Writerly Ways

I had something in mind for tonight but it is a) late b) something happened. What happened was Evil Little Dog and I have been talking about my novels (Okay I'm talking, she's listening politely with advice that I'm grateful for) Anyhow I don't really want to start something new. I want to FINISH something I've started. I mentioned the steampunk mystery thing that I had run for a time in Link (the online writers group I mention from time to time)

But I could barely remember the character names (in fact if my flightrising dragons weren't named after my characters I wouldn't have) I don't know WHY I stopped writing it. I think I had raced thru and didn't put in the red herrings as I would have liked to so I stopped going forward intending to back track and flesh it out (it had been a nano novel)

Today I went back to the story and there on the document file that I saw that I hadn't saved it since April 2016!!! EIGHT YEARS. How the hell has it sat in a folder for eight frakking years? (also where is my life going?) I was stunned. And then I was ashamed. I still feel that deeply. Eight. Damn. Years. How? Why?

Part of it is I know is me writing under my pen name. I hate to say it but there was no way for me to write both as me and as my alter ego (not to mention the fanfic creeping in) not if I was working full time and let's be honest, no one was paying me enough to quit work. 8 years ago I didn't even have very active fandoms so that was less of an issue. Jana was getting paid. No one cared what Dana wrote. I think that helped to back burner everything.

Because every story left undone are stuff under my name. I only have one under Jana's undone so that speaks for itself.

It's time to change that. Maybe I can resurrect this story. I'm going to try. More on that next week.

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