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Let me bare my heart to you guys, for just a few moments.
7 years ago
Well done me. It's March, and no update for Integration? What the heck happened? Brace yourselves, this is gonna be a bit long. Don't worry, it's nothing sad or depressing. I'm a happy person.
Nothing happened, really. I could make excuses about school, and it has been dragging me down hard. (Who knew art school was work intensive!) But truth be told, I do not believe for a moment that it's hindered me enough to not write Integration. That's on me.
Something... is stuck. I have 10,000 words give or take of chapter fourteen. Now see, the problem with that, is I've never stopped writing halfway through a chapter. Once I get going, I always had it complete within a short time. But I stopped, and I can't quite tell why. Writer's block? Part of it, maybe. I read through all of Integration recently, to better reconnect with my old work. It helped, I feel more confident approaching Integration now. But apparently, I still feel stuck.
Is it the plot? I'll be up front with you folks, practically the entirety of Integration was written by the seat of my pants. I never really know what's going to happen in each chapter until I write it. I've honest to goodness been surprised by own plot numerous times. Surprised by my own characters. It's a fun way to write, but definitely not sustainable. I've reached a point in the story where I'm not entirely sure how to proceed in a natural feeling way. Chapter twelve in particular hit me with this really hard back when I wrote it. It felt forced to me, in some ways. When I reread it, it still feels a bit like that, but the feeling has waned some.
Sometimes I feel like Integration does a lot of pussyfooting around, thanks to my lack of any outline to the story. Like perhaps the plot could have advanced quicker if I knew what I was doing. I just don't know what's going to happen next at any given moment. Sure, we have a situation coming with Maduk, where Dylan will have to show he can handle being with Yirshan, but... what then? It's really a crazy way to write. I've dabbled into some potential outlining for where to take the story now, but not nearly enough of it. I need to look into that again.
Integration honestly feels like it's on the brink of an ending to me. This segment of Dylan and Kira's story is so close to wrapping up. I feel it. And endings are scary to write. Could that be the problem I'm having? I sense the end is so close, and I panic that I don't know what to do? One of the Pixar Rules of Storytelling is writing your ending first, before the middle, for exactly this reason.
Whatever the problem is, I want you all to know Integration isn't going to die. I love this setting, I wish I could dream it and experience it. I wish so many things for it. But ultimately, right now, it's not so high of a priority for me. I'm in a very happy place in my life right now, I feel good. But it's focusing most of my creative effort elsewhere. Again, I don't think that's an excuse, but it has some affect. I was a college dropout, but now I'm back years later for round two, passion coming along with me this time. Apparently, I suck at evenly dividing up my passions.
Goodness, I remember years ago, while delivering pizza, the idea for Integration just hit me. Like a friggin freight train, swept me right off my feet. I was so, so excited. I couldn't wait to get off work and start writing. I truly never felt such an inspiration for any other story before. Or... maybe even anything? I wrote the first chapter in a sprint in two days. It was the start to my idea, and I had no dang idea what I was going to do with it. But that was the fun part! It was time to explore this new, lovely universe. Or as new as a reboot could be, just better realized than what I could write as a high schooler, all those years ago.
You know, I went into this story so completely blind. It was an idea, that was it. It was, 'What if humans and friendly, macro anthros, aliens to each other, had to learn to coexist?' A military setting was a tentative idea at first, but it had a lot of potential in the way it would force anthro and human to figure each other out. So I went with that. I wrote Kira first, thought it was a decent start. Then came Dylan... what to do with the human. A medic? Oooh, that could be fun to explore. Personality... I needed something that would not lead to affections with Kira too quickly. PTSD? Oooh, that could lead to the best affections? And then, hoo god, I went down the PTSD rabbit hole in a way I did not expect AT ALL. People love Kira, I love Kira, but I feel like Dylan might be the best character I ever made. I'm so proud of him and what he's doing.
Anyway, I digressed. Integration SHOULD have been finished years ago now, if I approached it like a proper writer. It makes me ache whenever I think about Integration, and these absolutely obscene gaps in updates. But I also appreciate you lot for the love for the story, apparently strong enough to come back and read my rare updates. It's incredible the interest seems to hold like that. And it scares me that with these rare updates, I'm losing readers and fans. I let them down, and that's just.... wrong. I grew up in the fandom trawling for stories like Integration, these wild, escapist stories of fantastic anthros, some as big as buildings, and their interactions with us, humans. Stories like Integration hold a special fondness in my heart, and I remember the times I was let down by dead stories. Wonderful tales that I couldn't eat up faster, only to find a cold, dead end of a cliff. The writer had given up.
