The Stories We Tell

I finished the story I was working on, and I like it, but I felt like there is another story--maybe two--that need to be written. I think there are more things, events, adventures, angsty thoughts and feels in between where the last couple of stories I wrote left off and where the one I’ve just finished (still needs editing) picks up. Which means I don’t want to post the one I’ve written yet. I suppose I could and then post the pack parts later, but that doesn’t feel right to me, and I don’t think it will feel right to the people who read it (not that I expect many people to read it because it’s a pretty obscure ship).

*A couple days later*

So now I’m working on another story and working to tie the gaps. As I work on this new one--I’m approximately 1,200 words into it at last count--I’m finding more and more that I think there’s another story between what I’m writing and the next story. I can’t be sure, and I doubt I’ll be sure until I finish this one I’m working on, but the sense that I get from the story that’s in my mind is that the build-up will need this current story and another before the last one will work the way I want it too. I’ll probably have to re-write that last one also.

Part of me is frustrated that I’ll likely have to re-write that story after I worked so hard on it and I got it done so I could post it for July. But the rest of me is sure that I wasn’t going to find a way to write these middle stories without having a clearer path of where I wanted the story to go and writing that story allowed me to get a lot of what felt amorphous in my head into a recognizable shape. As such, I’ll be thankful that I pushed myself to keep writing and remind myself that the compost of one story can become the fertilizer of the next.

Shit, I’m too tired to wax this poetic.