Admit it, you heard the paraphrase in her voice too.
If not, Youtube is your friend. Look up Mommy Dearest.
The first time I tried to be a business man/artist, I failed miserably. Webdesign and the like was not my thing, plus I am a terrible… TERRIBLE salesman. Not bad for production and back end, but yeah don’t get me involved elsewhere regarding sales. One thing I learned is that things seem to always take three times longer than you think they will. As you can imagine, I forgot this rule.
So I’ve blown my latest deadline because the book is just so difficult right now to nail down. I know this is resistance, and I can see the ending, but boy, I’m really having a hard time getting to the finish line. Like a marathon runner hitting the wall. (So I heard. I don’t run, not even at gunpoint.)
So what’s going on? Simple. My ending was more ambitious than my deadline, and I have had to concoct many things and take many other themes hiding in the depths of this story and resolve them. Now I could have taken the easy way out on it and just glossed over the whole thing and be done with it. But when I started writing, I promised myself to write something that I would want to read, and this is something I want to read.
I keep thinking back to what it is that I liked about the books I love. Consider:
“The Hobbit” (even moreso than the Lord of the Rings I love that book)
“The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe”
“Huckleberry Finn”
“Old Times on the Mississippi”
“The Stand”
Movies like:
“Runaway Train”
“King of the North Pole”
The “Mad Max” Series
“Last of the Mohicans” (Yes I prefer the movie to the book, but both are excellent)
These are all about adventure while travel. Nature is often the largest enemy, while human complications make the matters worse. These things are huge influences on my project, though it seems the more I work on it, the more it starts to feel like “Apocalypse Now”. Matching wits and danger against the power and majesty of nature.
The finale needed to do several things to make for the best resolution, plus every time I managed to solve the issue, I had something new come about. I needed to drive my co-protagonist, Brother Finn, to his “All is lost moment”, and then deal with my other co-protagonist, Reimar, to a point where he overcomes his nature. Both need to happen pretty much at the same time, and I’m finally there. I just have to put the words on the page to pull it off in such a way that makes sense.
It’s not a YA “Coming of Age” plot, but it has elements of both in it. It’s more a novel about redemption and learning to stand for something greater than yourself. Themes I really hope come through and hold true. We shall see.
So, triple the time, and don’t set up false deadlines. Let the story tell itself.
I pray that my patience and due diligence pays off in the end.
PS, I am moving my early week blog to Tuesdays for a while, to see what happens.
I guess the story is going to take as long as it’s going to take. As long as you’re sticking diligently with it, I’m not sure there’s much else you can do to hurry things along.
That is what I’m learning. It’s just sometimes my inner Veruca Salt comes out going “Make good writing go faster!” ;c)