Lately, writing creatively has been…difficult.
Since June 13, I haven’t really had the time (or the drive) to press forward on my YA Sci-Fi story. I did manage to do some writing yesterday, but a measly 400 words is barely a dent in the 20-30k left in the story.
As much as I love the premise, I can’t help but feel that some of the difficulties I’m having stem from my reservations regarding the current narrative.
Here’s what I mean.
Originally, the plot of the novel placed Aiko, the main character, into a position where she is separated from her mentor and forced to adapt to an impossible scenario. At first, I was really excited about this particular narrative, but when it dawned on me that Aiko would likely have to kill in order to survive, I began to have second thoughts.
The reason this particular situation bothered me is that I wanted to create a character that would learn from the challenges facing her, but not learn that killing is okay. Or necessary. Or a feasible path forward. Basically, I didn’t want the narrative to wind up being about a girl’s path from orphan to stone-cold killer.
So I made some adjustments.
The “undersea adventure” portion of the story is intact (it has to, because the MS is a prequel to this story), but what happens to Aiko and Fletcher is remarkably different. The story is far more personal and what happens within is supposed to alter both characters in significant ways. I even threw in some interesting world building stuff (though I’m only lukewarm on how well that worked out).
Right now, I’m at a transition point somewhere between the second and third acts. While I know where the current narrative is going and how it will end, I’m concerned that it will feel far too generic.
So…I’m not sure what to do. And dwelling on it really isn’t helping…
On a separate note, I’ve been spending a lot of time comparing the (unfinished) YA manuscript to Infinity’s Heir.
There’s no real reason for me to do so, but I look at the space opera’s performance and worry about how the YA novel will do. I worry whether the characters are interesting enough to hold a reader’s attention. I worry whether the writing is up to snuff. I worry about eventually having to craft query letter and synopsis for agents – will those be good enough?
And a recent flood of rejections to the latest iteration of that work hasn’t helped to bolster my resolve. In fact, it’s made me far more critical of what I’m working on, and I’d be lying if I said my mind hadn’t wondered to other potential stories that I could work on.
This YA novel has been the most challenging work of fiction I’ve ever written. That’s because, to a degree, it feels like there’s a far greater expectation attached to it. The Octavius Job took only a single afternoon to write, but it was well-liked. So, at the very least, this novel has to be that good. I need it to convey the same depth in its characters. And I need the narrative to help them shine bright enough for readers to want to follow them past 1000 words.
I can’t really say whether I’m successfully doing that.
But I can say that I’ve put 65k words to paper, and that the characters are almost at the end of their journey. By itself, that’s enough of a triumph to continue driving me forward. Because if I can maintain course for just a little bit longer, I’ll have completed another manuscript – one that I’m confident is my best work yet!
Chase Gamwell 
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