Actually Writing My Story

Okaythisblogpostisreallylongbutit'sworthreadingIpromise

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.