No One's Really Sure What Became of Waldo

(Title from the "Hot for Teacher" music video.)

So, what's the point of coming to love my characters or story ideas here if you never get to find out what happened to them? I've decided to post an update of what (little) progress I've made with these.

Most have been untouched, unfortunately. There's just not enough time to toy with them.

The stories that have at least been elaborated upon in my mind:

• Worldbuilding progress: New Fiction Idea #34, New Fiction Idea #17, Macbay Transportation Services
• Plotting progress: Storm Clouds Rise, Wanderers, Mount, Entrapped
• Characterisation progress: Storm Clouds Rise, New Fiction Idea #17

The stories that have received extra attention through prompts: New Fiction Idea #27 (Promptness), Roughhouse (Prompt Writing #3), Bloom (Prompt Writing #4), Macbay Transportation Services (Prompt Writing #2)

The stories that have begun:

• Recently: I'm With the Band (12 words), Piracy Cruise Lines (1,149 words), Figments (124 words), Chasers (981 words)
• In days past [documents lost]: Special, Chemists

The stories that have made serious progress: Mayflies (14,872 words), The Long and Winding Road (107,529 words; 90,286 words in original fiction version)

It feels slow, but it's at least nice to know I have been going somewhere with some of these. What kind of progress do you expect—for me, or yourself?

O Thou Font of Every Blessing

While it seems most published stories need to meet certain font requirements, especially in digital publishing, I can't help but search for exactly the font in which I would like to read and write my stories.

A lot of my writing is done in 12-pt Verdana because that's what the FanFiction.Net Document Editor uses. That, of course, only applies to my fan fictions (although it should be noted that that's how I get to see the first and second drafts of The Long and Winding Road). I also use the plain horizontal lines for section breaks.

Along the Winding Road, however, currently appears in 13-pt Bell MT. I'm not sure exactly what about it seems just right for the story—as is the case for most of my fonts—but I do like the number styling in the chapter number-titles (which appear in centred 25-pt). Section breaks are currently formatted with a centred "~*~".

Mayflies is in 11-pt Georgia. This seems like a rather average font, but maybe I'd just like some tinge of normalcy in a story about ancient Mayan bird men and their sorcerer friend. Chapter headings are currently left-aligned, 12-pt, bolded letters (a "J" if Jonathan narrates, or an "M" if Matthew narrates).

Piracy Cruise Lines requires some pretty huge margins for some reason. Text is in 15-pt Garamond. Section breaks have yet to appear, but chapter number-titles are right-aligned, 18-pt, and formatted "---1---."

Dreadful Valley (my NaNoWriMo novel) was written in 12-pt Andalus, with section breaks formatted as plain horizontal lines. There were no chapter titles. I may have just needed a font that worked whether I was writing with my computer in Mac or Windows mode, although I still wouldn't put up with anything too typical, it seems.

Figments is in 12-pt Constantia with right-aligned chapter number-titles at the top of the page.

Chasers appears in 12-pt Candara. Section breaks (modelled somewhat after the Pac-Man dots) are a centred arrangement of three "◌"s. No chapter titles appear.

This blog (when it behaves) is in 12-px Copse, with the title "Novelling with Journey" in 60-px Consolas.

What kind of fonts do you like to us? Do they influence your writing at all?

Abandonment Issues

Sometimes ideas go places. Sometimes they go places I don't want them to. And sometimes they just don't go anywhere.

In any case, a lot of stories just aren't going to see the light of day. That's part of the reason I'm sharing so many of my novel ideas—I have little interest in some of them, and some I may just never get to, but I feel like they all deserve a little bit of limelight time just for being nice enough to tap on my shoulder and amuse me for a while.

That being said, not every idea needs to be written. I've yet to find a story that beckons me to write it every moment of every day, but I still need to feel some sort of pull to do any actual writing. Ideas that are just a world without much of a story (as in the first draft of Wanderers), or characters without much of a story (as in Suture), or some such thing just can't draw me much. Even if I like the basic idea, I can't see anything happening in my head if, well, nothing's happening in it. I'm guilty of doing very little plotting before I actually start a story, but I'm fine with winging it if I've at least identified a few points along the journey.

