Only 13,000 words left to go to finish nano's demands. I've wanted to quit innumerable times. Not quite sure what's kept me going. Most of the actual writing I've done will be tossed out immediately upon rewrite. This nano's not like last year, where I could concentrate and wrote quite a bit I liked in the first draft. This go around is really like doing an expanded novel outline with dialogue. It's a load of crap. That's okay, and I'm cool with that. At least I know what happens in the story now, and I know what I don't like and what needs to change. I haven't had the same level of excitement I had last year towards the work. I care, but in a different way. Maybe because it's three novellas instead of one narrative. Because just when I got attached to the characters, I finished and had to move on to a new set. Because I'm unhappy with the p.o.v.s. Because I don't know how to work in the things that have to be there yet. Because it's so hard.
And yet, it's funny. Because when I had the choice early on this nano to drop this one and pick up the first book of the fantasy trilogy instead, my only thought was, but what's the point? This new book raises the bar for me, and nothing will be the same after it. I still like that other fantasy story, but if I ever write it now, it has to be reimagined into something different. It's so... straight-forward. A good exciting story, sure, but nothing distinguishes it from a hundred other good stories. And this is the problem with growing older, watching your writing and ideas mature. Sometimes you just can't go back.
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And this is the problem with growing older, watching your writing and ideas mature. Sometimes you just can't go back.
I want to start singing Bon Jovi's "Who Says You Can't Go Home" at you, only I think that with writing, it's probably true. Like how writing "Dying Like Men" made me dump two other C! fanfic ideas afterwards, because they just weren't deep enough after I'd found myself capable of what I did in DLM. In ten years, I suppose I'll look back at it and grimace the same way I look back now on things I wrote when I was 16 (although some of them weren't entirely egregious).
This is both encouraging and depressing.
And I don't have nearly the same level of excitement this year either. It's a darker story, for one thing, although darker usually sparks me. Hmm. Maybe it's because it's the middle novel, and I'm feeling like it's getting a little too Empire Strikes Back/Two Towers-ish? Dunno.
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