I'm not gonna give up, guys. I just can't. I know my rare updates don't make it seem like it, but Integration, the UTO verse, is a big part of my life. I think about it every day, I see it in the music I listen to, the videos I watch, the games I play, the tiny stories that crop up in my head. It's not left my imagination once over these years, but my drive seems sapped of something. Yeah, talk bout obvious there, right? No kidding.
Part Fourteen will come. I know it. My life is in a good place, but I still gotta sort myself out. If I can't do it for myself, then I gotta at least do it for you all, right? The people that love what I do and don't want to see Integration putter out either. Again, it's incredible that so many of you put up with my crap. The love for the story is so strong? It's heartwarming, guys. Wanting to bring you all a wonderful story and make you happy is what got me into writing in the first place. I let my readers down, I didn't just fail myself, I failed all of you. Something must be done.
I don't know when, and goodness it has to be soon with how frayed my nerves feel, but Part Fourteen will be done. Worse comes to worst, I'll make a Discord server so you all can come in and yell at me to stop being a lazy butt!
I love you guys. Thank you so much for putting up with my crap. Hope this ramble was comprehensible.
Nothing happened, really. I could make excuses about school, and it has been dragging me down hard. (Who knew art school was work intensive!) But truth be told, I do not believe for a moment that it's hindered me enough to not write Integration. That's on me.
Something... is stuck. I have 10,000 words give or take of chapter fourteen. Now see, the problem with that, is I've never stopped writing halfway through a chapter. Once I get going, I always had it complete within a short time. But I stopped, and I can't quite tell why. Writer's block? Part of it, maybe. I read through all of Integration recently, to better reconnect with my old work. It helped, I feel more confident approaching Integration now. But apparently, I still feel stuck.
Is it the plot? I'll be up front with you folks, practically the entirety of Integration was written by the seat of my pants. I never really know what's going to happen in each chapter until I write it. I've honest to goodness been surprised by own plot numerous times. Surprised by my own characters. It's a fun way to write, but definitely not sustainable. I've reached a point in the story where I'm not entirely sure how to proceed in a natural feeling way. Chapter twelve in particular hit me with this really hard back when I wrote it. It felt forced to me, in some ways. When I reread it, it still feels a bit like that, but the feeling has waned some.
Sometimes I feel like Integration does a lot of pussyfooting around, thanks to my lack of any outline to the story. Like perhaps the plot could have advanced quicker if I knew what I was doing. I just don't know what's going to happen next at any given moment. Sure, we have a situation coming with Maduk, where Dylan will have to show he can handle being with Yirshan, but... what then? It's really a crazy way to write. I've dabbled into some potential outlining for where to take the story now, but not nearly enough of it. I need to look into that again.
Integration honestly feels like it's on the brink of an ending to me. This segment of Dylan and Kira's story is so close to wrapping up. I feel it. And endings are scary to write. Could that be the problem I'm having? I sense the end is so close, and I panic that I don't know what to do? One of the Pixar Rules of Storytelling is writing your ending first, before the middle, for exactly this reason.
Whatever the problem is, I want you all to know Integration isn't going to die. I love this setting, I wish I could dream it and experience it. I wish so many things for it. But ultimately, right now, it's not so high of a priority for me. I'm in a very happy place in my life right now, I feel good. But it's focusing most of my creative effort elsewhere. Again, I don't think that's an excuse, but it has some affect. I was a college dropout, but now I'm back years later for round two, passion coming along with me this time. Apparently, I suck at evenly dividing up my passions.
Goodness, I remember years ago, while delivering pizza, the idea for Integration just hit me. Like a friggin freight train, swept me right off my feet. I was so, so excited. I couldn't wait to get off work and start writing. I truly never felt such an inspiration for any other story before. Or... maybe even anything? I wrote the first chapter in a sprint in two days. It was the start to my idea, and I had no dang idea what I was going to do with it. But that was the fun part! It was time to explore this new, lovely universe. Or as new as a reboot could be, just better realized than what I could write as a high schooler, all those years ago.
You know, I went into this story so completely blind. It was an idea, that was it. It was, 'What if humans and friendly, macro anthros, aliens to each other, had to learn to coexist?' A military setting was a tentative idea at first, but it had a lot of potential in the way it would force anthro and human to figure each other out. So I went with that. I wrote Kira first, thought it was a decent start. Then came Dylan... what to do with the human. A medic? Oooh, that could be fun to explore. Personality... I needed something that would not lead to affections with Kira too quickly. PTSD? Oooh, that could lead to the best affections? And then, hoo god, I went down the PTSD rabbit hole in a way I did not expect AT ALL. People love Kira, I love Kira, but I feel like Dylan might be the best character I ever made. I'm so proud of him and what he's doing.
