In Preparation of 2020…
With the end of the year and decade closing by, I’ve lately wondered what things I wished to accomplish yet ever did.
One of my biggest goals for the last decade has been to write a book. It started with an idea called Magic’s Tyranny, which eventually developed its way into an outline for a 5-book series, with the first book half-way written before it quickly became a corrupted file on a fried memory card in a cheap laptop that almost caught fire to my bedroom carpet, had I not poured a cup of water on it. (Yes, that’s what REALLY happened, mom and dad; the whole story of it just mysteriously stopping for no reason was a lie, because I was too embarrassed to admit I was plain old stupid and could have burnt the house down. And a note to anyone reading, don’t leave laptops constantly running and in sleep mode on a shag carpet.)
Believing everything had virtually been lost, I took a break from the idea of novel-writing to get into short stories for a period, emphasizing character and personality development during that time. Most of the stories were not the greatest— they were the sort of stories you’d expect from a 14/15/16-year-old boy who kept a diary about how goth he wished he could be, hidden under a stack of Nintendo Power magazines and bad sketches of black-colored wolves. I write this with complete honesty, even though a part of me can’t help but be proud of the little edge-lord I was back then even still. Past me fumbled a lot in the dark, and I still do even today. We were both learning the ropes of life and of writing, and let me tell you, there are many ropes and threads, and strings to manage! However, that’s alright, because I was (and am) still trying my best to keep on learning and improve.
After my short hiatus from novel writing, I came back into it with a lot of determination and a new idea, and it’s what I’ve been working on slowly for the last few years. This idea, for the longest time, has been called:
Birth.
Well, technically the whole title has been The Cavernack Chronicles: Birth, though this year’s recent development has changed that into The Cavernack Chronicles: The Birth Trilogy, with each bearing it’s own respective name that.
In the drafting stage, the idea had gone through several iterations — some concepts more targetted toward children’s high fantasy, with others landing more within the realm of adult dark fantasy.
Even today, I’m not really sure where it lands within that spectrum.
My inspirations came from an assortment of different fantasy and fairytale books I’ve read over the years, as well as different video games I’ve played over my lifetime. To name a few examples, George MacDonald’s Phantastes, and The Golden Key, Heath Pfaff’s The Hungering Saga, Erin Hunter’s Warriors series, Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell’s The Edge Chronicles, and an assortment of different Scandinavian folktales are all great literary inspirations, and for video games, Dragon Age Origins, Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, Fable, and Ori and the Blind Forest all inspirations as well.
Anyway, the synopsis I ultimately landed on was the telling of a fantasy world’s end from the eyes of a young boy. And during that first summer when I had all that drive to write the story, I completed its first draft, which totaled about 135,000 words!
However, it’s been 2 years since I finished that draft, and admittedly, progress has been slow. It’s not that I don’t have a desire to tell the story and get it published, but the last couple of years have made it difficult to put my fullest energy into it like I had that one summer. From college to internships to jobs and other creative writing exercises for all and in between, my ability and energy have just been put elsewhere for the longest time.
And admittedly, I think that is an excuse I’ve gotten too used to using — though I do think that my last blog’s existential crisis over a lack of energy has also been somewhat true. That is to say, though, that I think I’ve used being too tired as an excuse for too long, just to cover up for a procrastinative spirit.
I think it has to do with fear.
I think that, lately, I’ve been afraid of getting back into it, because I AM planning on making my one book into a trilogy now, but that involves even more energy and time and ultimately, sacrifices will need to be made. Not like burning a sacrificial ram on the winter solstice or anything like that. That would be easy. More like, limiting my time on things like gaming, drawing, or just chatting and keeping up with all my friends.
I think it comes down to the balance of creative imagination and complete freedom, and that of professional maturity and technical time-management.
I know I can’t give up both because I need both to succeed — but I also know that I’ve allowed myself too much freedom to loaf around.
I need to get myself back into gear, and just start going. The story won’t write itself — I have to do that, which means I’ve got to actually get to writing again.
This leads me to my New Year’s conclusion and resolution.
I want to be a writer and a storyteller, and that means I have got to write.
This next year, I want to write, edit, and publish the first book of my trilogy. I am going to start giving myself structure and deadlines, and people to whom I will have to be accountable to in the coming months regarding my progress. With this framework, it is my hope that I will be able to achieve this goal in 2020.
In addition, I want to make this blog a regular thing. I don’t share it with everyone out there, but I hope that, after making a large enough backlog of these posts and building up enough self-confidence, that I can someday share this with everyone else that matters to me. I want these posts to reflect who I am as my truest self — not some edited and self-censored version that shows only fragments of who I am.
So with that all said and done, I’m going to make 2020 MY YEAR, and I’m going to conquer it!
Today’s end blog song goes to the wonderful band, Mumford & Sons, and their song “Blind Leading The Blind”
I’ll write another blog between here and the New Year probably, but in case something comes up, I hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday and End Year Celebration!
