The Mistake…?

I was on fire the other day.

I got writing my next book, and had this strike of inspiration! I have been sitting around 5000 words for the last couple of months: I knew where I wanted to go, just not how to get there. I had figured it out the other day, though. My Glob, I had figured it out!

I had a very sterile ending, that works brilliantly. Jay sandard, which translates to “everything you just read was so much worse for the character than you originally believed”. I had this one event that I wanted to happen. I showed it to the beautiful Patrick, and he pointed out how there was no compassion on the side of the reader. Basically, I had this avatar get shot and no one should care.

Initially, I was a little indignant. I have always, and probably will always, believe a story should be more a snapshot of an event rather than a retrace of past events that have little bearing on said event. I got thinking about Pat’s comment in this context, though. I started to realize that he was more correct than I wanted.

After penciling ideas out for a month, I finally had an idea of where I wanted to go. So, on Monday, I put down 2000 or so words. Tuesday, I heard the sirens call and wrote another 1000ish words. Wednesday, I was on fire and wrote nearly 5000 words. Yesterday, being Thursday, October 1st, I read over the fruits of my labour. That day was the first day that I didn’t have new ideas, and I was happy to just reflect.

Imagine my horror when I read the same chapter (with variations, minor but there were some) three times. I spent the next few hours stunned into silence. I had not started my music before I started reading, and I was between YouTube videos. There I was, staring at the horrible mistake I had made.

I was floored. I was upset. Hours upon hours of work would have to be destroyed. They were too similar and time sensitive to use again in the narrative, which means I couldn’t even recycle them for “the next day” or something like that. They were useless.

IF ONLY MY STORY WAS ABOUT THE DELICATE NATURE OF TIME AND SUDJESTION!

Oh wait, it is!
Without giving too much away, I am going to try to make them work as recursion as a hint for the reader that everything is wrong. I started a plot-progression tree to try to keep track. It’s already intimidatingly large.

If this works the way I think it might, this will be amazing.

Now to drink all the coffee ever in celebration!

Oh: I’m moving on Wednesday. There may be a little hiccup in updates, and if you want to come by for a visit, do so now. I’m moving 5 hours away and though everyone is welcome to come over to visit, it will be a bit far.