My previous post on The Paradox of Death is a bit more stream of consciousness than I had intended. That is one of the things that happens when writing about thinking existentially. I know I am going to have to reassess what I wrote; there are a lot of good thoughts in there, but I’m not surprised if people find it difficult to read. I had an idea and just could not hold it in a firm grasp, so the result is a bit of a train-wreck.

For a long time, that was what I tended to write most, when I kept a journal. The problem is not that I do not think clearly, but rather that I could never write fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. That is something I have often struggled with as a writer. If I could write half as fast as I think, I would probably have finished most of the projects I’ve started.

In the time it takes me to write a chapter, I can work out the details of an entire book, and by the time I finish another chapter or two, I have revised the story enough in my mind to make what I have written obsolete.

It is so much easier to juggle a universe in my head, and the ideas and inspirations I get come swift enough to make even a simple story overcomplicated. I have tried sketching out outlines and racing after my muse to churn out a rough draft, and I almost always get left in a cloud of dust. It is so rare that I have the time I need to get through that first marathon of sprint writing that I eventually got in the habit of writing nothing for months on end while I let my ideas and inspirations stew long enough to form into something reasonably solid and consistent.

I am going to put up a couple of chapters from a draft I started about a year before The Eve of Paradox that I really liked, but which I was not able to hold onto through the process of chasing my muse. I do not recall if I had a title in mind when I was writing it, so it will be posted under “Untitled Efforts.” I am still working on a new idea; I found these chapters while reviewing older work I might be able to fit into my current project. Since I have not published anything, many of my efforts have been based on versions of the same characters, so it isn’t hard to do.

The biggest problem I have, when trying to draw from my writing archive, is that I have more than enough plot material for several complete series. I end up having to narrow my focus down to one or two plot threads, and because of their position in the greater story arc, I also have to create a book length story arc to fit them into.

Thus, I end up working on a different story than the one I set out to write initially. That makes the writing process both exciting and interesting, but it has not helped me much with getting published! Most of the time, it is just one of those things that derail my writing efforts to leave me with an unfinished manuscript and an itch to be writing something else.