Recharting Previous Territory

I have a story that I've been working on, off and on, for the past twelve years or so. The reason why it's no where close to an ending is because I haven't really spent that time learning to make a story plot, and the environment of the story keeps changing on me. There are a few characters that keep on, but they've changed as well. I think I like the way that everything has changed, though: the quality of the story and the feel of what I write in the story have changed.

It's this story that gives me the impression that I'm good at writing, which also makes it a tad difficult to accept criticism at times. Though, to tell the truth, I have to digest criticism pretty slowly to get any good, lasting effects from it. But this is the story that I've been practicing dialog in, and day to day interactions, and just about everything imaginable. Except a cohesive plot. No, I'm mistaken. I actually made outlines for stories that I wanted to tell in this world about twice. Maybe three times. I never went on to refine those plots, though, or ever really work on them. Probably because I hadn't yet learned how to really do plots, that plots need reasons, complications, reasons why things happen instead of just a string of events that lead from one to another. Plus I was really young when the initial idea first appeared. (in the form of a dream, but I promise I'm not going to emulate Samuel Coleridge!)

Maybe people will get frustrated with me for not sharing details, but I really want to keep these stories under wraps until I get them published, or at least until I get them into some kind of finished form. I find that whenever I tell my ideas about stories to other people, it kind of kills the story--unless that other person is good at asking questions. (Part of the current manifestation of the world I'm working on comes from an observation that a friend gave me.)

So now to the reason why I even brought the story up--I did another beginning, this time. Only this time I have some notion of where I want to go with the whole thing. Not entirely--I mean, the story needs a bit more of a plot than what it has so far. But a new character walked into the story, and I quite like him. And he's come in the context of interacting with my old favorites.

Probably this ongoing story is the reason for my general lack of enthusiasm for other works, at times. But at least I have been able to come up with some other materials.