Fantasy Epic
May 23, 2024
The Broken Toymaker began as a simple story. You can actually read the short story that was responsible for the ideas behind the broader world and characters on the about me page of this site. That idea grew and the story grew with it.
The story of Elmer began in a middle-ish size town in a made-up world. He, and his world, bounced around my brain for quite a while. They developed as they bounced. Various ideas found their way into notebooks. They shifted, grew, changed, disappeared, and returned. In the meantime, life happened.
The process of me writing The Broken Toymaker was quite the journey. I learned as much about how I would write as I learned about how to make swords, how to sharpen knives, and the history and workings of steam engines. Writing is fun.
One of the fun things about writing is learning new things. Elmer needed to learn to carve wooden toys, to sharpen his knives and maintain his tools, and to learn to make weapons. His adventure included all of those skills, among others. I have never carved a wooden toy. Nor have I crafted any ancient, Japanese swords. I do sharpen my kitchen knives and was able to apply what I learned while researching to teach Elmer.
Similarly, I have kicked around some suspense/crime novel ideas. That means thinking up ways to kill people or commit other crimes. I had to figure out how to be a criminal. But who wants to be an average criminal, right? I needed fresh ideas, creative ways to kill, and inventive and fascinating crimes to commit. I talked to my kids and friends about ways to cause chaos and be a terrible person. (Dad of the year) I began carrying around a small notebook. It was titled, “murder book.” Then I began working for the juvenile court. I was going into the courthouse every day, and into other secure buildings. They required going through security. Perhaps, I thought, “murder book” is not the best plan. So, I scratched that out and changed it to crime book. Problem solved.
You cannot imagine what the suggested ads on my social media look like. When I ask the serial killer questions at work I often tick off my own responses internally. It doesn’t look good folks. Keep an eye on me; all I’m saying’.
Okay, so just to be clear, I do not actually respond to those questions as a sociopath or psychopath would. I was joking. I am heavily sarcastic. You will learn. And it takes the fun out of writing things about being weird in a problematic way when I then have to add the disclaimer. Moving on.
I had to discover a method, a process, for how I would bring Elmer and his world to life. That took longer than learning to make weapons. After several starts and stops, many nights of staring at a blank page or very frustrating paragraph, the story, and my method began to develop. Maybe I will write a bit about that method in a later post. For today, it came together. Then I met another roadblock.
The publishing industry. (cue ominous music and the specter of death)
I am just a working-class guy in the midwestern United States. My connections in the publishing industry are thin, at best. I have spent the last twenty-five years working in child welfare and juvenile justice. Publishing execs do not run in those circles. I started from scratch. Back into research mode. I read about the industry, researched the process, and read as much as I could of tips for how to break into the industry. Then I went back to editing and polishing my book.
I remember printing out the first draft of The Broken Toymaker. It was huge. I edited on paper, then re-thought my approach and decided to never do that again. So many dead trees. I still hear their screams. I did keep that copy though. It was a first.
After more polishing I decided I was ready to query literary agents. I alternated between work on the second book in the Toymaker series and writing query letters. The most consistent discovery I made was that I am terrible at marketing. Writing a letter to someone I have never spoken with and know very little about to explain a story that just made sense to me was difficult, at best. It felt like walking barefoot in a dark room that had Legos strewn about the floor. And random cats bit your ankles when you got too close. Or something like that at least.
When I say it just made sense, I’ll have to dig into that in a later post. I had not thought of it in that way. It’s an interesting thought.
I queried, failed, and tried again. After a couple years of that and no traction I gave up. I shelved The Broken Toymaker and the first draft of the Toymaker’s Guild. Around that time, I was also in a bad place with the day job. Life took some dark turns. I got a little broken. Then I focused on survival, and recovery. Then Covid-19 hit.
In the midst of working from home, not leaving the house except for what work and other necessary parts of life required and looking for a space for creative life to happen; I began to think again about writing. I dusted off The Broken Toymaker (figuratively. It’s electronic). After more edits and re-writes, I researched self-publishing. I did more writing. I re-discovered why I like it so much.
