2008-10-18
I'm looking at finishing "Mixed Bag" for Halloween, probably with a double header that night. So this morning, I spent three precious hours writing 10,000 words to finish "Door in the Closet" and that will post as chapter 58 on the 25th I believe.
I want to do my blog entry now, while it's still fresh.
The story was always going to end at ten chapters. 50,000 words, that was my plan and my goal. Unfortunately, my pacing in this story was terrible. My planning was non-existent. As such, it isn't a very good story technically. It's pretty bad and a very good example for those of you paying attention, how NOT to write a story. Most times, for most stories, my talent (such as it is) will overcome my laziness. But science fiction, which necessarily deals with a lot of trivia and facts and one premise built on another in logical fashion, really requires a lot of planning. Obviously I didn't plan anything...What I did was write as fast as I could whatever popped into my little brain and tried to massage the story so it sorta made sense.
Silly me.
Thus, to get back on point, when I got to my chapter 10 and typed "Door 10" at the top of the screen and looked at all that white space, I said, "rache, you gotta find an ending!" so that's what I did. Writing is easy, 10K words is nothing to sweat and I was prepared to go longer if I needed to, as long as it took. I figured if I hit 15K and it wasn't over I'd look at a chapter 11, but I managed to end it almost on schedule.
I'm talking too much.
There's a lot of holes, a lot of missing details, conflicting details, a lot of mismatched characters and events. It's not an easy read. And it's not really a serious story either, so I'm not too worried about it. I did slip in some social commentary here and there. But the story isn't meant to be hard and factual and the blueprint for the future. There's nothing pretentious going on. It's just me rambling off the cuff and having as much fun doing it as I can without all the stress of doing any real work.
I'm sure some people enjoyed it. Some people will be disappointed in one way or another. Other's will see the potential and missed opportunities, as I do, admittedly. It was a good experience writing it and I might try it again someday and next time work out in advance all the nuances of the alternative universe and prepare a more reasonable background and plot.
So that's it!
rache
