2002: Year in Review

(Written by Kodi Wolf sometime in 2013)

I finished two novels (Assassin, which was posted, and Book 1 of Kindari, which was not) and posted 36 chapters in the first half of the year. And then nothing until 2003.

If I'd kept up that pace for the second half of the year, I would have posted more chapters than I did in 2000.

So what went wrong? Or at least not how I would have liked?

I can't say for sure, but I think I've figured out several contributing factors. For one thing, I had taken several months off from work (April through July), partly because there was a lull, but also so I could focus on my stories. I think that's what let me post so many chapters, particularly on The Vampire Hunter and the rest of Assassin. But then things picked up again in August and I didn't have the same amount of time to devote to my writing.

I also started another new story called The Trine sometime in June and had completed 144 pages on the outline by the beginning of September, so what time I did have was going into an unposted story.

However, I think there were two things that affected my lack of updates more than anything else.

First, The Vampire Hunter got to a good stopping point and I finished Assassin. This gave me a moment to take a step back and look at my stories, and with all the things I was learning about writing, I could see all these flaws in my stories, things I felt needed to be corrected in order for me to move on.

Second, I had started figuring out what my plans were for various stories and had realized, particularly with The Vampire Hunter, that in order to take the story where I wanted it to go, I needed to add previous scenes or it was going to feel like one of those moments when you're reading and go, "Where the hell did that come from? Did the author just pull that out of their ass?"

I've learned that those moments come from authors who have no idea where they're going with a story when they begin, which is pretty much how all of my stories started off. A lot of the work I've done in learning about how to write is in the area of planning, of knowing where I want to go, so my stories don't wander. In retrospect, I think I've been lucky in that I somehow had enough of an innate understanding of story that I don't feel any of my stories are truly lacking cohesion, but it was around this time that I decided most of them needed serious overhauls (not to change the story, but to put in things I'd left out that would be important later, and to tighten the text so nothing superfluous could get in the way or distract the reader from the story I wanted to tell).

And that's when I started working on revisions. (To be continued in subsequent years.)

Moral of the Story

Sometimes you have to take a couple steps back in order to move forward again.

The trick is in knowing when you've gone back far enough, which isn't as easy as it sounds. I will say I'm glad I decided to rework my stories, since I think I've learned a lot in the process and my stories are better for it (note: most changes haven't been posted yet, as of 2013), but I think I got stuck for a long time and that's time I'll never get back.