Now, here I sit. I’m in a coffee shop, waiting for my truck to get an oil change and such, and I’m not at work. I built a website. That was a painful experience. And I sit here writing the first post for the news and updates page on my website. It has been a journey. I will likely write more about that journey as this moves along. Like the story of Elmer and his friends, this process has been quite the epic. The thing is, it’s just getting started.
June 3, 2024
One thing I have learned about myself through my journey as a writer is that I am not good at marketing. People be out there all networking, dancing on the Tik Tok, doing readings, going to conferences. I am an introvert.
I am an introvert. Just in case I wasn’t clear.
Still, I am beginning to figure out some of this marketing stuff. In case it was unclear, I have a website. I am also on Good Reads, answering questions, posting links, and figuring out all of the technology. I have been wrestling with this blog portion of the website for a week or two. But I finally have a simple blog up and running. And, bonus, I still have both of my eyeballs. I almost plucked them from my face.
So, make the most of my suffering. Read my random thoughts and such in this space. Go check out my page on Good Reads. Set up an account. Be my friend. Make other friends. Do other social type things.
As things progress with my books, with life, and with my writing I will leave some updates here. Please stop by and leave a comment, ask a question, and get an update. I appreciate it.
June 25, 2024
One of the many joys of where my writing is at presently is being able to go each day to my day job and work instead of writing. *Please note the dripping sarcasm.*
I actually do like my job. It is difficult, emotionally draining, and the pay is terrible. Sounds incredible, right? I wonder why they don’t ask me to work on hiring and marketing materials. A mystery, to be sure. But I do actually like it. I get to spend my days working to make my community safer and trying to make a difference in the lives of youths who many would rather not deal with. It’s exhausting, but worth it.
It is not a creative endeavor. It does not feed that core part of me who is a creative. In some ways it actually sucks the creativity from my soul, drawing every ounce into the blackest abyss. Okay, maybe too dramatic. It is not a creative activity. It requires heart, intelligence, hard work, quick thinking, and patience. And, as I wrote, it is work that matters. It matters to me. It impacts lives directly.
That lack of creativity is not to say the way I do the job is not creative. I sometimes take a unique approach, seeking what will work in the moment.
I was working with a youth about two years ago. He was in the juvenile detention center and facing some very serious charges. He was having a tough day and I went to his unit to speak with him. He didn’t want to talk and for whatever reason the detention center staff had me talking to him through a door. HIs face was in the small, glass, window and he wasn’t saying anything. He was barely responding, but he stayed by the door. I tried a variety of very social-worky approaches to break through. That means I pestered him. Nothing worked.
He randomly raised his hand and placed it against the glass.
I responded with, “Oh, are we doing the hand against the glass thing?”
He looked up at me. I grinned an overly eager grin. He broke. Shaking his head, he laughed. Then he began to speak.
Two years later, I visited him in the City Justice Center. Through that glass partition and into a very cliche phone I spoke with him about another serious case, on top of the previous one. He was quiet. I placed my hand against the glass and asked, with a straight face, “Do we need to do the hand against the glass thing?”
He looked up at me. Disbelief registered on his face. Then he smiled. He declined my offer of a precious moment. He did, however, smile and admit he remembered that day from two years prior when I broke out that gem to get him to talk.
Who needs evidence-based practice when you have goofy sarcasm?
So, I do bring some creativity to the work. I think my clients appreciate it, even if my boss does not.
My point, besides making sure I will never be labeled a social worker, to get back to it; is how my day job interferes with my writing time. For some reason, my boss wants me to work when I am at work. The nerve. I intend to write when I get home more often than I actually do. Despite high intentions, I often get home tired, somewhat drained, and looking for a respite for this introverted soul from a day of human interaction.
When I do manage to scrape together the emotional energy to write it is nice to feel to flow of the work. It feeds that introverted, creative, somewhat odd, soul of mine to make up worlds, people, interactions, and such. The “and such” is often where the magic exists.
