DragonOfTheAerie
Vala
I have written almost nothing in nearly a month. My mental health has been precarious and my WIP obstinate. I've largely spent the month in bed, reading. Goodreads tells me I've finished 14 books this year. That doesn't feel like much at all. At any rate, I did make it out of my reading slump. Only to be dragged back down into it by Sarah J. Maas's painfully mediocre Throne of Glass series.
My heart and my therapist tell me I need to go back to what I'm truly passionate about. I need purpose. I've known forever that something to be passionate about and consistently working at is the key to keeping my mind healthy. The drudgery of trying to finish high school doesn't give me that spark. That's my stage in life; finishing high school, trying to figure out where I want to go to college...why is it hard to feel excited about that? My depression? Feeling like a creative writing degree will end me up stuck in a job I don't want? Just hating change and wishing all my friends weren't moving on? I'm lonely, y'all. I'm almost seventeen. Must seem like a little baby dragon to y'all! I'm honestly shocked whenever I think about that. Is that really all? Really only seventeen years? It's hard to wrap my head around, being so young. Heck, my mind feels thirty or forty at least. I feel like I have more memories than that. More experiences than I should. Consequence of writing books? Maybe?
I've been trying to motivate myself to break down the problems eating at my WIP and go back to making progress on it. I'm a bit tired, a bit overwhelmed. I love this story and i have nine or ten others stewing in the background, waiting for their time. They fight for space. I know they all have great potential. They all want out, they all want to be enfleshed...anyone know that feeling? The feeling that you have stories just CLAWING their way out of you, desperate to breathe? I'm frustrated by the slowness of the process, by the limitations of my own abilities, because they all want out. But i am forced to take them one at a time, one page at a time, one word at a time.
I keep wanting more. My mind keeps visiting floating cities built on sky mountains at the edge of the world. Ethereal realms of petals and jade. I don't even know how to write most things down. There was a line dreamed up about a goddess who brings the apocalypse lying down in her bed of stars, but it was gone by the time I got to a piece of paper. It was breathtaking though, I promise. In my reading, I've been seeking out dragon books. Many people have written good ones, but there is always something missing. Always always always. I keep going back to the idea of writing some kind of be-all-end-all of dragon books, one that really does the creatures justice. There are so many good books, but I keep wanting more.
Am I disillusioned with books generally? After laying down Heir of Fire in disappointment, the insanely ambitious epic fantasy saga I wanted to write a year or so ago came back to me. Throne of Glass was supposed to be an amazing series, but i can't even begin to describe how generic it was. The second book was better, but the first was kind of awful. The world was generic and featureless. The characters were generic and featureless. The writing was amateurish and juvenile. It was all a very pre-packaged and boring set of cliches used a thousand times before. And I was disappointed, because I wanted a fantasy world to engulf myself in and never want to leave. i really wanted a series that would consume me. And I keep wondering if what I want even exists.
I mean, a lot of you probably think my troubles are a result of reading Young Adult novels, but every fantasy book everyone says is amazing even in the adult realm seems generic and identical to everything else. Elves, heroes, swords, kings. That sort of thing. "Why don't you like those things, Dragon?" you are all probably thinking. I honestly don't know. That's not the point.
the point is, am i the only one with the sense that I'm craving a particular book, a particular fantastic, immersive fantasy saga, one that fulfills everything I want out of a book but can never find, still looking for this book I want to read?
I know only one thing: that book doesn't exist.
And that's where a writer begins, right?
Maybe there is only really ever one story. Maybe we're all incompletely trying to tell the story that's at the center of everything, the story that was shattered into echoes at the beginning of the universe. I don't know. I think about these things.
I find reality painfully narrow. i find everything wanting, I find the number of things that exist much smaller than the things that don't. That's why I write fantasy. I am full of stories and worlds and guess what? It's lonely. I want to show someone these things I imagine. I have a theory that writers are motivated by loneliness. I keep feeling like there's this inner world that i've never let anyone fully into, of all the things I keep trying to put into words, of all the places in my dreams, and it's amazing. And it's lonely. And I want to show someone. Being a writer is such a fundamental part of me. It's like being another kind of being than human. And maybe what I'm seeking is something that will allow someone else to understand?
I keep writing and keep writing, but still there's something just outside my words. A world beneath a veil. I'm not going to find that book that makes all other books wanting, but I hope I'll be able to write it. I keep going back to the thought of the fantasy saga I laid aside. I almost want to pick it back up. i've been wanting to plunge into an epic saga, create a world like the one I keep glimpsing in my head. They say write the book you want to read. My sense of the book I want to read is so crisp. And yet, just outside of my grasp.
