A small subset of the already small subset of people who actually read this blog have had a particular interest in my plans to write a novel. A good number of them have been so kind as to volunteer to proofread drafts of the first few chapters, and you guys have been awesome. And I’ve gotten a good number of questions about when they’ll be getting the next chapter. Well, I’m sad to say that the last chapter I sent out was the last thing I worked on in the book. I totally fell right off working on it once the Fall Semester started up and I’ve not put a solid minute of writing into the thing since I stopped.
I’ve explained about why I stopped writing here, and all the same reasons apply to the novel.
One thing about when I stop writing something and later pick it back up, is I’ll re-read the first drafts of the first few chapters and often, because I’m not in the same mental “place” anymore, the writing will no longer be acceptable to me. I just throw up my hands and toss out the old work and start all over again, or often, ditch the project entirely since I become so disheartened by my previous work. I’m the worst critic of my own writing, and I doubt that will EVER change– at least until I actually get something published, then I fully expect my work to be deconstructed and destroyed by far better writers.
If what I write gets enough notability, I’d hope for an exceedingly detailed entry on TV Tropes, too– a site I love and hate for its ability to suck me in for hours and hours, decimating productivity with its loving breakdown of writing devices and conventions which compose most works. If you click that link, by the way, don’t blame me for your own loss of productivity. However, my reading of TV Tropes has certainly provided me with a great deal of fuel for plot ideas– and no, not necessarily by straight up copying of them; I much prefer aversions, inversions, parodies and subversions. Indeed, after visiting the site to get the link to the front page to add to this entry, I spent 10 minutes reading tropes instead of writing this thing. TV Tropes rocks and is a must-read for anyone who loves the study of writing conventions.
Anyway, in my attempt to pick up where I left off in writing, I re-read what I’d written, and I experienced something altogether new to me:
I liked what I’d written, and I don’t feel any need to change it right now, except maybe in minor ways to be done down the road.
It was astonishing. So, now I’m trying to get myself in the right mindset to write this thing– but I’m finding it hard. So, I’m doing various things I do before I write a new story to get myself into it. For one thing, I’m looking again at the direction I’m wanting to take the story– and I’m becoming far more interested in taking the book in a different direction than what one would expect from the style I’ve taken in the first few chapters. Secondly, I’m concentrating on developing the settings more– the idea for the story came to me from a dream I had, so I’m looking at my dream notes that spawned this story. I’m paying particular interest in the high school the main character will be transferring into, since its striking visual-architectural style is what made the dream so memorable. Finally, I’m working on looking at what makes this character different from me, rather than at the similarities I’ve drawn from.
In any case, I am back to working on the story, but I’m going to need a bit of time before I can put my fingers to the keyboard in order to actually tap out the concept. And yeah, if you’ve been pre-reading my stuff, I’ll probably poke at you soon to read some more once I do get some more done, though I am warning that I do not hesitate to do a massive genre shift at any moment. So, consider yourself fairly warned.
