Plannings

It's taken the best part of a week, but I can finally announce that I have finished the plan for my first short story. Seriously, it's been a long week of pacing up and down my room for hours on end, pen in one hand and empty notepad on the desk nearby, talking to myself in an attempt to work out what sort of story I want to tell and how best to tell it. There have been moments when the ideas have poured from my mind in such a torrent that I could hardly get them down on the page fast enough, and my main concern above all else was worrying whether I'd be able to read the illegible scrawl that pretty much sums up my handwriting. Other times I would find myself wandering around the house in frustration, trying to throw out possible scenarios and abandoning them just as quick, consumed with the knowledge that there was a story knocking around somewhere within the cobwebbed recesses of my mind, yet for the life of me I couldn't find the damn thing. One of the most common sentences during these moments is usually something along the lines of: "It's not working. It's all shit. All of it. Shit!" If it wasn't for the continual supply of tea and being able to unwind by killing darkspawn in Dragon Age I don't know how I would have coped! But the first stage is over with. The planning is done. Despite the ups and downs of the whole process, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

One of my main faults with regards to writing - at least the one that I feel is the most prevalent, though no doubt there are many others - is that I am impatient. Very impatient, in fact. It's weird, really, considering I need to have most of the details at least present if I am to have any hope of writing something that doesn't end up as some awful miasma of cardboard characters, plotholes the size of small craters or just something so putrid and unreadable that my writing skills end up being worse afterwards than when I began. For me, planning is key. Yet most of my past experiences are littered with times when I might as well have said: "Y'know what, I want to write something awesome and I can't be bothered to put the effort into planning. I have this great idea, only one idea, but it's so good and I'm sure it'll turn into a novel..." *two paragraphs later* "...It's not working. It's all shit. All of it. Shit!"
Who knows what this story will be like once it's written - until I sit down and work on it then there's no way I can talk about it - but it's been a lot of fun just sitting into the late hours of the evening, jotting down even the most minute of details that will hopefully have an effect on the narrative, even if it's just to provide a greater sense of immersion or depth for the reader.

So now comes the hard part: the writing. I'm more excited about it than anything else. Considering my recent reading habits it will probably come as no surprise that it is heavily inspired by Gothic fiction and a few other influences thrown into the mix. Got a brand new notepad waiting to be unwrapped (that's right, I'm writing this story by hand) and an entire evening ahead of me tomorrow to get started on this thing.

It might also be a good idea to hide both Dragon Age and Game of Thrones for the next couple of weeks. It's going to be a tough enough task as it is without having to deal with distractions of that magnitude...