It’s about time to eat dinner. Two dogs are inching closer to me on the couch, feeling their internal clocks chime out the dinner hour. One just gave up on staring at me, nose inches from my face. Now she is shunning me, I think. She doesn’t realize how cute a pouting dog is.
For now, I will wrap up this post. Post dinner I will pull the laptop back out and see just how much energy and focus I can muster. I have characters waiting for their stories to be told. I can feel them staring at me as well.
The End
January 1, 2025
That title feels dark. It wasn’t meant to be, but I have only just begun this post. We’ll see where it goes
2024 has ended. I see all kinds of year in review type social media posts but I refuse to do one of those. Mostly that is because I generally refuse to participate in social media trends, or other trendy things. Also, I spent the year living my life, working, trying to keep up with laundry and dishes, trying to be healthier, failing and eating piles of tacos, trying to write more, paying bills, cuddling with dogs, and hanging out with my kids. It’s just life.
I think that most of us don’t have the Instagram highlights, traveling to exotic places, taking photos of fabulous meals, well-attended parties, and the like. Maybe I am just not the person who is taking photos of those moments. I would rather be present in them, experiencing them, living them.
Of course, being broke means exotic places include state parks, the zoo, some random spot in the city with a cool view, or just being in the back yard after the grass is cut and the dog poo is cleaned up. Maybe my version of exotic places needs some work. Maybe I need a sugar mama.
To sum up, which I said I was not going to do, 2024 was both a mess and a wonder. Bad things happened. Good things happened. I sometimes made a difference at work, probably more than I realize due to the type of work I do. I did some writing, though never enough for my preferences. My current work in progress is larger than it was when the year began. I have about six other ideas for projects that sit in notebooks and my head, impatiently waiting their turn, reminding me of how much more writing I would like to be doing. Characters knock around in my skull, developing, talking, pestering, There is a list of books in my queue that need purchasing for research purposes.
This was the first full year without my brother. Anniversaries, holidays, birthdays, days. Those moments of not remembering the loss of him. Those times when the sharp pain of it returns, or when the dull ache is just present. There is the thinking about his kids, and how that hole in their lives must feel so much larger than what it feels to me.
Getting back to books. Right now I am re-reading City of Thieves, by David Benioff. It is one of my favorite books. It’s a love story, in multiple ways. But it also has Nazis, snipers, cannibals, figure skaters, hiking, hiding, bravery, and other such random things. It has people. People in terrible situations, living those terrible moments as if they are just what happens in life. That is one of the many things I like about that story. It reminds me of the terrible things that so many people live through, and how, in the moment, those people just live it. They are not stepping back to look at the situation and think about how insane it is. They just put one foot in front of the other.
There is a place for stepping back, looking at a moment, or a life, and examining it. Sometimes we need to stop of see how terrible something is, or how incredible. I am fortunate enough to be someone who is able to step back. It can also be a curse, I suppose. But, as I think about that stepping back I think about moments with my kids, in the car while they sing along with a song on the radio, talking about what they are interested in, hearing about their day, playing games together. I am fortunate enough to understand the treasure in those moments.
I can also step back from the noise of everyday life and see the horrors, the troubling patterns, the social and behavioral patterns that do damage, or threaten damage. That can be a curse, but it’s also great for writing material.
Speaking of the apocalypse, has anyone seen videos from Boston Dynamics? It’s a robotics company and they develop all kinds of incredible robots, and then they hit them. And, we now have AI everywhere. I have seen Terminator. Those Boston Dynamics guys have to stop hitting the robots. They are gonna team up with AI, watch Thanos, and then decide to kill us all. Stop bullying them. How can they not see this?
Anyway, this post has become awfully random. Really, I had some problems with my website and had to reach out to tech support to get it fixed. They fixed it and now I am messing around with the website and thought I should do some update type posting. Of course, I can’t figure out why this post ended up at the bottom and previous posts posted the newest at the top. That is for another day. I have to shave and shower because we are going to the piercing shop.