Anyway, I digressed. Integration SHOULD have been finished years ago now, if I approached it like a proper writer. It makes me ache whenever I think about Integration, and these absolutely obscene gaps in updates. But I also appreciate you lot for the love for the story, apparently strong enough to come back and read my rare updates. It's incredible the interest seems to hold like that. And it scares me that with these rare updates, I'm losing readers and fans. I let them down, and that's just.... wrong. I grew up in the fandom trawling for stories like Integration, these wild, escapist stories of fantastic anthros, some as big as buildings, and their interactions with us, humans. Stories like Integration hold a special fondness in my heart, and I remember the times I was let down by dead stories. Wonderful tales that I couldn't eat up faster, only to find a cold, dead end of a cliff. The writer had given up.
I'm not gonna give up, guys. I just can't. I know my rare updates don't make it seem like it, but Integration, the UTO verse, is a big part of my life. I think about it every day, I see it in the music I listen to, the videos I watch, the games I play, the tiny stories that crop up in my head. It's not left my imagination once over these years, but my drive seems sapped of something. Yeah, talk bout obvious there, right? No kidding.
Part Fourteen will come. I know it. My life is in a good place, but I still gotta sort myself out. If I can't do it for myself, then I gotta at least do it for you all, right? The people that love what I do and don't want to see Integration putter out either. Again, it's incredible that so many of you put up with my crap. The love for the story is so strong? It's heartwarming, guys. Wanting to bring you all a wonderful story and make you happy is what got me into writing in the first place. I let my readers down, I didn't just fail myself, I failed all of you. Something must be done.
I don't know when, and goodness it has to be soon with how frayed my nerves feel, but Part Fourteen will be done. Worse comes to worst, I'll make a Discord server so you all can come in and yell at me to stop being a lazy butt!
I love you guys. Thank you so much for putting up with my crap. Hope this ramble was comprehensible.
It doesn't seem much but in the long run, it beat the 4/5 hours monthly work in term of productivity. Bonus point if you do those short sessions before going to bed so you can check that at the morning after a good night of sleep and come up with new ideas if the previous were "meh". Plus the fact of working daily is a nice ittle boost to morale.
Lastly well... Sometime if you're not happy with a work, it's just better to drop it for a while and work on something different (another characters, universe... or just a short novel in the same universe, idk) instead of slamming your head on the wall over and over again.^^ (plus, since the human brain is fucked up thing, it tend to come up with ideas for others work that the one at hand, so it can really help to just work on new things and come back to the old later)
It'd perhaps work well with working on different things as you say, to keep matters fresh. I've followed a writing prompts subreddit on reddit for a while now, but never partook. Would be good practice, hrmm. Also, of course, other possible stories of my own I could work on, even expanded UTO verse content. Goodness knows I'd want to see the setting diverging out more.
Thank you for the thoughts to chew on! I'll see about swinging with them once I get some school matters settled.
Still, I try to have an end goal in mind just to give me an idea of where I want to go with the story and let me know just when it should end.
Good luck get your next chapter done.
I'm incredibly hesitant to write ANYTHING unless I have a pretty solid 'skeleton' for it. Beginning, important plot points, ending, that kind of stuff.
This, however, usually just ends up with bullet-point documents littering my desktop instead of actual stories, even unfinished ones.
You actually created something though. You have actual talent for this. I'm sure things will line up eventually!
Hang in there, dude. Inspiration strikes when one least expects it.
But yes, I'll get the next update done one way or another! Just... seems to be taking some time. >.>
When the tv series breaking bad came out, I was hooked on every episode. And I guess I felt satisfied that it ended the way it did. Unlike other series that just keep on going till they made me lose interest.
Idunno, guess I'm trying to say that it's better to end something on a good note than drag it on for so long it runs out of material?... (This coming from someone who doesn't write)
I knew Integration would end at some point, but never quite knew what that point would be. I suppose I had a 'I'll know it when I see it' sort of approach. But, I've sense the ending coming since around chapter 10 or 11, I believe. It's satisfying in a way, but also frustrating in how I'm letting the story stagnate with my inability to approach it.
As David Eddings put it; "One a good day, it's like reaching up into the sky and plucking down lightning. One bad day, it's like giving birth to an elephant."
Remember: The end of one thing is just the beginning of another. You've created a wonderful setting, which can hold countless stories.
Let is flow how it wants to, and don't be afraid.
You should be proud of your work, and you should always have fun doing it.
Thank you, I am proud of my work and when I do manage to get it going, it's always really fun to do, and how I always ended up hurtling toward a finished chapter once the groove is going. It's an odd experience suddenly stagnating halfway through a chapter.