On Ghost Lights so far... · 6:58am May 18th, 2015
The first thing I want to say is... wow! What a project! It's been going for almost nine months and over 93,000 words so far. I thought I'd be done about 20,000 words ago, but there were... things... and places explore. More about that in a minute. For now, I'll just say it's been an amazing experience. If you told me a year ago I'd have written a 90,000 word (and more) novel by now, I'd have said not a chance. Everything I write is way shorter than that. Obviously that's not true anymore, though.
The second thing is that, although it's been absolutely worth it, this hasn't been easy, especially lately. So, here's my deal at the moment: I'm trying to graduate from college in the near future (by the end of the coming summer quarter) and get my degree. It's going well so far (3.97 GPA!), but in order to meet the timeframe I want, it entailed cramming a lot of classes into my schedule for this quarter - 5 of them, worth 18 credits all told, so that's a full time course load plus another half. So far it's not too much to keep up with and still get all A's, but it is a lot. I also used up my buffer of chapters of Ghost Lights that were written ahead, so I've been down to writing those week-by-week for a while now. It's like having another major homework assignment every week - actually, it's what I've made into my biggest assignment, because it's what my heart's really in the most. It has some weird effects sometimes. I think about it a lot, it's always in the back of my mind. Sometimes I even have weird dreams about it. My point here is, it's tiring.
That's not a complaint, though. Quite the opposite, I'd like to thank all my readers for making this project something I love doing. It's been very helpful just to know that it's been getting read. Every week's chapter gets a few new comments, which really helps me visually understand that there's some audience appreciation for what I'm writing and that there's interactivity going on. What's more, I'm astounded that it's all been nothing but positive so far.
I'm especially grateful for that right now. You see, this last chapter (chapter 35) had me freaking out a little bit. I didn't sleep very easily the night before posting. The reason is really kind of silly, I know, but I couldn't help it. So, the truth is, there's a lot of myself in Sunburst. That's always been the case, both in Seashell and now in Ghost Lights. And it's not usually any real issue, just that sometimes every once in an occasional while, when I deal with certain things about her, I feel this sense of myself in there and it makes me think that everyone who reads it is also going to see it that way, as Sunburst reflecting things that are also really me. This paranoid thinking creates doubts about how they're gonna see it and instead of just, "oh, those are interesting issues to explore in a character", they'll be like, "oh man, this author's getting all TMI on us, that's kinda weird" and that can really make you nervous. Chapter 35's discussions had stuff in there that are part of the story that needed to be told, but they touched things (Sunburst talking about feelings relating to gender identity or a lack of a strong sense thereof) that are kinda sensitive in the current political / cultural climate, as well as personally, so they honestly kinda always scare me to have to deal with and reveal. People always seem to want to start something over it. Accusations of wanting to be a special snowflake by inventing new labels and whatnot come up on the one hand, and on the other sometimes some social crusader tries to grab the issue and make it into a soapbox for some grand cause that you never wanted to balloon things into, because, y'know, you just wanted to have some fun and write a story. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but... yeah, kind of a personal chapter that felt like it might be risking things with. In this case, much to my relief, I think I was just worked up about nothing. Comments so far are supportive without going nuts or off-topic, and conversely, far from being hated for going there, the story seems to have instead picked up two more thumbs-up, so I'm guessing everyone was mostly okay with this and still likes it.
Thanks for making me feel better. I think I may have the nicest readers ever. 
So where's Ghost Lights going from here? Well, I think those of you keeping up until now can tell from where the story is that we're almost done. Sunburst and Azure Sky are almost home, but there's some important places to go and things to do still left, so I still have some more writing ahead of me. Not much more, now, but significant stuff still awaits. You'll see.
The one piece of (potential) bad news: like I said, there's a lot for me to do with college classes combined with writing this. At the end of May, I'll also be going to Everfree Northwest over the weekend, which is going to take up the entire three-day weekend period, so I'm probably going to be seriously stretched for time. I'm not sure, but it's a good possibility that it might the one weekend that I won't be able to have an update written and ready to post, so... sorry if you don't see anything that Saturday, I guess? On that note, though, if you're going to be at Everfree Northwest, I'm looking forward to seeing you there! It's gonna be so awesome. I'm always up for meeting my loyal readers / casual readers / random no-particular-reason followers / arch-nemeses using this to keep tabs on me / whatever else, so let me know if you want, I suppose.
Okay, I think that's it. It's certainly been a long enough post, at least. Thanks for being awesome and thanks for all your support, everyone!
You're going to be at EFNW?!
Holy crap! I have to find a way to run into you and say hello! and more importantly, shake your hand and say thank you for sharing this much awesomeness with all of us! :)
Thanks for the blog update. I can totally understand your paranoia about people reading too much into your writing. Props to you for getting through it and writing anyway though!
And I'm fine with letting you have a break from posting the chapter this week, since you're busy. RL takes precedent, after all. Hope ya have a good time at EFNW.