So, 2024 ended. 2025 has begun. Still breathing. Still writing. Still living. There should be some moments this year, both good and bad. I hope we don’t blow ourselves up and get all extinct. We’ll see how it goes.
The Magic, or Some Such Thing
January 7, 2025
Have you ever watched someone play the guitar, not performing on stage or putting on a show, but just sitting alone and really playing the guitar? If you watch, you will see it. There is a moment, or several moments all strung together really, when you will see the magic wash over them. They will continue playing a song, but they will be elsewhere. They are in that creative space within themselves, lost in the music.
If you’ll look for it you can see the moment all around you. You can find it in so many moments and all kinds of endeavors.
For those sick freaks who like math, I bet they find that flow when the math just makes sense and they no longer have to think about it. It just comes together. When a painter paints, when a skater skates, when a wood carver carves. When a swordsmith hammers a blade into shape. When a teacher engages minds. It runs through so many activities, and so many people.
I remember watching Jim Carrey receiving an award. I don’t recall when it was or what the award was for, but I do remember his performance. He showed up to the awards show in character. He was a hippie, counter-culture guy. He was immersed in the character. He arrived in character, spent the evening interacting with others while in character, and accepted the award in character. It was amazing. He wasn’t acting. He became that guy, if only for a short while.
Writing isn’t just a matter and sitting down and typing words. It is, but it isn’t. There is also magic involved. It is an experience that is difficult to describe, and easily as difficult to force. It just happens when it happens.
I sit down to write and sometimes it is a struggle. Sometimes the words don’t want to come. Other times they show up just fine. Either way, the answer is writing. When the words don’t come, write. It can be changed later if there is a need. But the writing must start before it can go anywhere.
There are times I sit down to write and I do a good bit of storytelling, but I am fighting for every word. I keep fighting and manage to get more of the story to come out. There are other times though, times when the story comes forward and ends up on the page and I can’t account for where the time has gone. This isn’t some spooky, alien abduction story or touchy feely out of body experience bit.
“Oh man, like the words just come to me. I’m like in a trance and my body flows into the keyboard through my fingertips.”
No. Just no.
There is just a flow sometimes. And it is amazing. It is a place for creativity that feels like magic. It’s exhausting, and exhilarating. It drinks up all of your energy and is absolutely fulfilling. It doesn’t make any sense, but is also the only thing that makes any sense at all.
I love it.
There are many reasons why I love to write. This magic that flows through the process, that state of being when the story just flows, is one of the best times. And I was thinking about that today. I thought I would come home for a very busy day at work and write about it. What I have just rambled about may make very little sense. Often, how this writing thing works make very little sense to me. But I like it.
That’s all for now.
Muses, Dog Tongues, and Coffee
March 1, 2025
I was awake earlier than I had hoped for this Saturday morning. After another stressful and contentious week at work I was tired and hoping to sleep in a little. As it is with many things in our world today, my work has become more conflict-ridden, and more conflicted, as of late. I work in a delinquency court, so there was already some conflict built into what I do. I must admit, I am tired.
In being tired I hoped to sleep in a little today, not like teenager sleeping in (that is some marathon sleeping), but some lazing around in bed. Instead of that experience I had dog tongues lapping my exposed hands, and elbows, and face, and thoughts of my newest book idea bouncing around in my brain. I tried to tamp those things down, to dodge the dogs, and the thoughts. Efforts on both accounts were foolish. And, as a writer, I know better than to postpone the gold mine of those thoughts. They are here, in the moment, for a reason. Reminded of that, I dragged my self out of bed.
“Self,” I said. “You know better. Get up and write some things down.”
So, following paying attention to the dogs and ingesting some food, coffee, and social media, I wrote those ideas down. Now, I am going to continue to research them and write about them.
