Thought no.60 – The story has ended

It’s done. The story has finished. The first draft of book 3 is done. It’s strange though, because I don’t feel like it is finished. I guess that is because it isn’t. I already know there are whole chapters I’d like to re-write and new chapters that I’d like to write in. So, I suppose the story isn’t actually finished and in a way I don’t think it ever will be.

The first draft of the first book was done on the 28th August 2012. The first draft of the second book was done on the 5th March 2013 and now the third book’s first draft was done on the 1st March 2014; almost a year later. The third book had honestly been the hardest to write out of the three books and I believe will need the most editing and alterations. But it is done. There won’t be another story for these characters, not that I write anyway. Now, I am going to go back to the very beginning and re-read the first, which in my opinion is done and needs no further alterations to the story. I’ll let myself become completely engrossed in the story before I begin the edits upon the third book. I just can’t believe I’m finished. It feels very surreal and I thought perhaps I would feel something more than this. I don’t know what I thought I would feel once I finished but I expected there to be something more. Maybe I don’t because I know that all my characters are safe and I am happy with how it has ended.

This series is the thing I am most proud of in the world and I don’t think i have actually accepted that I have finished. Probably because there is so much editing to do. But I just want to say to all of those out there who want to write a book, do it, it one of the best things in the whole entire world and I have never been more proud of an accomplishment. And to those that are writing a book, good luck.

Thought no.58 – Reaching the end

I have almost completed the third and final book in a series I am writing. I’m almost at the end but I just can’t quite bring myself to write it. I would say I am probably about a chapter away from the end. I know it is my first draft and so it still has a lot of work that needs to be done, but it still feels like the end. The story is ending and I don’t want it to.

Writing this series has been very special to me and it means a lot to me as I first started writing it in 2012 when I was going through one of the most difficult parts of my life. It was my escape, it was my therapy, it was my way of conveying how I felt without actually telling anyone. And I’m almost done. I don’t want to be done, but I know there is no more that needs to be written, there is not another story that needs to be told. All my characters are safe now, and I want them to be safe so I must finish writing.

With the previous two I never had such reserves and refusal about writing the end because I knew it wasn’t the end. I knew there was something else coming. But now…everything is so final. These characters have been with me for the past 2 years now, they are a part of my life and I worry that without them I will lose myself and resort back to the horrible place that I was in in 2012.

It’s like with most books and when you are reading them and you can see you only have a couple of pages left and you want to prolong it for as long as possible because you want to savor the moments but you also just really badly want to get to the end. But afterwards you are left with that numb lost feeling. It’s going to be like that but worse because these are my characters, I created them. And I really don’t want to let them go.

Endings may be hard to write but reaching the end is hardest of all, because it won’t continue, it all just ends with a full stop.

Thought no.53 – My mind is writing somewhere else

Today has been more of a creative writing day for me so trying to write non-fiction is exceedingly difficult for me. I just want to go back into the narrative world of my book I am writing. Today my writing has been very conversation based rather than action or imagery. And because my mind is within the fictional world of my own creation I shall leave you with a little something I wrote today from my book:

“Why are you doing all of this?” Bea asked,

“To make the world fair. You know that,”

“Is it making you happy though?”

“What sort of question is that one?”

“One you don’t want to answer,” remarked Alice with a grin. “That’s thing with revenge Zena, is that it burns as well. It leaves you with nothing. Burning away all what you once had and burning anything you could have. You live your life to enact this revenge and then you don’t feel anything. The anger is gone, you don’t feel happy or satisfied. Revenge never brings about happiness,”

 

Thought no.30 – Endings

So I am writing my third book. I have already written two, they aren’t published or anything. It’s just a project I’ve been working on. Anyway, i am working on the third one and I am working towards the ending right now and i am stuck, completely and utterly stuck. I CANNOT THINK OF AN ENDING. Well, I say ending, I have a definite ending but it is not an ending for the plot of the story. So I need an ending for the plot.

It is so frustrating. The way i write, is more a lack of planning with a vague idea and milestones that I reach. My current milestone is the ending, and I am stumped. I have no idea how to end it. It would seem to me from research that most ending in the fantasy genre are endings where the villain dies. I just do not know how to resolve everything. Perhaps it is because I have tried to make the whole thing too complicated and the villain/s have become too complicated and I have tried to make them more deep and try and take a different route where the villain isn’t killing or whatever. But how do I stop the villain without killing them? Because I really don’t want to have to kill them, because I feel as if that is too predictable. But I guess if that is how the characters would resolve the problem then I guess I have to let them do what they want to do, right?

Endings are the hardest part to write, especially when you don’t plan. You have to try and pull all these separate strands that you have created and find a way to weave them all together into a finite knot of an ending. My problem is I have too many strands that are trying to fly away and my fingertips keep on creating new strands when I am trying to pull the other ones in. I am being left with a mess all around me, like a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces are the wrong size and so can’t fit together. I am very tempted just to write there was a giant explosion and everything worked itself out. Or and then … woke up, it had all been a dream. Just because it would be so much easier than trying to pull everything back together. Damn endings, why must they be so difficult.

Thought no.22 – Hero and Villain

Fantasy is one of the marvels of this world I live in. Without it I would be truly lost but also without it I would probably have lower expectations on life and what it is meant to be like. I read that there is always a hero, villain, sidekick, damsel in distress but I see none of these in my life. Presumably I am the main character of my own story, making me the hero, but I do not have a sidekick nor a villain. I have no one I am up against. But if I think I see that I am my own villain; I am constantly fighting myself. Though there is no imbalance of good and evil, there is only me and I am the hero trying to save the damsel is distress, yet I am both, I am trying to save myself from the villain. I am trying to save myself from myself.

I do not belong in a wonderful huge adventure full of excitement and danger, meeting new people and visiting magical new lands. I am not falling in love or saving lives. I am just trying to get through day by day, and sometimes I realise my life is not going to be like the stories I read in books. My life is a lot more difficult, because there is no evil entity I must face, as I must face myself as the villain and be a hero and save myself, as I am also the damsel in distress. My sidekick is nowhere to be seen, I am not even my own sidekick, because in the end I am alone in this battle. This dull, incessant, tiring battle, there is no magic in my life, no fantasy element. There is only me. Just trying to save myself and pull myself through each day. The only battle is the one going on in my head every single day.

Sometimes I wonder if I can cope and manage, if I can continue being the hero, villain and damsel in distress. I wonder that if I will be happy living in a world that is not like the stories that I read. Life is not beautiful and sometimes I forget that, sometimes I forget that my life will not become a wonderfully written fantasy novel. I have not lived yet, but I feel as if it is taking too long for my life to begin and I worry that it never will. I worry that it never will because a wizard is not going to turn up on my doorstep and take me on an adventure.

I wonder if everyone goes through this. I have no doubt that everyone does at one point in their life, but I wonder if it’ll ever stop. Everyone says in face of a bad situation that “it’ll get better” but I want to know when. Because isn’t the hero meant to bring about this better world? But if I am that hero then I know it shan’t be done any time soon because I am still trying to save myself and defeat myself. Real life is whole lot more complicated and difficult than a fantasy life, especially if you are both the hero and villain of your own story.