How to Win the Immortal Game
- Andi May
- Dec 1, 2024
- 10 min read
Updated: Mar 28

Happy December.
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve posted anything on the blog. But to be honest, though this blog also translates as a portfolio, I know these types of posts are generally just for my own selfish well-being, anyway. Just a post to talk myself through what I’ve been doing. Helps keep the brain going, ya know?
I do, in fact, write almost every day. The days that I don’t write are usually the days that I force myself not to. This Thanksgiving break I had to actively tell myself to take a breather from the things I spend most of my time doing: dance and writing. I’m thankful and proud those are things I put so much effort into, but a mental break can be in order when you get as obsessive as I do. . . High-functioning anxiety is my middle name. Unlike most, I work harder and faster when I’m anxious. I get a lot of things done. . . though not necessarily in a healthy way. Sometimes I get so obsessive in my own head I have to stop and make sure I’m still interacting with the rest of the world outside of my head, and that I’m not completely shirking all responsibilities. But then I get anxious about all those responsibilities and over-process them. Thus begins the spiral of mayhem.
This is a personal problem, I know.
But at least I’m lucky to say that generally the two things (dance and writing) that get me worked up are the same two things that calm me down.
It’s about balance, folks.
ANYWAY, having said all that, though this blog (or lack thereof) may suggest otherwise, I am still writing. Constantly. Just lately the writing hasn’t made it out of Google Docs. This particular chunk of writing I’m blogging right this very second is to get me out of the story I’m constantly writing about, to remind myself to get out of my own head and space from time to time. To put a little more faith in myself to share writing with others.
I’ve been extra twitchy thinking about my writing lately because this upcoming week will mark one year since I self-published my first novella. I hold onto calling it my “first” because I’m determined for it not to be my last. I still dream of publishing the traditional way, though, as I kind of already knew going into self-publishing that marketing would be the true dark side of it all. Traditional publishing would have somebody else do that for me. Friends. . . I have no idea what I’m doing. I’d rather spend my time writing more and more than trying to figure out the ways of marketing on Amazon, anyway.
I’ve also been sending out queries to literary agents consistently since I finished my manuscript just a few months after graduating from grad school (about two and half years now). You know, the constant letters and excerpts of writing I send out to literary agents of me basically saying “PLEASE LIKE ME. PLEASE LIKE THE STORY I AM WRITING.”
I’ve now gotten over a hundred rejections, a few dozen no-responses, and currently I have seven queries still out and waiting to hear back from. Everything I researched (to try and ease my pain) says that it’s common to get this many rejections. Some of the best writers and most successful writers have all said they went through hundreds of nos before they got the one yes. If you know me like you know me, Rick Riordan still stands as my favorite author, and even he said he’s had more rejections than he can count. Reading about that in his own words on his own blog has certainly made me feel a lot better.
I will keep working for that one yes. I’ve written too much and come too far not to.
This story that I pour 99% of my writing effort into is a story that’s been around my head since I was in middle school. I keep seeing memes that go along the lines of “do you ever come across a notebook of the first few chapters of a novel and hopeful series that you wrote in middle school or are you normal?” and feel attacked.
No, I’m not normal. Yes, I do have a notebook like that. And that same story in that notebook became my graduate thesis, an inspiration for my first published work, and the work I’m still writing about almost daily.
I’ve been working on this story for so long I got curious about how many words I’ve written. I went through my good ol’ Google Docs and did a word count check on every draft, published work, or excerpt I could find or think of that pertained to this story. Over the years I’ve written a few different versions of a first book of series. One version of that was up on Wattpad for a long while, another (much better) version was my graduate thesis. I also wrote some excerpts as assignments through undergrad and grad school, and then there were a few drafts I did after all my collegiate writing that I worked on before sending it out to agents. Then there’s the drafts I’ve worked on for a book two in the series, one of which was when I tried punching out NaNoWriMo (Google what that is if you don’t know). I’m actually working on editing a more finalized book 2 right now, while I’m writing a book 3. . . multitasking. And then there’s the drafts toward my published novella, a story that is a short prequel to this much bigger story.
All of those drafts that I found, across all my saves and my Docs, I have written 838,862 words.
If you put those words into a standard novel format, that’s about 2,796 pages.
Tolkien undoubtedly has me beat, though.
But I’ve still got sooo many more ideas for this story, so many more things for my characters to experience.
I don’t know if it’s narcissistic of me to delve so deep into a story that I created, of characters that I’ve grown so attached to and hope to bring to the light (so to speak), but I suppose every artist has to have some sort of narcissism to be able to have the confidence to put their work out there. I feel like I owe my characters the hardwork, now. So ultimately that means I owe it to myself.
Keep. Going.
Now this post was an update, just needed another narcissistic moment to write myself through some things. Writing about the writing is good for the soul, too, I have to tell myself. Words, human communication, it’s such an integral part of who are. Using communication through a more artistic lens (i.e. dance, writing, filming, painting, any art you can think of) is what makes it feel more thoughtful. More heartfelt.
Keep absorbing the arts. Keep absorbing good stories. I went to Practice Thanksgiving (Friendsgiving, if you will) hosted by my bestie and her parents a few weeks ago, I get to go every year, and right before we eat her dad always goes around the whole house for everybody to say what they’re thankful for. I’m thankful for so much in my life, but this year I wanted to shake it up and I said I was thankful for stories. It’s a loaded meaning. A story could be about Middle Earth or Camp Half-Blood, but then I also want to hear a story about your day at work. Your interaction with your server at a restaurant. A story about why you cook your ramen a certain way. Life is full of stories put together, and I’m thankful for them all. They’re what keep us going in this crazy world.
