Keep your eyes on the prize.

[tocryabout]

It's been what, a year? Almost? I got sidetracked by other writing projects, including one that was HUGE and came very near to completion, but I learned my lesson about serious collaboration with other writers (LESSON: Don't). It went kaboom, and while I'm still trying to gather up the fragments of it into something useful, I'm also ready to head back into this.

There are certain benefits to starting again after so long: my notes have been wiped from my HD twice over after computer problems, as have my crappy versions of chapters and my big File O' Mystery Meat where I put quotes and cut paragraphs that I love and so on. All that stuff can get to be stringy and tough with overcooking, so just as well that it's gone.

So this morning I'm rereading what I wrote and (largely) haven't reread for many months, with some interesting results. Mostly I notice how heavy I was hitting the homosexuality angle, although it wasn't intentional; I remember being a little bored with stories that did that, and worrying that it came out of nowhere when I wrote it in. But not so much. There is gay all the way through, just not the popular slashy kind.

As always, I wish I could go back over it and take the story in better, saner directions. I'm a little appalled at how much I piled onto the engine of the plot, but WE SHALL MANAGE SOMEHOW. I'm more excited by it than I thought I'd be. The project lives again; see you when I have a proper update.

Comments

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

My smile couldn't be broader now. I wish you good luck and godspeed.

Your novel is a miracle of concision and direction next to mine. Oy, am I learning a lot on how to do it cleaner next time. I'm almost at the halfway point and I'm 120,000 words in.

Enjoy writing; that's the main thing!

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks. It made me smile too, that people are still paying attention.

My problem has always been producing rather than reducing, so concision is a natural virtue of mine, nothing too boastworthy. UNPACK, it says in my margins. Here I think I wanted to do CORRUPT GOVERNMENT and also WEIRD HERETICS and also COMPLICATED LOVE and also PACIFISM and also etc.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Actually, that analysis of your work makes me feel better about mine! I just keeping adding more characters who are dealing with roughly the same issues: defining your ideals, learning when and who to trust, learning when you have to rely on yourself instead of your heroes.

But I have finally put a stop to adding 1st or 2nd tier characters... though I still have to bring in Magneto because he is important to the story.

"Unpack." That's lovely. Mine is always "Connect".

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Also, I loved the gay stuff. I loved how it was built towards and then semi-deflated. The big sexuality discussion between the boys was not the great revelatory moment that suddenly made Joel's world complete and comprehensible. It think that was important and I hope he finds his path in love as he finds his other paths.

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

Reading it over I was like "wow, I made him pretty fucked up." Somehow it had seemed more benign in my memory. There are casualties in the war between "traditional" morality and whatever it is we're living with now.

I'm glad there's realism; it's one of the places where I really don't want to gloss over the way it is for some people. (Some, of course, are lucky enough that the usual coming out narratives do describe their lives.)

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Joel may be "fucked up" but he may also still be over dramatizing in a teenage way. He has had to mature rapidly and take responsibility for so many. That leap might have meant skipping over some other parts of his development that will have to come later.

Squeeeeee! I'm so excited about your characters' return!!!

[lux-apollo.livejournal.com]

Cute icon.

[lux-apollo.livejournal.com]

Glad to see you back! I've missed your writing and good sense.

:-)