Anyone looking at this blog will see that there’s a lot of projects going on. They’re all in various states of completion, as is the way with writing, and some have been close to abandoned as other priorities have arisen.
And whilst sometimes projects are left behind and have to remain as unpublished drafts, it doesn’t have to be that way for every project that isn’t working; things can be left to be returned to. It can be difficult to know where that line is drawn, to know when to leave things behind and when to put a pause on them. Sometimes, they switch, and something you thought you would return to is something you end up having to say goodbye to. Or something you thought was to stay in the past gets a new light shined upon it and is revitalised, allowing you to work on it again. The project may change, sometimes substantially, but cases like those are joyous because you clearly wanted to tell that story and now you still can, even if it is different to what you initially thought.
For me, the stories that I haven’t touched for a little while now are ones I want to tell. I have sadly retired Project #3/OFBB, but I wasn’t prepared to do that with these other projects. I knew they were going to have to change, but I wasn’t prepared to give up on them.
And I’m glad I didn’t.
There are four projects in particular I’m talking about. Project #1, which you may know about if you’ve followed this blog, one I’ve struggled with almost since its beginning, and three other projects I don’t believe I’ve mentioned on here yet, at least not in any great detail. They are Project BB, Project DGB, and Project TTCH. Each of them had elements I was excited about, characters I wanted to explore, relationships I wanted to test. But as time wound on, I found they were getting left behind. Not just because I was physically working on other things, but because I was developing as a writer and what I had initially planned for these projects no longer aligned with the kind of writing I was being drawn to, the kinds of genres and questions I was keen to tackle.
When I first made the decision that I truly wanted to pursue authorship, I envisioned a plan, a sort of growth where my novels would lead from one to the next in quite a visible way. They were not sequels (not for the most part anyway), but the transition from each story to its subsequent one would, in my eyes, make sense. You would be able to see why one story came after another, how they related to one another and how my kinds of stories evolved. Sometimes, when you look at an author’s past novels, you can can see how they developed to become the author they are, you can see why they became associated with perhaps a certain kind of story or a particular genre; as I planned out the projects I wanted to write, I could envision the path that my authorship would take.
There were problems with this, however. Namely, that you cannot always predict the path you will follow. If each novel had been published as I thought, maybe that path would have been followed. But things so rarely work out exactly like that; some projects lost their vigour and required a lot of rework; I found myself motivated to tackle a different story than the one that ‘should’ come next; other projects entirely were spawned and drew me in because they were the ones that called to me the most.
As this happened, the path I had envisioned became a little more winding or jutted in a different direction entirely. In fact, sometimes, it was as though I had stepped off one path and onto another. With this being the case, I knew things needed work.
Other stories became my focus, but I never forgot about the original ones. Whilst they felt underdeveloped and occasionally distant from where I was now treading, I knew they were still stories I wanted to tell. I thought long and hard about them, wondering if they were simply things to retire, but I didn’t feel that was the right move. They were still stories that I knew could be told, and all I needed to do was give them some love and attention so that they fit the new path I was on, and not be left behind on a path I didn’t feel like I was still walking.
Some of them were easier than others. There were a couple of quick changes I needed to make that made me see these stories could fit further along my current path, that they would still align with my evolution as an author. Then there were others that took much more work, a lot more pondering. Changing characters, their motivations, their arcs, even the genre itself were all things that needed to be considered and often completed so that it wasn’t left behind. It couldn’t be too forced, otherwise I think the story would feel clunky and too altered from its purpose and origin, but there had to be substantial changes that allowed it to work with who I am now, and with who I might be in the future by the time it is published.
Now, it’s obvious, when I’ve got these four projects as well as the others I’ve got going on, that more change is going to come. I’ve altered these stories to align with who I am now, but what happens if they’re still not published for years? Will they need more work? Will their genres shift further? Will I eventually decide that too much change means they’re no longer the story they once were and call it a day on them completely, retiring them to the unpublished drafts of my past?
Of course each of these things are possible. To write, or to be creative in any way, is to accept that the creator you were last year is not the creator you are now. That can sometimes be just a small change (you favour different adjectives now, your dialogue feels different, you prioritise different kinds of characters) or it can be a massive one (you tackle different genres, maybe even different styles, perhaps even different formats). As you grow as a person, your creativity and your creative nature change as well.
So I am almost expecting there to be further changes with these stories, for new projects to arise, for there to be troubles and hurdles that I will eventually face. But when that times comes, I’ll overcome them then. Right now, I’ve put the work in so these stories are ones I can still tell. And if more work has to come in the future so they can still fit on the path I’m taking, I’m prepared for that, as I believe every author needs to be.
I’ll go into more detail about each of the projects in their own posts when the time comes. Because although I have put the work in to get them back on track, they’re all still far from anything final. A couple of them are still just notes, and whilst I have done multiple drafts of Project #1, that’s definitely the project that required the most work and so I’m not sure how much of these original drafts will be of use to me.
But that’s just the way it is to be a writer; you might work on something for years and years before realising it’s not what you’re after. Or that you’ve shifted and grown, and that means, even though it will require even more work, you have to redraft the story so it aligns with you as you currently are. Otherwise it can lead to a lot of frustration and disappointment to keep tackling something when it’s the foundation that needs work, not the surface.
So whilst there is still a lot of work to be done with these projects, I’m really excited about them again, and that’s the main thing to focus on. They had almost become a subject of dread, sitting in the back of my mind, taunting me because they were all stories I wanted to tell, I just didn’t know how to tell them. They lingered, never leaving me, and not letting me say a proper goodbye either, mostly because I didn’t want to say goodbye.
Now, I don’t have to, and that’s so invigorating. I can’t wait to tackle them again properly soon, and when that time comes, I will most definitely be thanking my past self for putting that work in now so the next part comes just a little easier.
Robyn x
R. A. Howard 