Even if an idea comes with enough of a plot for me to get started, that's still no guarantee the book will be finished. If, for any number of reasons, I lose interest along the way, there's no promise I'm getting it back. I may not find the characters interesting enough to play with, and I would have to go back and change too many things (i.e., do too much work) to get another chapter out. I may start the fic without realising the scope of the story and what I'm getting myself into. I may start a story for the sake of fans rather than my own interest only to crash and burn halfway through. I may just stop caring because of life and time constraints. I have indeed finished a few fan fictions, and I completed NaNoWriMo last year, so I'm not always doomed to give up on my stories. I am somewhat scared by the number of those left incomplete, but I know I'm capable of finishing the writing of a story.

Of course, once the last chapter comes to a close, the story still isn't really finished. I hacked out 50,109 words for my NaNo novel and reached the concluding sentence, so it is in one way complete, but I haven't looked back at the thing since I uploaded my final word count. I don't know if I ever will. I have a certain writer friend who says I should look it over and try to publish it, and another who has browsed it and found it doable, but I'm still not sure. To be honest, I don't even know how I was able to stick with my one awkward idea for an entire fifty thousand words, let alone how I can summon the verve to revise the monster. It is certainly in no condition to be published at present, and I feel it's probably less than half the length it should be for its genre. I don't feel the pull to put that much effort into it. I proved I could finish writing a novel, but I want to go elsewhere to prove I can finish revising a novel. I don't know whether I'll get The Long and Winding Road or Mayflies into publishing condition first, but I am certain that both of them will beat out Dreadful Valley (the NaNo novel).

So, out of some 33 novel ideas to date, only five (The Long and Winding Road, Mayflies, Chasers, Piracy Cruise Lines, and Figments) have made it to the writing phase. Only The Long and Winding Road, Mayflies, and Piracy Cruise Lines are being written currently. Will they all be finished? Will they all be revised and sent off to be published one way or another? I can't say for sure until I've reached that point, but at least The Long and Winding Road and Mayflies are looking pretty good right now. I'll just keep working at it and hoping the muse will hang around where she ought to until I'm done.

New Fiction Idea #20

Look, something else that started as a Hetalia fan fiction! This one's actually fairly old, but I'm excited that I suddenly remembered it.

Working Title: Figments

Genre: Horror

Protagonist: Malcolm, a freshman Business major who's extremely sarcastic. He's rather thin and self-conscious about it, with short, brown hair and pale green eyes. He has always had the ability to see and interact with ghosts.

Other Main Characters: Corey, a freshman Art major who's been Malcolm's neighbour and best friend for years. He has shaggy-ish blonde hair and ambiguously-coloured eyes. Friendly but a bit squirrelly at times, he's terribly afraid of ghosts (to Malcolm's annoyance) despite being unable to really see them.
Darrell, a sophomore Biology major (aiming to be a physical therapist) who's intentionally annoying quite often but is generally likeable. He's a dark umber, with a good build.
Crystal, a sophomore Nursing major who's been Darrell's girlfriend for about three months. She's a good few shades lighter than him and keeps her hair in a low, short ponytail of braids. She's not that comfortable around other people, but she's working on it.

Antagonists: A group of ghosts, of overall ebony coloration, with rather long claw-like fingers. Their faces are mannequin-like, smoothed-out and without mouth or eyes, but they are still able to speak. To Malcolm's confusion, they are perfectly visible to everyone. They float, their forms fragmenting away about where mid-thigh would be. They feed on sanity to avoid a second death that would send them at last to Hell.

Setting: An old, rickety, bed-and-breakfast kind of building about a ten-minute drive from the local university. It's abandoned and rumoured (correctly) to be haunted.

Plot: As a sort of initiation ritual into a fraternity, Malcolm, Corey, and Darrell are "dared" to stay in the haunted house the week before school. Crystal tags along for moral support. They are not informed that no one has remained the whole time yet and they're not actually expected to last more than a day. But as the ghosts appear on and off and the group of students find themselves slipping from reality, it's up to Malcolm to keep them from losing all hope of recovery.

Point of View: First person (Malcolm).

I might default it back to fan fiction, but I kind of like how Malcolm (whose name could change) is turning out so far.