Stages of my Writing Endeavor
This will be elaborated upon further, to be sure… but for the sake of getting it down, here are the stages I’ve moved through in this overall writing endeavor:
Stage 1: Brewing Ideas (1980-2000)
This is me growing up, when the ideas, archetypes, and forms that would fuel the story took root. These were not really consciously aware to me at this time, but they were there.
Stage 2: Realization, pt 1 (2000-2004)
This started when the first idea came to me, the idea that sparked the flood of all ideas to follow. This initial idea was like an inkling of thought that made me aware of some vast realm that wanted to be explored. For years, I groped and searched for ways into this realm, without any luck…
Stage 3: Realization, pt2 (summer 2004 – winter 2004)
This is when I had the important “second” idea, which in combination with the first idea, fully opened the floodgates. For this several month period, the ideas were pouring their way into my head. I talked about these ideas with many people, though I wrote nothing down…
Stage 4: First Notes (circa 2005)
This is when I started taking actual notes on my various ideas. Scraps of papers, notebooks, journals, bulletin boards — I started putting stuff down in writing, however scattered and unorganized it all might have been.
Stage 5: Second Notes (circa 2006-2007)
Eventually, I had too many notes to know what to do with. Each new addition to the pile of notes was less and less constructive to the overall endeavor, as the lack of formal organization began to severely hinder my growth. As a result, I began to type up all my notes, storing them in separate documents both chronologically (as written) AND sequentially (in their proper order of the overall story).
Stage 6: Rought Draft (July 2007 – present)
Eventually, all of my organized notes became too plentiful to be of continued use as-is. I needed to up the organization structure again. I had tons of notes on each section of the story organized very nicely, but the ideas for each section were too plentiful to know what to do with.
Finally, I knew I had to start writing the actual story… I had to move on from mere notes! 90% of what I’d written so far had been notes on the story, not the actual story itself. So this is the stage where my goal is to actually write a full and complete draft of the entire story, from A-Z, which will of course be edited, developed, and refined later on.
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So that is it for now. Again, these sections will probably be flushed out and elaborated upon sometime down the road, but this will have to suffice for the time being. Detailing this evolution of complexity has been very worthwhile, as it shows that each new stage grows out of the existing stage, dealing with the necessary flaws that became inherent as time progressed.
