Not sure if this is something I'll post eventually or that I'm just writing for myself, but I'm writing it to get it out of my head... and hopefully I can figure out what to do moving forward.
I'd been toying around with redoing this project again for a while, but it's been really difficult finding the motivation to start it.
I'd written in previous posts some of my ideas of what to add, subtract and otherwise experiment with... but it's finding the time and energy to do it.
I'd been cagey in general about writing fiction since I'd finished my previous project. I spent the past several years working on it from start to finish. I've lived with those characters in my head for such a long time and with some of what they went through, it was hard taking on that emotional load. Things I'd never personally experienced but I put myself in the shoes of those who might have.
So that's played a lot into things. But I think my greatest fear is the same as it's always been: rejection.
It's all part of this industry. Some of the greater success stories in the writing community had been rejected dozens, if not hundreds of times. I think I have maybe a dozen rejection emails, most of which said they're not interested. Nothing specific that could really help me in the long run. To cap that all off, I was submitting to agents at a time when NOTHING was going right for me. If I got any job interviews at all, there was no follow-up. All but maybe 3 of the dozen of so positions completely ghosted me.
Thankfully things are a lot better than they were back then and I work for a company where I feel valued and I'm lucky enough they've let me continue to work from home even with everything essentially back to normal from whatever the hell this decade has been.
I spent a few years after the rejection emails trying to edit and fix things, but I stalled out by maybe chapter 4... nothing ever came after that. I got distracted with actual work and the million other little interests I've sunk my time into.
Now I'm at that point where I really need to start putting words down on my laptop and seeing what happens. I'd been so caught up in my head, thinking over what might work and ultimately deciding some things aren't going to work or just don't feel right.
So this is my message to myself: start experimenting. Write things down. If it doesn't go anywhere, then there's always other options. If it doesn't feel right, I can try a few other angles.
I have a Word.doc for another project where I'd done a similar thing, but for different reasons. Me experimenting with difficulties a character could go through and how the scene around them plays out...
This could be a similar thing and I could use different headings and so on to help organize things.
I feel like this is already becoming this year's theme and it's only day 7 (going on 8 at this point)... I need to carve out a time slot, give myself 10 minutes and just do the thing. In fact, I'll set up that Word document right now.
