The Writing of Ascension · 12:09am Sep 20th, 2013

...Drives me absolutely insane sometimes.
Occasionally, ah, it's wonderful. A strong emotion and a clear idea would come together flawlessly into a beautiful chapter that would have me, and hopefully my readers as well, smiling for days.
But most of the time? Yeeeeah no.
Often, I would realize I hadn't updated, sit down in front of my story, stare at the chapter outline I'd already written, try to write the stupid thing, just to have it totally and utterly escape. This is what I call, "A Lack of Inspiration"- Or as my sister calls it, "Not in the mood for writing while fussing over update times that people are going to wait through because it's worth waiting for." Or if she was particularly annoyed at me, "Oh for buck's sake will you relax you're not going to get anything done driving yourself, or more importantly me, CRAZY!"
Most of the time, she would be right. I would let it go, do something else, and have Ascension act much like a particularly fussy cat, and upon me ignoring it, would come along behind me with a two-by-four of inspiration, and promptly demand my attention. I have written many an amazing chapter in one sitting as all the pieces fall into place on their own, and the characters simply write themselves.
However-When I was trying to write Royal Ruckus, and, more recently, the second part of "Lesson with the Professor" I would get into this very annoying loop.
I would sit and stare at my half-written chapter, and just glare at it. It didn't matter if I knew what I was doing with this chapter or not, I just wouldn't be able to write. So I would glare at it. And I would hate it. I would hate the literal chapter. It was my enemy. It was giving me sass. It was driving me nuts! Then I would decide that I just needed some Inspiration or a push or whatever, and so I would go and reread my earlier chapters and listen to some music.
Now, with Royal Ruckus, this ended up working. I, eventually, ended up rereading my entire story and realizing, "Hang on, I actually care about these characters!" It was literally something I had forgotten. I finished the arc, and was even rather pleased with how it came out for the most part.
Lately however?
...It didn't.
I wasn't even mad at this particular chapter, possibly because I didn't know what I was going to do with it exactly. It wasn't one of the chapters I had had planned out from the very start, so I had a lot more that I could do with it... Which left me doing nothing. So I went and tried to reread earlier chapters. I re-listened to the dramatic reading of Interlude:Nightmare that my sister did which helped me write the FIRST part of Lesson with The Professor. I even went back and tried to reread my whole story again. Nothing worked. I hated those early chapters, I hated doing nothing with it, I hated feeling like I was letting you guys down, and most of all I hated not being able to write.
And then I realized two things in a bit of an epiphany.
One, I needed to take a break from Ascension.
Which I did.
(Yes I'm back now, did you guys miss me? Kinda disappeared there for a bit didn't I?)

Two, I needed to rewrite those first five chapters.
Like, literally need to, to move on. To write once more from the beginning to transcribe the end- Or whatever poetic description you want to use.
Which I'm doing.
It's going quite well, actually, and I think I'll have them done pretty quickly. It's kinda fun, just to relax and re-tell the story I love most, and to get to look back and see how much my writing style really has changed for the better.

So, to make a long story short, Ascension won't be getting any new chapters until I finish rewriting the first five. Now, how I post these rewrites is still up in the air. Aside from posting them as marked updates, I'm not sure how I'll do it, whether all at once, or the first three together and then the last two, or as I finish them, or what, but I'll get them done and they'll be worth it.
When is another matter altogether as I am now in a full-time employment program, which is eating up all that free time I used to have, and on-top of that I have a really important trip coming up that's going to be insane to prepare for, and where I'll be totally without most of my technology for about 36 hours during. Hopefully I won't go through withdrawal, lol

Thanks for sticking with me this long guys. It means a lot to have you as my readers. I have so much in store for you all, and I can't wait to put it all into fruition, and show all of you the grand tale you've all inspired me to write. Eventually I'll be able to think up a suitable thank you to all of you, but until then, have some art. (And yes I know I'm using "all" a lot. I could use some sleep.)

Yes I drew that. Consider this a mixed gesture of "Sorry for no new updates" and "I love you all."