*pops head out of rock to check the coast is clear, and makes way to computer*
(Warning this is very stream of thought, with terrible grammar, there is more focus on content)
So now it is another soul searching post, probably revealing how shallow and attention seeking I am, and thus why I am such a terrible human being.
Manic Muse was a character I created a few months before I started writing dreaming truths (DT), a blog that just went on, and on, for almost a year. With the lead up however to the making of dreaming truths I had many ideas and the directions it would go, all those factors were accounted for, I needed my protagonist to be compelling, a bit of an arse, but all in all a good person. This left me with a problem I couldn't write a completely new person that early, so I used a framework to build Manic, a lazy waste of intellect, who's life seems meaningless, destroyed, by forces out of his control, in his case Slendy Wendy.
If you got this far and you've seen my fondness for Manic overall you can probably guess that I modeled Manic on myself, you would be right, actually alot of the personality types in Dreaming truths come from friends of mine, I just... exaggerated them. Now I didn't want to make him just me, I at that stage was quite boring, lacked drive, confidence, all these things Manic had which I didn't. This led me to try and make a resolution, I would grow with my character to the point of reason, until he truly went into fiction.
Now, to this day Dreaming truths has gained 2666 pageviews, which when I started would have seemed like a yeah, I'll never reach that, yet here it is I could probably blame the sheer number of posts and if you do the actual math it comes to roughly 20ish people having read it, thought now I concentrate more on writing than having it read, I have a secret one which I have started that I won't release until next month or later. I actually still remember the first post I made, seeing 1 page view, 2, 5, 7, 10, then I started to reply to comments, Manic wasn't a fully settled character and I wasn't fully prepared for the attention it got, people I had been reading for the past 6-8 months reading what I wrote and commenting. I won't lie I was so nervous I started shaking and sweating like it was a sauna, I was nervous as hell, desperate to stay in character and make a good impression. After a while however activity died down, I had probably over egged whatever I was trying to achieve, and my confidence took an according blow. The blog still tumbled on regardless, got a little crossover wit ha blog ran by soulpatched, I like to think we helped each other though it's very unlikely I helped.
Now as the months tumbled by I kept going, never actually acquiring a great number of views, but I was getting more confident, I would no longer sweat and shake writing a post, no one had said it was terrible, alright it may not be literary genius but it's not complete rubbish. Unfortunately I had got bored writing just the Slender Man and I didn't know how much cohesion there was between the things called Fears I had read very little about. During part of DT you will notice that the posts are more sloppy and depressing with gaps longer than 2 or 3 days I was having writers block and going through a bout of depression, to be honest I think Manic saved me, standing out in front drawing me forwards even taunting me slightly, my creation was stronger than me, so I came back I think more solid, got out more, hang out with more people joined a rugby club and express my long standing love for Rugby, even got a girlfriend. As Manic rises generally I rise, when he falls the same, by the time I was coming to the end of DT I thought I could live without Manic, who at this point had basically become a persona for me, I would turn into Manic when I needed confidence, or do something I was scared to do. Unfortunately I made a bo bo towards the end, I was finding it hard to find an end for Manic, also my GF at the time, saw that I was become stressed with the blog and used to not sleep sometime thinking of stories, thinking how to write it. I looked for an easy fix, so I trolled for an already existing creature to help speed that along whilst resolving the son issue, unfortunately in my haste I neglected to look for any open source thing, so then came the the little trouble with the forum, the final test of my confidence I've come to see it, I was told that I had used characters I shouldn't and I said I was sorry, deleted the relevant post, and I was fine, I didn't feel any crushing sense of worthlessness, I shrugged it off and created the Ticking man to fulfill the purpose I needed, and then the blog finished, I laid Manic to permanent rest fallen to the creature he had run from all the time protecting he loves, a fitting death to a character so important to me.
That didn't last long obviously, I became a part of the fear mythos forum, about a month maybe two after the end, and I still can't let go of Manic.
-Manic Muse (Writer)
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