pants. Speed is the key to drafting, and while I'm tempted to pause for an edit break a few times over the hour, I cannot; I'm driven on by my muse, that strange dervish of tiny dancing numerals that haunts my vision's periphery — that's what daily word goals are for, to motivate you to produce. Because nine hundred thousand words of debut fantasy won't draft themselves.
My heart squeezes as I see that fifteen minutes have passed and yet I'm at a meager thousand words. With sweat dewed lips I lean in, hammering the keys to wrap up this scene in which my female protagonist Shalooloo explains to her mother (and mentor figure) why she accepted her first act call-to-action.
A Sanderson lecture buzzes in my ear buds, warm and familiar as he discusses getting an agent or publishing deal.
"Just be Mormon," he assures me across time and distance greater than the Utah wastes, "or Jewish."
The Book of Mormon was already in the mail, but it wouldn't do me much good without half a dozen fantastical yet marketable novel manuscripts in the can.
But God, wasn't it a grind. This scene being a particularly dull necessity, having just two characters for dialogue clarity (although I still tagged each line for readability) in the familiar setting of their home — a shack on a Marklock Pidgeon's back. I would have loved to move them somewhere new, perhaps with a vista, but I was bound between the twin jaws of my plot outline and world building bible.
Thirty minutes now and still this damn scene! Shalooloo's mother is begging her to stay, saying that girls can't be Marklock riders, when I realize I've made a grave error.
Rapid clicking. The sound of blood flowing in my ears smothers the steady drone of craft secrets from Sanderson. I open my personal wiki and five additional outline documents — my screen segmented like a paleolithic centipede by countless diagrams, color-coded tables, and bulleted lists.
I can taste the stale air of my dimly lit apartment. How could I have overlooked the contradictions? Shalooloo's mother cannot be both an archetypal mentor AND a Lovable Challenger — it violated the ironclad laws of The Hero's Journey (problematic as aspects of the author may be), Save the Pussy™, and Sanderson's Fifth Law of Human-Like Relations.
Twenty minutes left. There's no time. I swallow, bring up my primary manuscript, and it is decided. The mother will relinquish her mentor status in this scene and one of the other two mentor characters can be retrofitted to fill the gap during edit phases two and three respectively.
And then I am flying. Do not mistake me, my ass never parts from the curved caress of my gaming chair, but the muse strikes as I transition to an exciting scene where Shalooloo starts her first day at Marklock Rider Academy and meets the envious older bully boy who constantly threatens to murder her but who will pivot at the novel's 70% mark into the lovable rascal archetype and be a possible love interest for book three wherein he’ll have a 'Big Damn Co-Hero Moment' (yet elegantly dodge a direct Bad Boy Crush trope).
The screaming of African Americans outside rouses me from my fervor. My cheeks burn, throat parched, as I note I've hit the one hour mark. With relief I see the word count is at nine thousand nine hundred and ten, which is close enough to the mark for this humble fantasist.
With what little time I have left before bed, I take my defenseless darlings to the sword like an ancient Pharaoh sighting a heap of Hebrew infants. Adverbs are slashed and burned in favor of powerful verbs like "ambled". Adjectives removed except in instances where they are crucial to bring characters into stark relief by describing eye color. I struggle to define passive voice but know it when I see it, and any possible sprout I spot is torn out to the root like a gardener among dandelions.
My labors complete, I collapse into my bed to dream of the many dream sequences to come.
Be sure to check out and support the wonderful folks over at &, and cheers to Issue 016!
Incredibly comical. Love it!