One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

There is a story that I’ve nearly got worked into a publishable state. It’s been workshopped, edited twice, and formatted to within an inch of its life. But despite all the tweaking, something was missing. After collecting much-needed feedback on it, I sat down with a friend to work it all out. That’s when it happened. As we talked, all the little ideas that were floating around coagulated with suggestions and inspirations from others and suddenly, everything fit. Well, everything but the inevitable creases that will be ironed out in the process. My main character, who had all the personality of a very polite cup of vanilla pudding, was now brimming with life. My story was more cohesive, tense, and scary. The action scenes actually contained action. Everything worked brilliantly, in my head. Now, I just had to…

Wait.

I had twice as much work than I’d had before. I had to re-write something on almost every page, add whole scenes, change dialogue, pull scenes out, and then edit it all back into a recognizable shape. Sigh. It would be worth it, though. I was ready to conquer the world, and I planned to do so as soon as spring break started.

That was my first mistake.

My second was trying to start on a plane. I’m not especially fond of planes; airports are generally fun and full of interesting people, but being crammed into such a tight, awkward seat, flanked by complete strangers, for hours on end is not my cup of tea. Additionally, I greatly dislike the idea of people reading over my shoulder as I write, and no matter what my row-mates were really doing, I couldn’t shake that feeling. Giving up, I thought I’d just work on it while I was staying with my aunt and uncle. I had a week, after all. That was also doomed; even a two-hour time change feels like major jet lag when you wake up at two thirty to catch the plane.  Besides, we were busy adventuring – no time for the real world. Whenever I’d open the document, I’d get intimidated by the wall of text in front of me and I’d go read instead. So no go on the spring break plan. Oh well, next week.

Only not. When I got back, I found myself overwhelmed by stuff I absolutely had to prioritize over the story. I fell into a sort of funk, not feeling at all myself. This is due to an accumulation of small troubles, and the fact that I’ll soon find out whether or not I can officially continue my education at CU Boulder isn’t helping. In short, I’m extremely stressed. As a remedy, I’ve decided to partake in a bit of escapist therapy, namely reading Lord of the Rings again and avoiding all other media. All of this has pushed everything back even more, and it’s starting to look like I won’t get to work on it for another week at least. I was hoping to have it ready for submission by tomorrow.

So, there’s that. I’ll get it worked out, I know, but at the moment, it’s like this gigantic Frankenstein’s Monkey on my back, screeching and pulling my hair, and it’s not helping my already frazzled state. Hopefully, this blog post will placate the monkey long enough for me to get my affairs in order so I can start taking care of it again.

P.S. I know I didn’t complete the Tarot Challenge thingy, but it was spring break. It could not be helped. More writing will be posted soon.

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