Forking Roads

This post is being written late, because I got super distracted yesterday. By a book. Not one I was writing. One that I was reading.

I've been big on road trips lately. The Long Road was a road trip. My little rom-com involves an albeit short trip where two people get to know each other. And I just read (in seven hours) John Green's An Abundance of Katherines, which kicks off its main story with, that's right, a road trip.

I think this is a sign that I need to get back to at least one of my stories. I haven't really revisited The Long Road since I've had some revelations about it that would simplify it greatly. I got all caught up in the details of where they were going to go and what they were going to do, but with this new information, it really doesn't matter.

I could probably finish the rom-com in a day or two if I actually sat down and did it. I know the basic plot, I know what needs to happen. I know what predictable romance tropes we're likely to run into. I just need to create some family characters, and I think that's going to be more of a pantsing situation, rather than plotting out a full backstory and character outline for grumpy Aunt Esther who has four lines. It's supposed to be a fun little story that no one will ever read, so I'm not going to put a ton of effort into it. It's going to be like the old days, where I just made shit up and hoped for the best.

Did I ever just make shit up? I asked myself that recently, while typing that last paragraph, so… very recently. And while even my first NaNo novel involves a lot of research into historical events and literary characters, that was hardly my first story ever.

When I was in high school, probably senior year, though I could be lying. (I had the same English teacher 9th, 10th, and 12th grade, so they all run together.) We had to write this journal thing every day. Usually there was a topic, like, I don't know, "What did you do last weekend?" or "What would you do with a million dollars?" Just something to get you writing about anything, I guess. But sometimes it would just be a freewrite, like, write whatever. So I started a story. It was made up, literally a paragraph or two at a time, over the course of weeks. I didn't know where it was going. I just made it up as I went along. I eventually typed it all up; it's about 1,000 words long, and probably awful. But I just wrote it, with no regard for plot, or character depth, or sense. And it was fun.

That's what I want to do with the rom-com. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't even have to be good. It just needs to be written.

The Long Road, on the other hand, has to be good, because I want to do something with that. I want people to read that one. I want my name on a cover that I didn't make in PowerPoint.

That's the goal, right? That's why we're here.

And I mean here on this blog, not here on this Earth. I'm not qualified to answer that one.

So, in a nutshell, what I'm saying is that I haven't worked on anything in the past week. But I'm also saying I'm feeling a little more inspired to do so, which is an improvement.

I'll see you Wednesday.