Reflecting on Rewriting and Revisiting · 12:14am March 23rd
I am not the same as I was when I wrote all those stories a decade (what?!) ago.
Thanks, Captain Obvious.
But it presents an interesting challenge I had never thought about back then. How do you try to tell the same story to bring it up to (hopefully) better, later standards?
The short answer, I've learned, is that you don't. Every story is a capsule, a capturing of your voice and what you had to say at a specific time in your life.
I could rewrite my first few stories. I probably should. They are nowhere near as good (from my perspective) as what I've written since. However, they just really wouldn't be the same story. First off, I'd probably go with entirely different ideas, because I'm not all that happy with those stories conceptually, but even if I kept the same ideas, my execution of those ideas would be entirely different and probably lead me along a very different journey, even if I wrangled it to the same place.
That leads me to the subject of this blog: Re-writing The Dull Afterglow.
I've wanted for years now to re-write that story and fix some of the criticisms that others and myself have had with the story. The more I went back to figure out how I could improve it, the more that all the flashbacks really felt flat to me. I liked (and still like!) the way that the ideas of what happened in the past affect the story, just not the way I executed it at all. However, the more I tried to go back and write the same story, just "fixed", the less the story fit together. The changed flashbacks altered the flow of the story, and then my style changed, so it didn't fit in that way, and then eventually, I changed too much.
I'm still very proud of aspects of the story (especially the bookending), but I didn't feel like I could have it end in the same way anymore. The thing is, I've kind of grown out of the original story's themes. In some ways, knowing you need to change and struggling with it is probably always going to be relatable to me, but nothing in life is going to be perfect, so sometimes, you need to figure out how to create a good situation for yourself. I also didn't feel like Octavia's mother or Vinyl ended up being enough of actual characters. Maybe they still aren't (it's still under 2,000 words, after all), but I did them some justice, I think.
Writing has been hard since I left, but I never stop thinking about it. I'm not arrogant enough to think anyone waited basically eight years for me to get back to regular posting, but for those who are still around and still want to read whatever stories about little rainbow horses I come up with, I'm still trying to put a few more out there.
Long time no see!
5773492
I've still been here.
I'm always here. Watching. Waiting.
5773511
same to be honest lol
I keep checking my notifications here every week or so even though I haven't been involved with this site or show for 8 years