My stories are unwritten. I'm lonely, y'all. I'm alone in these worlds.
There's nothing to do but keep on writing.
My heart and my therapist tell me I need to go back to what I'm truly passionate about. I need purpose. I've known forever that something to be passionate about and consistently working at is the key to keeping my mind healthy. The drudgery of trying to finish high school doesn't give me that spark. That's my stage in life; finishing high school, trying to figure out where I want to go to college...why is it hard to feel excited about that? My depression? Feeling like a creative writing degree will end me up stuck in a job I don't want? Just hating change and wishing all my friends weren't moving on? I'm lonely, y'all. I'm almost seventeen. Must seem like a little baby dragon to y'all! I'm honestly shocked whenever I think about that. Is that really all? Really only seventeen years? It's hard to wrap my head around, being so young. Heck, my mind feels thirty or forty at least. I feel like I have more memories than that. More experiences than I should. Consequence of writing books? Maybe?
I've been trying to motivate myself to break down the problems eating at my WIP and go back to making progress on it. I'm a bit tired, a bit overwhelmed. I love this story and i have nine or ten others stewing in the background, waiting for their time. They fight for space. I know they all have great potential. They all want out, they all want to be enfleshed...anyone know that feeling? The feeling that you have stories just CLAWING their way out of you, desperate to breathe? I'm frustrated by the slowness of the process, by the limitations of my own abilities, because they all want out. But i am forced to take them one at a time, one page at a time, one word at a time.
I keep wanting more. My mind keeps visiting floating cities built on sky mountains at the edge of the world. Ethereal realms of petals and jade. I don't even know how to write most things down. There was a line dreamed up about a goddess who brings the apocalypse lying down in her bed of stars, but it was gone by the time I got to a piece of paper. It was breathtaking though, I promise. In my reading, I've been seeking out dragon books. Many people have written good ones, but there is always something missing. Always always always. I keep going back to the idea of writing some kind of be-all-end-all of dragon books, one that really does the creatures justice. There are so many good books, but I keep wanting more.
Am I disillusioned with books generally? After laying down Heir of Fire in disappointment, the insanely ambitious epic fantasy saga I wanted to write a year or so ago came back to me. Throne of Glass was supposed to be an amazing series, but i can't even begin to describe how generic it was. The second book was better, but the first was kind of awful. The world was generic and featureless. The characters were generic and featureless. The writing was amateurish and juvenile. It was all a very pre-packaged and boring set of cliches used a thousand times before. And I was disappointed, because I wanted a fantasy world to engulf myself in and never want to leave. i really wanted a series that would consume me. And I keep wondering if what I want even exists.
I mean, a lot of you probably think my troubles are a result of reading Young Adult novels, but every fantasy book everyone says is amazing even in the adult realm seems generic and identical to everything else. Elves, heroes, swords, kings. That sort of thing. "Why don't you like those things, Dragon?" you are all probably thinking. I honestly don't know. That's not the point.
the point is, am i the only one with the sense that I'm craving a particular book, a particular fantastic, immersive fantasy saga, one that fulfills everything I want out of a book but can never find, still looking for this book I want to read?
I know only one thing: that book doesn't exist.
And that's where a writer begins, right?
Maybe there is only really ever one story. Maybe we're all incompletely trying to tell the story that's at the center of everything, the story that was shattered into echoes at the beginning of the universe. I don't know. I think about these things.
I find reality painfully narrow. i find everything wanting, I find the number of things that exist much smaller than the things that don't. That's why I write fantasy. I am full of stories and worlds and guess what? It's lonely. I want to show someone these things I imagine. I have a theory that writers are motivated by loneliness. I keep feeling like there's this inner world that i've never let anyone fully into, of all the things I keep trying to put into words, of all the places in my dreams, and it's amazing. And it's lonely. And I want to show someone. Being a writer is such a fundamental part of me. It's like being another kind of being than human. And maybe what I'm seeking is something that will allow someone else to understand?
I keep writing and keep writing, but still there's something just outside my words. A world beneath a veil. I'm not going to find that book that makes all other books wanting, but I hope I'll be able to write it. I keep going back to the thought of the fantasy saga I laid aside. I almost want to pick it back up. i've been wanting to plunge into an epic saga, create a world like the one I keep glimpsing in my head. They say write the book you want to read. My sense of the book I want to read is so crisp. And yet, just outside of my grasp.
My stories are unwritten. I'm lonely, y'all. I'm alone in these worlds.
There's nothing to do but keep on writing.