I've been working on a new story. And unfortunately, Im not going to finish it.

As I said to a correspondant recently:
Gawd this story was a fcking disaster
A hot disaster.
But a disaster none the less.

Sometimes when I post stories, for the last few I've said something along the lines of "It went off the rails". Meaning that it didnt go where I intended, but was still finished, and was still a fun read. But *this* story, this fcking disaster, this hot disaster, has not only gone off the rails, but has hit a tree and exploded. Burning fragments litter the landscape, hunky rescue workers are carrying grateful people away in fireman's lifts to safety, and a member of parliament is being grilled on the news about budget cuts to the railway infrastructure.

I've written this story into the ground and I'm very much ready to move on. It is the second half of a single scene and its twenty pages. I was going to write the first half of the scene to round it out but I can't even bring myself to do that. To be clear, I think what is written is pretty good, but I'm looking at the plan for the whole story and wow, what the hell was I thinking. I bit off *faaarrr* too much.

Basically I went wrong twice. First: I did my usual thing, which is usually very successful, of Starting In The Middle. In the past, even when I've started at the beginning, that has often become the middle - either that or I've quickly jumped forwards. But this time the small scene I started with escalated into a mini-story all of its own, the list of prerequisites required to finish it ballooned, and here we are, with the train exploded. The second way I went wrong was to make my point of view character too much of a spectator. It reads quite interestingly still, I think, but I've had my fill of writing from this point of view and I've written too much to start over. So just going to quickly proofread what I've already got, and post it as is, maybe even to Scraps.

So, coming soon! A hot fun piece of a story. It even opens In Medias Res. I might even post another journal entry with a plot summary of what might have been, depending. This was fun! But I'm drawing a line under it. Next time, I'll aim for something a little shorter!