Merry Christmas!
Every Christmas, I send messages to my friends and loved ones at midnight. It's been a tradition since … I don't even know. Certainly, before I turned 14. I prepare a Christmas Playlist, set it to start at exactly midnight, and try to send everyone a message before 00:01. So far, I have not failed in this task. I permit myself to be exceptionally sentimental in these messages and it's a genuinely ecstatic experience.
This post is kind of that but to whoever reads these blogposts. I started posting my writing online during the Golden Days of Wattpad and met my best friend there (who I am still in contact with today, and whom I still love dearly). Sharing writing with my friends and getting feedback has continuously been a wonderful motivation to meet up and hang out. Two people have spoken to me about FDOTG specifically which, in each case, led to distinct, long, and fulfilling conversations. Apart from the writing itself serving as a connection between me and others, it's also been the initiation of other kinds of connection too.
Reader, your anonymity makes it difficult to say anything personal, but what I can say is that I appreciate you. And if you've read anything else I've written, I appreciate you even more. I am unsure there is anything more intimate than experiencing another's inner world and art is the closest one gets to that.
Updates
So if you're here, presumably you're at least somewhat interested in my writings, so you may want to know the status on my current main project (Solipsism=0+).1. Write Part 0
2. Light edits to Part 1
3. Moderate edits to Part 2
4. COMPLETE REWRITE OF PART 3
4.1. Re-read and extract all the best elements
4.2. Write new plot connecting Parts 2 and 3
4.3. Write the damn thing
5. Minor edits to Part 4
6. Write Part 5
To give a bit of background, I decided that the story was better off being grounded in something more realistic to start with (although it doesn't stay that way for very long, unlike FDOTG). I actually had a blast writing the new Part 0, and experimented with giving the two more POV characters.
It worked really well. Almost too well. The pacing in Part 0 ended up being a lot more exciting than the rest of the novel, so I had to tighten it up in Parts 1 and 2. Using Writerly Magic, I managed to put in enough foreshadowing in Part 0 that it elevates those parts even without the further edits.
There was also a pretty major scene that always bothered me and I finally figured out how to improve it, and that required a fairly heavy edit + writing new material. I think the new material has much denser world-building and also connects better to one of my favourite scenes in the whole novel.
I had enough fun writing the different POVs that I realised Part 3 would be better off in one of those other POVs which means I have to scrap almost all of it. Which is okay because it is probably the weakest part overall. Not a lot happens, at least to the former POV character, and that was kind of the point, but since I've introduced new POVs anyway, I reckon it's much more interesting to see that former POV character from an outsider perspective. This is my next major task and I'll probably get it done before I have to go back to work (Jan 19th).
In fact, I'm hoping that I'll get everything done by then, but no promises. I know more or less what I want the final part to do, and that it doesn't have to be very long to do that, but I don't yet know what that looks like and what stumbling blocks I might hit.
