Tuesday Rants - She's A World Eater

            I hate this. As a writer, it seems that I never do rough drafts. I only do world drafts. I write my characters set in a world that is done a certain way and for a while, it’s great, it works, and I love it. Then I start to become disenchanted. Something about the world doesn’t vibe and it makes me want to tear my hair out. Just when I think I have the world the way it is supposed to be, this happens and it changes everything.

            Bear knows how bad I am to restart and rework. He’s been through too many world drafts with me and groans every time I even mention the possibility. To fully understand how far back this goes, let’s go back to the beginning, shall we?

            My primary two characters, Elana and Markus, go way back with me. They were born when I was just in fifth grade, only back then they were Piper and Ray, and there was not a magical thing about them. I wrote out their story over the course of fifth and sixth grade, doing maybe one or two more versions before I got to high school. That’s when the fun really started.

            Other characters began introducing themselves. Cameron. Jess. Colin. Ryan. Laura. Zombie. Arlan. In tenth grade, I began outlining an entire series revolving around them and their adventures. I had maybe three complete stories written out in composition books, complete with their own soundtracks. From there, it just disintegrated. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve changed up the story on these people. In college, Regan and Cadeyrn came to me as an entirely separate world, when I was trying to find something to do to get away from these characters that never seemed to fit in one world for long. I wrote maybe three or four different versions of their story, only completing one or two. Then, in the middle of 2013, they were incorporated into the same world as my other characters, on an entirely new path from which my upcoming novella, Shadows Rising (formerly Shadows Past), comes from.

            And now I am battling the first novel which the novella serves as a prequel for. I am hating every bit of it.

            The funny thing is, their histories rarely change. Just some of the rules regarding their powers and current events. The same couples are still going to get together, with the same messed up histories as they’ve always had. I just can’t find a way to write them, in a world that I can stomach for more than six months at a time.

            I reassure myself with reminders that most authors don’t get their methods figured out until they’re in their thirties with a lot of experience under their belts. It doesn’t make me feel much better when I have to start over because the old version was on the verge of making me vomit.

            Shadows Rising will stay largely the same, but depending on how I decide to move forward, how it ends may change a bit. I’ve got the pieces, I’ve got the rules, I just can’t figure out how to arrange it so it suits me best. Unfortunately, since I plan to publish at the end of the month, I have to make a decision and fast. 

I assure you, this is but a small, small fraction of the comp books I have. Not to mention what is on my computer.

I wonder if I would write better in an actual dungeon...

            This has got to be my biggest problem as a writer: finishing. You want to know why I never finish anything? Because at some point in the writing process, usually about half way through, I hit a point where it’s dragging and I really don’t like what I’m doing and I realize the storyline needs to change. I cannot tell you how many versions of Elana and Markus I have done. They’ve gone from Piper and Ray to Elana and Markus and from regular people to guardians to witches to changers. And now it appears I’m about to do the same thing to Regan and Cadeyrn.

            A year ago I wrote out the crappiest draft I have ever done, but I finished it. I wrote fast without putting too much thought into the small details, just trying to get it done. I wrote it in about two months I believe and had every plan in the world to go back in since the story was done and add in the meat. That didn’t happen. Instead, I rewrote it. Instead, I changed some fundamentals about the story itself, trying to shape it into something I would love again. So, that advice of just do it, just finish it, it doesn’t matter how shitty it is? Yeah, that doesn’t work for me. I’m still at square one with nothing I would want to present to an agent, let alone a publisher. And one of my goals for 2013 was to write something I would want to publish. It goes without saying that part of that goal is to actually FINISH IT.

            I am so tired of restarting and changing things and I am beginning to feel like one of the things I changed about the current WIP (work in progress) is something that should have never changed, because it was what I loved about it in the first place. It was what made me fall in love with these characters. It was what captured my heart when this idea began to form almost two years ago. Two years…wow. This is the first time I’ve really realized that it’s already been that long. Elana and Markus were under the pen for even longer than that, much longer. And they never saw their ending. Well, not one that I was content with anyway.

            Maybe this is why a lot of the authors I follow are in their thirties and forties. It’s rare to see a great writer in her twenties, because this is the learning stages. As far as I’ve come, as much as I’ve learned, I’ve still got a long road ahead of me as a writer. I’ve still got a lot to learn about what works best for me. Every writer has a different process, a different way of going about the story, and that way is part of what makes them so good. It works for them.

            For some reason lately, I’ve been mulling over the release schedules of some of my favorites. Take Yasmine Galenorn for the first example. She puts out three books a year and would like to up it to four. Her books are smaller but fast paced and lovely reads. J. R. Ward, on the other hand, puts out maybe two books a year to my knowledge. Her books are bigger and they take a little more time to get into things, to dig for depth. There’s nothing wrong with either style, they just are what they are and it works for each author. And then there’s Karen Marie Moning. Iced was released in October, I think it was? Her next book will not come out until January of 2014. That’s more than a year between releases. And Iced was huge. Shadowfever, the one to come out more than a year before, was big as well. A more well known example of this would be George R. R. Martin, the writer of Game of Thrones. I believe a friend said he went six years between releases. And if the series is anything to go by, he has written an absolutely fantastic story.

            These are just four authors out there, and they all go about their work differently. There is no scientific definition of how to do it. Which is nice but sometimes it makes figuring out how you work best a pain.

            I guess the best thing to do is to keep at it. Keep writing. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go stare at the plot for a bit and review some of the stuff from the old drafts. I am NOT restarting this so urge, quit bothering me.