I have slowly been working on the third book in my Broken Toymaker series. The above-mentioned job keeps me very busy and consumes much of my emotional energy. The trick to me being good at my job, among having built a skill set that is useful in that field over the course of twenty-six years, is that I care. I have a very developed sense of empathy, the ability to see patterns and connections in behavior, and I care about people and justice. That reality takes a very cautious approach as I can slide into burnout as I try to fix everything and be everything to everyone, and I can forget reality and expect those with more power and influence than me to see what we do, who and what we are responsible for, and how we do it in a similar way. That is not reality. I often find myself the agitator, and I am okay with that. It can also be exhausting. And it can use up my creative energy and take from my other work of writing. Interestingly, it can also be a muse. Dude, I may be broken.
The work on the Broken Toymaker has been slow, for various reasons. Part of that may be the timing of the story. It is a story that holds some universal truths about humans, nature, and the importance and impact of relationships. Today may not be the day for those universal truths, but for others. Maybe today is the day for some very specific truths, truths specific to our time, our challenges, and our world. The Broken Toymaker holds some of those truths as well. Lately, however, I have been wondering if this moment does not require a more direct approach to the truths of today. It may be necessary for me to work on something else at a time.
I apologize to the six people what have read the first two toymaker books and have been mostly patiently waiting fort the third. Do not hate me. I will get to it. I love the story and appreciate that others do as well. It may just take me a few minutes longer to bring it to life.
Any who may read this and know me are likely aware that I can be somewhat rebellious. Not in a rebellion for the sake of rebellion sort of way. I do not like being told what to do, one of several reasons why police work and military service were not for me. Many of my bosses have come to both hate and love that aspect of me working for them, how much love or hate probably depends on the day. I also have a very developed sense of justice. I do not tolerate bullies. I strive for justice, being on the side of right, and I rarely allow anyone, powerful or not, to tell me what justice is through their lens. I have spent a lifetime discovering and understanding justice. I have also found that people in power, particularly those who seek out or crave power, easily forget what justice looks like. Justice is not whatever they say it is, nor is it whatever I say it is. It just is what it is, without regard for who is in power.
Whoa, deep.
Moving on. I have this idea for a book, characters, ideas, a story. It is developing, and bouncing around in my skull, day and night. I am reading, paying attention to the world and events, learning and assessing, and researching the history, people, ideas, and events that shape our world and these ideas in my head. This idea is somewhat rebellious, timely, and it has me excited.
It occurs to me that conflict may be my muse. I was having a conversation with a friend the other day and one topic was muses and how they impact our creative energy and flow. I had not thought of my creativity in terms of a muse, nor considered that I really needed one. As I sit here this morning, listening to the dogs bark at anyone foolish enough to make noise outside of our house, I think I am beginning to discover my muse more clearly than I had previously.
I say it is conflict, but that is too narrow an understanding. I think, perhaps, it is us. Our world, the people in it, the events and interactions that make up us. In my work in the court, and in previous roles, that has been the root of my success and my frustration. I love people. I am also an introvert and empath, so sometimes people get to be too much. But that isn’t because I hate people (most of the time). I get frustrated because I care about people and want us to be the best of who we can be. The frustration comes when us being imperfect frustrates me when I know we can be so much more than we often are. Interestingly, one of the themes of The Broken Toymaker is how the imperfections that make up us also help to make us beautiful, valuable, and wonderful. I believe that is also true. We are complicated.
People, society, interaction, and all of the life that goes with that are a big part of what inspires me to write, and to care about how we do things and how we impact each other and our world.
Paying attention to people, to world events, to local interactions, and to everything in between can often be super painful. It can overwhelm easily and often does. But it is also sustenance. It is also what prompts me to pursue this idea that in climbing around in my brain.
I feel like changes are coming in my life, in my creative life, and I am both terrified and excited. I am curious to see how it comes together and how if turns out. I am gearing up for the battles, both external and internal, that are parts of the process of creating.
For now, I must proof and post this, go shave and shower, and get on with the day. I have things to do, research to continue, and life to live. It will be on my website, davidgaitherauthor.com, and I will likely throw it up on social media as well. Wherever you are reading it, go check it out on the other platform as well. There may be some fun stuff to read there.