Journal Entry 10: Still Making My Own Kind of Music · 12:50am Feb 17th, 2015
Yup, I'm still alive, but sadly for those of you who've been waiting for the next chapter, I haven't worked on editing it since the last time I've made one of these blogs. I've been working on a long work of original fiction that I don't think I'll have finished anytime in the next year. I'm excited about it though, and to all of you out there wondering why I didn't put the last half of "Redemption of Harmony" to bed before wrapping things up, well, there were several reasons.
By way of explaining the reasons to you, I must first tell you about the country of Tibet...
...just kidding.
When I first started writing Awakening it was after a long school year and after abandoning a fiction project that I found lacking of a subtle quality I'm still I'm not sure I can explain. I'd been working on it for quite sometime, really just spinning my wheels in the mud and growing increasingly frustrated with the process. After I abandoned it I felt liberated for the first time in over a year and my creativity was flowing and I just wanted to sit and write something--anything! So, after I listened to Discovery by Daft Punk a few times, I sat down and wrote out the first chapter of Awakening over the course of one night in June. There was no preamble, no mind games to get myself started, no pre-analysis, nothing other than the notion that I would only put down the words that I enjoyed doing so. I didn't so much use my intellect to write it so much as I intuited my way through the plot. If you can believe it, I really didn't know what was going to happen after Lumina realized Twilight was in her head and so I just kept writing to find out. I wrote in a frenzy and the product was as much a love story to creativity as it was a story about a pony in space.
So after that I decided that I wanted to write a follow up and I cranked out a first chapter soon after I finished Awakening and then let the project sit for a long while as I finished up another term at school. During that time I worked out all the plot points in my head, and analyzed and reflected until there wasn't anything left for me to really think about. When I got back home from school and it came time for me to write chapter 2, I wasn't so much creating as I was re-producing what I had in my head in a word document. What I learned from the whole experience was that the creative work isn't in the recreation of events in your head on paper, but rather the stuff in between them where you don't know what's going to happen and the characters and their journey together drive the plot forward. I got frustrated, unhappy, and bored at times while writing The Redemption of Harmony and that never bodes well for a project. When I started publishing chapters, it wasn't because the book was ready, but rather because I wanted to be done with it.
So I decided to work on something else--anything else--just to feel that magic of writing again. This sound familiar to anyone? My goal has been, for what I've been working on since I've written to you guys last, to feel in every page that I write that same magic that I did while writing Awakening and feel joy in my craft again. So far, I think it's worked out, and in time I'd like to share it with you all. I'm pretty hush-lipped about it right now, because, well, I don't entirely know what's going to happen next all I feel I can say is that it's about a fox climbing finding her way up a very tall mountain. I might share links to the first parts of the first drafts of it on my blog here at some point, but I can't say when or if that will be.
However, that still doesn't change the fact that I still owe all of you guys the last half of a story. I might, if I find someone with the talent and passion for it, pass this account (and the torch) over to their hands with all the notes, drafts, and comments on The Redemption of Harmony and leave them polish it up and post it to the site. It's all complete, but just because it is doesn't mean there isn't a lot more work to do and I can't tackle two books at once. But that all depends I don't entirely know what the future holds for this book series, but I do know that where I go now, the future is bright and wonderful.
It's alive!
Really rootin for that other fiction of yours you claim to be writing. Aye, I do enjoy your way with words and your work has been bliss to the eyes and mind. However, looking for someone to take the torch...I'm not sure if that's the best idea. Sure, there are writers that match your capability in this art, but doing it right is the most concern I would personally have. Other then all this, I wish best of luck to you.
From what I can tell is that the magic of writing behaves like an electron. It only strikes its waves when you don't look for it. Rather then writing the right thing in the right time, it rather seems to be a problem of grinding the right gears in your head. Not hunting after the conscious progress of progressing in a mere workload and all that...
Of course, there is no bad thing in switching to non-pony, and I wish you the best of luck with that. I've seen one or two authors from here getting neat books published on Amazon, so who knows. 50 Shades of Tibet might be just around the corner.
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Eeyup. I thought an update was the least I could do.
2803364 Wow, that first paragraph.
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Thank you! In all likely hood, I probably won't be handing off the torch to anyone. I realized after I made this post that my standards would probably be a bit too high, but, I'll still have to think of something clever to get the last of this book out.
I would love to see the rest of the eternal cycle but I'm also excited to see whatever else you have brewing.
Could you please update your progress or just your general rambling more often, I was really concerned after such a long and abrupt period of inactivity.
Hmm, as much as I do want to see the rest of this story, I do agree that you shouldn't just force yourself to write it in order to please those who are waiting for it, the story would suffer if you did. I also look forward to seeing this other story your working on when it does come out.
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Yeah, I think that will be a good thing to do. Writing is almost a monk-like activity, but it doesn't have to be. I think I might blog more about my process and what it is, exactly, that I do.
I just recently became I fan of your stories this month and got left with that potentially explosive cliff hanger.
Be that as it may, I'd rather read a story at your best then a story forced out. I highly anticipate the fist chapter of your new project!