A long journey. I had planned my trip to New York City to do research about early Irish settlements for “Time & Memories”, a series of 6 books for which I had decided to take a year off to write the first one, which has then evolved into the idea of becoming a full-fledged author and the sad realisation that the series will not be happening in a life-time because of the lack of time on my co-authors side, which is why I am now focusing more on “Prison of Loneliness”, the working title for a book I am writing alone.
Little did I know. Little did I know about the living expenses in the United States, and I came to the following conclusion after having been here for only a short while: It borders to the stupidest things you can do, to live in NYC without income, the second most expensive city in the world after San Francisco, except maybe to do something worthy of being considered for the Darvin award, although this would at least help humanity as a whole considering overpopulation.
However! People come here without income, because they believe it can change their life. It is a gamble. Either you win the life of your dreams, or you lose everything. I begin to understand this American Dream. There seem to be countless possibilities here, institutions of all kind, people of all colour, culture of all sorts. You can find anything you are looking for. And you can be found by anybody looking for someone like you.
Nevertheless. This understanding does not change the clarity that this stay of mine will be only temporary. I did not like big cities to begin with. But New York deepens that conviction. Dirty, smelly, crowded, unnecessary expensive, loud, run-down, full of crime and deprived of nature.
Temporary as my stay may be, I learned a lot already during my first week. Apart from how there is an unwritten hierarchy among the different nationalities within the US, I learned how dialogues should be written, how pacing should be displayed, how scenes should be set up. I learned how my first draft of “Prison of Loneliness” does not make use of these techniques. And hence I am rewriting the whole story.
Futile as the perspective of publishing until end of the year may be with this decision, I am not hopeless. Although these developments can be seen as stumbling blocks on my way to sustainable self-employment, and although they can mean I need to take an office job again next year, they make me grow as author. I have now, more than ever before, the impression to be on the right path to write good novels that do not only satisfy my own sense of quality, but also that of my future readers.
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