So I'm writing this little document that breaks down all the history of Hekinoe and how it all came to be and whatnot. It is getting fairly lengthy, I think I am up to twenty-five or so pages in OpenOffice. It's fun to write all this down, which is likely something I've said before. I guess part of the reason I like writing it all down is because I like my stories and what they're about. I like what I write and I like reading it and thinking about it. I've said before I have no real desire to publish anything, I just like writing down the stories in my head and reading them and thinking about all the stuff that goes into them.
Writing all of this stuff and history of the world down is kind of making me yearn to return to writing in the world. I've toyed with writing down the tales of The Robust Five, and Lance asked me to try my hand at writing the story of the Orcunraytrel adventures, but I haven't really touched the Nel in some time. As I move through this thing I am writing I have to talk a lot about the Nel, and that forces me to periodically refer to my story and some posts on the blog to ensure that I am remembering things correctly, or to figure out and try to recollect why I changed something. It's never an issue of me forgetting what I wrote, just an issue of trying to remember when and why I changed something from the way it appears on the blog. A lot of time what I post on the blog here isn't exactly the final version of what I'm writing or muttering about, and I periodically just up and change it in my brain and never go back and change it here on the blog. So I end up reading something on the blog from a year or two ago and it doesn't match up with what is in my head and I have to sift through my gray matter trying to figure out the reasoning behind whatever change I made to the history. It isn't as much of a pain in the ass as you'd think. Like I said, I like this stuff.
Anyway, as I am writing all this stuff and clicking my way through previously written material, I find myself once again getting absorbed in the story. I find myself getting absorbed in the Nel and the things they do and I find myself wanting to return to Grenaldeen and The Gray Wastes and Keroen Skathos. I was talking to Shawn via Gmail messaging yesterday morning (over a week ago at this point) and he was telling me I should return to writing things about the Nel and Keroen Skathos, and part of me really wants to. Another part of me just sighs and shakes its head.
I mean, I love the Nel. I loved them when they were the Fey and Keroen was Cromm Cruach and I grew to love them more when I made them into their own thing that was separate from Celtic/Irish/Scottish/etc myth and folklore. It's one thing to write this little show and tell for Fred and Shawn, as it doesn't take much more work than a little bit of fact checking and timeline checking, but a whole other thing to actually write new material on the Nel. Don't misunderstand me, there is plenty more to write, it is just hard. I mean, there are stories that could be told about Merobel and Aubernach bringing their people under their rule, or the time of Keroen wandering the world after he took his vow. I could write about the Sokarnel. They live in The Nightmare Lands, a place that supposedly holds Bloody Head chained and pissed off on a bloody throne of bones. What the fuck goes on in there? An endless red desert with a red and black sun glaring down over it with a monstrous and bloodthirsty creature ruling/imprisoned from/in a throne of hacked apart meat and bones. Seems like a place where some shit goes down, no?
I've tried writing a prequel and a sequel to the story of Keroen Skathos that I've finished. I've tried writing a little bit about Nostathon and the Sleeping Kings and what they do to Grenaldeen once Keroen takes care of business, and I've tried to write about the Herald and what he gets into during that time as well. It never goes much farther than a page or two. I don't know if it is the ADHD or what but I just lose interest or feel like "Haven't we been here before?" and kind of move on to something else, usually DnD. I dunno, I want to say it's part ADHD, part lack of enthusiasm from friends and associates. But let's be honest here, if I like my writing and enjoy my stories, I should just keep writing them and enjoy them for myself and damn everyone else? So really it is just a lack of confidence/faith/whatever in myself.
As an example of lack of enthusiasm, my now ex-wife, who actually likes my writing style, wouldn't even read the story with me holding her hand and explaining names and shit to her. Too many of the names and places were weird and she didn't understand them or what they all looked like. Actually, I'm suddenly feeling grouchy, fuck Heather. I tried to get her to read my story and watch Doctor Who and play DnD with me and my pals a thousand fucking times. What does she do after divorcing me? Plays DnD once, gets into Doctor Who, and supports her fuckhead boyfriend in all his little movie projects and spams them on Facebook for people to go watch on Youtube. Also, did you know aspartame causes fibromyalgia and lupus and kills all the children everywhere and when heated to above 85 degrees Fahrenheit turns into formaldehyde (that part is actually legit, but the amounts of formaldehyde you end up with are similar in comparison to the amount of fluoride you ingest from drinking clean water, i.e. not enough to do any damage ever, and it has nothing to do with temperature) according to an article she read? Do you know how much diet pop you have to drink to have negative health effects from the aspartame? Seven and a half liters a day, every day, for a long portion of your lifespan.
Hmm. That went to an angry and dark place. ::shrug:: Shawn was definitely enthusiastic about the whole mess of my writing, and on a certain level that would be enough to keep me writing. Because he is Shawn. At the very least, Laura did not indicate to me that my writing is the equivalent of a unicorn vomiting rainbows all over a page, so that's something, and one time my friend Sam went all crazy and yelly on Eric for criticizing a story I was working on, and as I said, Heather thought I was a good writer. Lance seems to enjoy some of the side RP stuff we've been doing via email, and he did urge me to try my hand at writing of the Orcunraytrel group, which I do have about three chapters of written down. Jeremy just adored the Inconsistencies Continued stuff and Eric has always been a fan of the Nel/Fey. So people do enjoy what I write, and I enjoy it as well, so shouldn't I just write because it is fun and I like it and my friends are supportive of it?
I dunno. This is more about my writing than secrets. I think I'm just musing and moping here. I honestly think it comes down to me just being lazy and having a short attention span in terms of why I start and never seem to finish stories. It is far easier to write RP emails and DnD scenarios than it is to write actual stories, and eventually I end up getting a nice shiny new idea in my head and that needs all of my attention because it is bright and shiny and new. I do fairly well starting and completing short stories, as the blog is scattered with several of them, but you know, they're short and not a hundred thousand words long.
Blarg.
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