Dad’s right. Let’s be honest with
ourselves and do some calculations. I have at least 19 stories going. If I
wrote 1 per year (haha – *sob*) it would still take me 18 years to finish them
all. Do you honestly think that in 19 or even 15 years, you’re still gonna be
in love with the Cyla story enough to finish it? Do you think that you’ll be
able to even look at a page of your writing without crying? You’ll say, nope.
This is garbage. Literally every word needs to be rewritten. What is plot,
even? Did I know the words character development? What was the point of writing
this, again? Ugh, saggy middle syndrome. I’m so bored I’m gonna cry.
So Cyla doesn’t seem that bad to
you now. So you think you can do it. But remember this – once I started a story
about a fairy princess named Elisabeth. Before I go any further, allow me to
point out that I walked right into the fairy princess cliché. One of the worst
clichés. I didn’t pull a unique spin on it. I just walked right into it. Now,
though I thought I developed my world well – I’d made big maps, made up and
drawn some weird plants, drawn the various strange creatures there and even
established two cities in one country – I knew nothing about worldbuilding. The
royal family was basically a rich American family that dressed ‘medievally’, owned
lots of land and had a couple servants. What did they DO all day? Did they have
a country to run, by any chance? Nobody knows.
And I won’t even start on my
disorganized badguys and Scarabiss.
I had some cute ideas, and lots of them
inspired the imagination and gave me a chance to play in the fantasy world, but
I made on so slowly that by the time I’d gotten to maybe chapter 6 I ran out
completely. Lost interest for a while, put it on hold. And you know what? I
never took it off the back burner. It stayed there until eventually my
inevitable new stories were better, richer, and more interesting than my
earliest ideas, and I had to come face-to-face with the fact that my old
stories weren’t worth it anymore. They needed to be put away, considered
‘Archived’, probably never to be picked up again. Ever. Maybe when I’m 80 I’ll
look at them and go, wouldn’t it be fun if I took my first stories and made
something beautiful out of – well, garbage, as it were? But honestly? Will I
ever have time for something that’s so much just a diverting idea, some pages
that give me a bit to daydream about?
The Archives folder of my jump
drive is the black pit of my writing life. It’s the place every story dreads
most to go. I’ve Archived 21 stories, and that’s not counting the stories I had
on paper that I dropped. My characters and stories are constantly contending
with each other, competing for my attention, wondering who will be the next one to drop off. If a story
doesn’t keep calling my name, getting support from my friends and nagging me to
write it, it will eventually sink out of thought and relevance, and when one
day I find its dying document moldering in my Side Stories folder, I’ll look at
it in disgust and say nope. Not worth it. That ship has sailed. I don’t have
time to write a fanfic about Ninjago. Those characters were so poorly
developed, I don’t even care anymore. And the story will be condemned to the
Archives folder, never to rise again.
I don’t want that to happen to A
Way Out. Or Dormaimcraven, for that matter. With other stories I’m not so sure.
What would I lose if The Woods of Faira Noran became little more than a memory,
or if I gave up trying to finish A Sketch in Time? Am I really attached to
those two girls whose personalities are too much like me, too generic, and too
similar? Is the fact that I like Valen’s hair and Sketch’s accent enough to
keep me in love with their ship, to make me long to Write Them a Beautiful
Story? If I can ask myself questions like that, I already know that the time is
running short for those stories, and they need a major overhaul, or they need
to be given more life, or they just need to be finished.
A Way Out, on the other hand, and
Dormaimcraven - and actually a couple of new stories which would be amazing if
I’d actually develop them – are still my babies. I still do fanart for them
regularly. And I want so, so badly to finish them, to bring them out to their
full potentials. But between school and volunteering and reading and social
life and art and college and a job and travels and making presents for people
and leading various clubs and groups and teams, do I honestly have time to
write a story a year?
…
If I did nothing except eat,
sleep, write, and yeah go to the bathroom, for a year, could I honestly finish a story in a year? I
don’t know. I’d probably get writer’s block. Even if I didn’t (again I say
hah), I could write maybe 5 chapters a month. That’s 60 chapters. Not bad.
But even if I carried on this
intense and unrealistic writing routine for 18 years, supernaturally avoiding
Writer’s Block and the I Just Had a New Story Idea complex, my life would be a
mess socially and as far as jobs go and I would hate myself and all of my
stories.
So let’s be honest. Considering I
write, ermph, a sentence per day total on average, and even my favorite stories
have taken me about a year per two chapters at best,
IS THERE ANY WAY I AM EVER GOING
TO FINISH ALL MY STORIES AT THIS RATE?
And because the answer’s obvious,
WHY AM I TRYING TO?
I’m not even trying that hard.
I’m just saying to myself, ‘Eh, if I dabble in my stories here and there they
will get finished before I die, as long as I don’t give up.’
Ok, granted. But honestly. Who in
the world could endure years of working slowly away on a story about two cute
pixies with little personality and no solid plot? Even you, Bronze, half
German, part Scottish, part Irish and all Stubborn, even you don’t have the
tenacity or plumb stupidity to keep that up. If you dropped the Princess
Elisabeth Kidnapped story, which once meant so much to you, who’s to say A Way
Out won’t get dropped some day too?
I was talking to Dad about this
last night and he’s right. I have to pick one. I have to pick one and write it.
I have to put Dormaimcraven in the corner, even if it hurts Rilf’s feelings and
makes Misty cry (wow Misty never cries). Even if it cuts me to the bone. Even if it’s like sending your own
children away for five years. I have to stop trying to continue Elias’s story
or In Search of a Gift or even my lovely ELTF, and just let them molder. If I
come back in five or ten years and I don’t love them anymore, it has to be
worth the sacrifice.
Because I love A Way Out. Luke
needs to learn that he’s not in control, and that’s okay. Bryndis just needs
some light her life, precious broken girl. Eron needs to see that he’s not
perfect, life’s not perfect, and imperfect people really, really need love.
Joyce needs to come out of her shell and live for others, honestly! And Ashley…
well, I love Ashley.
These characters. I can’t let
their story die. I keep putting it off and telling myself I don’t have time and
trying to balance my writing between them and all my other stories and oh – the
headache! It won’t work.
And I know it’s daunting to say,
‘I’m finally gonna do it. I’m just gonna write this story, the whole thing,’
and I know there’s writer’s block ahead and I’m going to make so many mistakes,
but it’s worth it. Because writing a story, I’ve finally realized, is for me an
all-or-nothing commitment. It’s worth it. I know it’s worth it.
So to wrap it up with a solid
application, here’s the plan.
I’m kinda busy with BEST Robotics
right now but that’s over on October 31rst. And the next day NaNoWriMo starts.
I did that last year and I know I said ‘Never again, it’s too much’, but let’s
face it, that may be exactly what I need to kick off a serious, intense period
of Actually Writing My Story. So that gives me over a month to rethink AWO,
plan, ask myself why I’m doing this, what have I gotten myself into, brainstorm
for some semblance of a plot and get to know my characters. Once NaNo starts
I’ll make myself another writer’s contract and write for one hour per day, or
one page per day, whichever happens first.
I’m gonna die.
But there’s no other Way Out. If
I really care about this story, I’ve got to prove it. I’ve got to commit. It’s
worth it.
