The Year that Didn't Happen · 11:47pm Mar 9th, 2021
On March 5th, right about a year ago, I left work early because news had hit that covid was in the schools and it was time for things to close down. I didn't particularly mind, because TOW was at the end of its final arc and I had already taken the next week off so I could dedicate everything to the ending and then relax a little afterward in peace. It just felt like that break came in a few days earlier. And so I hunkered down in my apartment, eating frozen ramen and other bachelor food while writing my heart out, and a week after finishing I wrote a blog where I talked about how awesome it felt to be done and how I was really excited to be able to have a social life again without having to automatically decline whenever I had friends doing something in the evening.
Ha ha. Ha.
Guess I assumed it would only take a month for everything to get back to normal, didn't I? I also assumed that about my writing. Publishing TOW 2 in but a single measly month? Easy, of course. Why, I'd probably even publish two stories in April! Maybe I'd... Oh.
I talked about this in my last blog, back in August, but I may have jumped the gun just a little with TOW's sequel and not given it the planning time it needed. I didn't pay nearly enough attention to the reasons people liked TOW when conceiving it, among other things. I also mentioned how TOW's Ironridge arc had a lengthy rough draft, and how maybe that was what The Immortal Dream needed to get off the ground too. And so that's what I spent the last seven-odd months doing - as befitting someone living in a lonely box, I started writing my story in a lonely box, tweaking scenes and rearranging things like crazy, letting the plot and characters grow up together instead of starting from the beginning in a vacuum. I told myself I'd prewrite the entirety of Act 1, just like I drafted all of Ironridge. And then maybe once I was satisfied that my story was starting firmly in the right direction, I'd start publishing it at a rate of one large chapter per week. Until I ran out of buffer and had to publish them as I wrote them, of course.
As I planned and wrote, something else happened: I started to really miss my TOW cast. A year ago, I was happy to give them their endings. Some part of me had always been worried I wouldn't be able to see them through to the end, and it was a major relief for me to call their story finished and move on to something else. I had done right by them. But, slowly, real life forced me to realize that I in fact could keep writing daily without silly things like an offline social life, and as it practically twisted my wrist into doing it, I wanted my old companions for the journey back. I stopped thinking about them in terms of how I could use their histories as plot devices to lay out a new story for my new protagonist to follow, and more in terms of how I could use eighteen years of passing time to refresh their character arcs, bring them back into the story and make them deserve to be there. I wanted to see them grow again, not just come along for the ride. This goes double for some of TOW's more minor characters, who never got to play out their original potential in the first place.
The story's premise and setting haven't changed, and neither has the idea that it will be perfectly readable without any foreknowledge of TOW (no, you don't need to remember every last trivial mechanic around how moon glass worked). It's still told from the perspective of a teenage scientist in Icereach who suffers from wanderlust and a feeling that something's missing in her life. But the point of the story has changed: it's no longer a tale about how the north has evolved in Starlight's absence, but a story about what will make her return. Everyone wants to see Starlight and her new friends cross the mountains and go back to see what became of her old ones. And that's what I'll be doing. I'm just starting a little bit earlier, like a prequel. Instead of beginning with a quest hook showing up on Starlight's doorstep, I want to begin with the tale of how that quest hook came to be.
Anyway, this probably isn't the completion anniversary blog most people expected. Just another update, not even a celebration of milestones reached? It's even a little early. But, here it is. Here's hoping time starts moving again soon, because it sure feels like it's been frozen for the entire last year.
...Oh, and I'm publishing the sequel on the anniversary. That's two days from now. Enjoy.
Awesome! I can't wait to come along for the ride.
Hot damn. Was wondering about the sequel just a couple days ago.
Glad to hear from you again and that you're still doing okay.
Can't wait to see the sequel; just make sure you take all the time you need for it.
I was hoping we’d hear from you near the anniversary! I’m excited for the new direction this story is taking; I too don’t want to to let the old cast go. I hope you managed to find some time to wind down and relax the last year. Can’t wait to read the sequel!
Super excited for the sequel, and glad to hear you are doing well.
Super Happy to See you're Back!
And very exited for the sequel as well
And now I know why the chapter title "End of Prologue" exists---700000 words into the story. Your definition of "a bit" confuses and awes me.