A lot of writers say it’s important to read as much as possible, absorb books and stories from other writers to keep yourself sharp as a writer, and to find inspiration. Just as I’d tell my dance students to watch other dancers, take classes from other teachers, communicate with the convention faculty. It’s important. But now reflecting on my idealogy in terms of good stories, there’s a good story everywhere in all different shapes of media, especially in this day and age. TV or streaming shows, movies, video games, comic books. I feel like I don’t really read as much as people may think I do, but I am constantly absorbing stories. I think it’s fair that some video games out there should get as much respect for good storytelling as a book would. Same with movies or shows or musicals or what have you. And never be discouraged by a Rotten Tomatoes or IGN review, or some Instagram comment by somebody who may not like a story that you love. That right there is why it’s important to absorb as many stories as possible. The more you experience the more chances you have to love something. And nobody loves the same. That’s what makes life more exciting.
Okay so now I was hoping that all of this would tie into the thing I was hoping to end this post with. Though I’ve been sucked into a video game quite hardcore lately (Dragon Age: The Veilguard) I did also finish a book a few weeks ago. I generally read books for escapism, but sometimes those books that transport me to another time or place leave me with something here in the real world. Sometimes they leave me with something that really sits with me in such a profound way. The way this post went as I wrote it (I write by the seat of my pants, always, with no true idea how things will end), I wasn’t sure if I could end the post with an excerpt like I hoped.
But. . . yes I can. Because it all boils down to one thing. The excerpt will explain what that one thing is in just a moment. . .
This excerpt reflects on everything that I personally have been thinking about lately, and most certainly reflects everything in this post. The anxiety, the stress, the uncertainty, all the harsher things that life throws at you. . .
Masters of Death by Olivie Blake. I started reading it on my Nook but ended up needing it as a hard copy, too. It’s one of those books—those stories— that I find myself jealous of in the best way possible. It’s written in such a way that inspires me to keep writing. I wish I could write like how this was written. It’s a story that has a fairly big cast of characters, and a story that isn’t told linearly. Blake had all these strings weaving in and out of each other that might feel sporadic at first, but when it all tied together everything just fell into place. How she told the story became the most integral part of how each character got its ending, and what kind of message the story was trying to portray.
It’s a fun story of ghosts, vampires, angels, reapers, demons, gods and immortals of all different pantheons, but deep at its core the story was commenting on mortality. Commenting on the human experience. Like I said, I usually read books for fun, fantasy, and adventure, but when there’s a deeper meaning behind it that connects to life, real life, those types of things I hope to carry with me always.
I hope to remember this excerpt always. I’ll keep rereading it always. That doesn’t happen a lot for me. How it was written, what it all means. . . Damn. It's written in a way that reminds me of how I talk myself through some really annoying anxiety attacks. . . maybe that's why it hits me so hard.
I’ll give some context:
Fox D’Mora is a mortal that was raised by a personified Death whom he refers to as his godfather (and calls him Papa). This excerpt here is from the end of the story, where Fox has to play the Immortal Game against Death, a game that Death always wins. . .
“Well,” Death interrupted, looking pleasantly surprised. “Are you ready to win the game, then?”
“What?” Fox asked, startled. “How?”
“Like this,” Death said, and stepped toward him. “I love you, Fox.”
Fox blinked. That was it? It seemed so abruptly underwhelming, and at the same time, puzzling beyond comprehension. His godfather accepted him, valued him, loved him—the only thing Fox had ever really wanted—and for that to be a loss, it rendered the whole game staggeringly convoluted, and also, impenetrably fucked.
Because it seemed, for a moment, that his only option was indifference, with no other alternative to circumvent pain. So, to love was to lose? Was that always true? Was it necessarily resigning yourself to something horrible, so rife with cyclical irony that the only ending you could ever achieve for having opened your heart to another being was one that caused pain so invariably, because no matter what happened, for better or worse, its only plausible outcome was loss? The choice was untenable, then, because it wasn’t one. If all of this was written, predestined, like living with your hands tied behind your back, then what was even the point? If the only way to win was not to feel, then it seemed very clear that the only way not to lose was never to play. Never, in fact, to live.
So then it was a curse, existence. Life was a death sentence, after all, and even the sweetest of loves would still always end. Fox, a mortal, had never had any other choice but to accept it.
Although—
It occurred to him, absurdly, that perhaps there was a flaw in his deduction after all. Because as his godfather never tired of reminding him, Fox was a mortal. He wasn’t a very good one, obviously, but he still was one, and perhaps he’d been misunderstanding everything htis entire time. He assumed it made him inferior somehow—he’d assumed this whole time that in routinely pointing out his mortality, Death had always intended to belittle him—but he was wrong about that, wasn’t he? Mortality wasn’t shameful. And it wasn’t weakness, because it was what made him different from the others who’d played at these tables only to lose.
Because maybe, Fox thought with a sudden thunderclap of clarity, maybe it was a choice. To love, to forgive, to lose, to live—it was always a choice, and thus, the fact that he was a mortal was finally one worth celebrating. Because it would end! Maybe that was the entire secret, and therefore the whole thing was actually astonishingly simple. That over and over, he was presented with the same impossible decision—live and suffer, love and grieve—but still, every time, with all his being, his answer was and would always be yes. It would be difficult and painful, and however it ended, it would end—but still, he could choose it. To live, to love; it was always a choice, and inherently a brave one, to face down certain doom with open arms.
Fox D’Mora would never be more invulnerable than the moment he realized that he could feel it all, no matter the costs, and still say yes.
So he did.
“I love you too, Papa,” Fox said.
Death smiled.
And then—
“Fox D’Mora has won the Immortal Game,” announced Raphael, and slowly, the bright white walls fell away.
— from Masters of Death, by Olivie Blake
Choose to live. Choose to love.
— Andi May
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