The one where I'm doing it all wrong
or, the story of two stories
Story #1
“Write what you want to read” is one of the more popular bits of wisdom you’ll find floating out in the writerly how-to spaces and I happen to believe it’s a no-fail piece of advice. It’s good advice because it presumes two important ingredients for writing well— reading and joy. It’s taken me a while to figure it out, but the joy factor, at least for me, is non-negotiable.
Writing is hard. It’s really, really hard. (Or maybe that’s just me? YMMV) So if you’re going to throw yourself into the fray, you might as well be toiling over something that brings you a measure of delight. As the saying goes, if you love what you’re doing, it’s not work.
So that’s why, somewhere lost to the mists of time (okay, it was July 2018), I decided to write myself a story to help me cope with the grief I was still grappling with after the death of my grandad in January of that year. I wanted to write a “comfort” read, something that contained all of the elements of the books that I turn to when life is too much and I’m craving gentleness and simplicity. Only, because I’m me, I added in a sentient cottage, a portal to the Otherworld and a talking cat.
But because life was a bit fraught back then and I wasn’t writing consistently, the story was cobbled together over the course of a whole year.1 It changed direction a few times as I had ideas and then abandoned them, mid-stream. It generally wandered around in several vague directions, though I was sure to leave myself helpful little notes (!) as I went. Then I decided I was going to overhaul and republish my Sea Glass books so I needed to focus on them instead so I quickly finished up the story in late July 2019 and left it to gather dust.
Story #2
I published the fourth book in my Glencarragh series in October of 2021 and then promptly collapsed in a burnt-out heap before (reluctantly) dragging myself back to the writing desk in the spring of 2022 because I thought I should. Musing over the plot of book #5 (the next, logical choice), I found myself looking at a short story I’d written at some point (I honestly don’t know when or why…I just do these things. My record-keeping is terrible) and realized it would be an excellent jumping-off point for some discovery writing. I needed to know how a particular character ended up in the situation that they did in order to tell part of the story in book #5. As I tend to do my best brainstorming with a combination of staring-out-of-windows, stream-of-conscious writing and mundane domestic chores (case in point: whilst cutting the grass yesterday I had an epiphany regarding a plot point of this very story of which I’m getting around to telling you about), I thought I’d play around with the premise of the short story and see where it took me.
When next I thought to reflect on the situation, I was 20,000 words in. It had grown legs. And arms. And a set of horns. I further resigned myself to it possibly becoming a full-length novel when it got to almost 40,000 words with no immediate sign of resolution.
That’s also when I stopped for good. That was in October of last year and I haven’t looked at it since. (Well, I actually just did, only to see when I started and stopped and where the word-count is standing).
So that’s two stories: one unfinished, and one a patchwork disaster in desperate need of a serious overhaul.
They’re both stories I genuinely adore and can imagine hours of enjoyment in writing, editing and re-writing. They’re stories I’d be proud to share with the world.
So why did I let them fall to the wayside?
If you’d asked me that even a few months ago, I would’ve had an excellent excuse to hand — lingering symptoms of burn-out, serious illness in the family, my own health struggles, a need to get quiet and sort out what I really want out of this writing gig — and all of them were true and valid.
Until they weren’t anymore.
Until what it really came down to was ongoing self-sabotage; self-sabotage brought on by the fear that these stories probably aren’t what my readers are expecting.
I don’t (currently) have a large readership (see: previous piece on not wanting to talk about my books), but the readers I do have are wonderfully loyal and exceedingly generous with their support and encouragement. Why would I want to mess with that? Why would I want to risk disappointing the people who have cheered me on from the beginning of this mad adventure?
Well, I wouldn’t and so I stopped writing, telling myself I wasn’t even that into it anyway.
Which is, of course, quite the most ridiculous thing I could’ve done. They don’t call it sabotage for nothing.
Which brings me back to joy.
I realized, after months of navel-gazing soul-searching, that the one thing that keeps me writing, no matter what’s going on in the Muggle world, is joy. If I don’t have that, then nothing else about writing is sustainable. If I have that, then I’ll be the one tapping away at the keyboard while the world goes up in flames.
This past April, I decided to go back to that first story - the patchwork disaster (now known as Project Hazel) - and rescue it from itself. I’ve had to do reams of plot-storming and a delightful amount of research and it’s only just now starting to take shape in the rewrites. I have no idea when it’s going to be finished and I don’t even care because I love the story and I love the characters and I genuinely want to spend time in their world. I started working on it with no intentions but to enjoy the process and the benefits of that are becoming very obvious. When I forget about what might come afterwards, I can enjoy the writing for its own sake.2
If I was Doing It Right, I’d be planning to publish Story #2 next (henceforth to be known as Project Elfric) which is now book #5 in the Tales of Glencarragh series. That would be following the (very wise) advice of completing one series before starting something else. I’m truly excited to get back to Elfric and Co., but right now, my writer-self is still feeling a bit fragile and needs that comforting story to help find her writing legs again.
Right now, Doing It Right is far less important than simply Doing It.
As it was meant to — I was using the story to cope with grief and so it held me for the course of that year while I got myself sorted
Bookmark this statement….it’s a recurring theme.
"a sentient cottage, a portal to the Otherworld and a talking cat."
Honestly sweetie, the jacket blurb does not need anything else. I already want to read it. xxx
This so resonates with me. I'm dealing with a similar situation -- different media. My art sale is coming up in November and my new inventory is lacking. I look at past sales and think "I know what they want. I need to produce what they want." True, no? But this year I've wanted to work on new things. A different style, more practice, more breaking out of my rut. And now I'm eight weeks out with marginal new inventory (some of it quite unlike my other stuff) but a sketchbook of practice things that make me smile. I'm still working on that answer, especially as my time to paint now is limited (compared to summer) with medical issues, a book I'm trying to finish in time to print for Christmas for family, and just massive things to do after returning home after two months. Was that other time wasted? No. I loved it. So, a dilemma to which I can relate -- just paint, not words.
I'm glad you have returned to project Hazel. As I've discovered, doing what you think you should compared to doing what is giving you pleasure and joy makes a difference in the end product. Like you, I'll return to the other -- maybe soon, maybe later. But for now I'm trying to squeeze out the joy and the pleasure of it. We owe ourselves that. I do. You do, too.