Finished the Round Robin Story, which I titled Red Star in my head.

Don't worry, no one expects you to read it.  (Though ruthless emails explaining when you lost interest and why, things like what is not working are/were appreciated.)

It took 4 months of fitful, sometimes obsessive writing, in-between this little thing called life, to get the story of my imagination onto 316 pages in Word, which translates to roughly 100,000 words.  And its not so much a story as an obese outline.

Thanks to all contributors in the beginning for names, place names, action.  It was fun.

I forced myself to finish, even though it robbed time from family, school, friends.  And because the old Tonya habit, the habit which starts a story passionately, gets well over 100,000 words, up to the last few chapters, and quits, is GOING DOWN CHARLEY BROWN!

Three novels sit in my computer, each lacking only the last 3 chapters.  They're completed in my head though, which is probably the only thing keeping the obsession at bay.

Every time I write, I learn things about myself, or re-learn in some instances. 

Red Star taught me a few:

* An outline is essential.  Granted, a fat outline, but an outline all the same.  I didn't use one for Red Star, and can really tell a difference in the pacing.  It bogs down in so many places, I should call it the Quagmire.

 

*Only use names you like well enough to remember.  Since this started out as a group-type activity, some of the names were not easy to remember, and I messed them up occasionally.  Which leads to group writing.  Fun, but best left for small projects, and places where solid ideas are not already set in my mind.  (Though it didn't start out that way in the first few, oh five minutes.  heh)

 

* Creating geography, the stage where the characters interact, is a real weakness while in the story line.  It works best to create the places, the stage, in a separate document and insert it with tweaks as the story flows from the outline.  It works best this way because sometimes my head seems adjective heavy, which lends to great scene building.  (None of which were used in Red Star.)

 

* Multiple points of view are a great way to progress a storyline.  It only works for me one way though.  Telling the entire story through the eyes of each character and then intertwining them.  Which means, if there are five characters, and the author's voice, I tell the story 6 times, plus each character's back story.  It's overkill to some degree, and writing first person is much easier.  This was a lesson re-learned with the choppy back and forth.

 

* Research should be done before the actual writing begins, but after the outline.  I was well into the story line while researching Vegas, Native American Myth/Legend, names, and desert landscapes.  Doesn't sound like a big deal, until you sit down to write and need the information for the scene.  Instead of riding the writing muse, I was forced to use that energy toward research.  And that's just no fun.

 * Shedding (my word) or character identification (the real word) is bad, bad, bad.  Usually there is at least one character I identify with while writing.  Not so in this story, which turns out to be a GOOD thing.  Personal identification ends up leading to dead ends because I make (usually) safe, practical, rational life choices, a no drama mama.  (Or try to be.)  Those type traits are boring in fiction.  So identifying with a character while creating, is in many ways a death knell.  This time, there wasn't any of that and it was..well, liberating.  The characters became their own entity inside my head, their actions outside my "control" with minimal shedding in either direction, heh.

 

* I'm done fighting them.  Maybe it's because I'm female, maybe it's just part of the whole personal make-up package, the fact I read romance novels for years, but I constantly battle my characters trying to keep them from hooking up.  If you've read this far, you're probably thinking, 'yeah right!  They were hookin up aplenty in the bits I read.'

True.  But the entire time was a struggle to keep it from becoming more.  Red Star didn't have a mate on the page, but in my head she is beautiful, and tragic.  The Sakima's queen fit perfectly in my mind, double deviousness, but she was not penned to life.  On and on it goes....Can't help it.  I love romance.  Not talking flowers and chocolates here, but the pursuit, the give and take, the sweet capture, just love it.  In fact, asking couples for their story is a common theme in conversation with me once I get to know them.  Each journey is unique to each couple, and most of the time fascinating, especially when people share the 'he thought/she thought' moments. 

I'm done trying to kill it.  In my experience, life is about human relationships and the most important relationship is usually romantic or involves some sort of abiding love.  Why should my characters not experience it?  Because it might be labeled "romance?"

Too bad.  I am not capable of writing anything without some sort of male-female byplay.  And what's more, don't enjoy reading books without it.  No matter how bizarre the world, how colorful the fantasy, if it lacks romance, or a love dynamic (which can include camaraderie), meh, it doesn't resonate, seems forced at best, dry at worst.

So that is obviously the biggest lesson learned.  Some people write classics.  Some write poetry.  I write relationships.  Because a life, even a fictional life, without them, doesn't seem worth much.