Have you ever put so much energy and
thought into a project, that it seems like forever since you began it? I feel this way about my novel. This is not, of course, the novel that is
currently (I hope) being considered by an agent, nor is it any of the
fledglings that have not yet hit their 50-page marks (poor darlings). I am referring to the beast to which I am
currently enslaved, the sci-fi creature which may someday be my masterpiece. Yes, I am working on my masterpiece at
twenty-three. No, I have not considered
what its being my masterpiece may mean for my future works. But I digress.
This novel, the first of a series of
four, is dubbed Youngest for the title character, which is an artificial
intelligence. And no, I was not using incorrect
grammar in the previous sentence.
Youngest as it begins the story is sexless, although when it enters
human society it takes on a feminine identity.
Disguised as a human girl, Youngest leaves behind a past of trauma and
torment to learn about human society and whether it can become a part of
it. The story and its characters have
consumed me ever since it first came into my mind, and it seems ages that it
has been pounding on the walls of my skull, demanding to be set free.
So it was surprising to me, the
other day, to look back at my progress record and realize that it was still in
fledgling stage at this time last year.
At the end of May 2013, I hadn’t quite reached the fortieth page, which
for me makes the novel just a baby, just a beginning.
One hundred and fifty pages in one
year may not be all that impressive. That’s
only a bit more than two-fifths of a page each day, maybe three hundred
words. A 300-word assignment back in
college was one I could roll out in half an hour. But you have to realize that there were days—many
days—in which I didn’t write at all, because I was away or doing other things,
or because my infant-dragon muse was asleep on top of my bookshelf where I can’t
reach her. More than that, a novel of
this magnitude doesn’t just involve sitting in front of a keyboard. Hours of research and planning, outlines and
revised outlines, maps and drawings and lists of names—there’s an entire
notebook of my scrawls. Not to mention a
few months last fall when I wrote a large chunk of the story by hand, sitting
at one of the tables at work. I’ve done
enough that I’m not terrified by the self-imposed deadline of two months to
finish it, eight months to have it fully revised. The end is that close, and it’s only been a
year.
To me, this hammers home the true
value of this time. In this one aspect
of my life, this one segment of my creative work, I have made a huge stride,
and I am filled with that strange kind of humble pride, where you are amazed
that you could have done such a thing.
It gives me hope, because if this is possible in one year, what might be
happening for me in the next?
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