Step 36: AAAAHHHHHHH

The name of this step is derived from the terrified screaming I sometimes hear in my head, in regards to this project.

In terms of these novels, the amounts of things I do not know is astounding. Also not in terms of these novels.

I don't know most of the diet of the population of the main city in my fantasy novel. I don't know the names of all the Gods. I don't know what the weather is like in the desert.

I don't know how much I should write of a montage scene where several years pass. I'm not sure what a subordinate clause is, but I'm Googling it as a write this.

I'm only halfway through On Writing, and today I'm teaching Keats, many of whom's poems I don't actually know. As well as the Cherry Orchard, which I'm rather unfamiliar with.

I don't know how awful highschool life is going to be in the third novel, on a scale of Skins to Boston Public to Power Rangers. I don't know how much sex and death is acceptable in the YA genre. 

I have a wiki that isn't entirely comprehensive, a constant fear that my second novel's a rip off of Rick and Morty, and the awareness that goddammit, I started that book before Rick and Morty came out.

Since my very first paragraph of the fantasy novel, three Transformers films have come out. 

I do know that I have another paragraph to write. Another sentence. I do know that since I started this project I've written 50 000 more words of the fantasy novel, up from the total of 10 000 I originally had. I have added Azarian boardgames to the wiki, researched cuneiform and Roman sewer systems, figured how to explain superposition in the sci-fi book and tried a lot harder to avoid the passive voice.

There are always so many things I don't know. Ignorance is almost a comfort; that hasn't changed, its the default state. Not having ideas. Wondering what a character would actually say. Whether the dialogue is wooden, whether the descriptions are vivid, is the pacing too slow- why can't I remember the right synonym; God this book is terrible...those thoughts didn't go away.

But I'm looking at the wall in progress. Not the mortar, not the bricks. I never thought I'd have a half-way wall in the first place. It's freeing as fuck. 

Traditional fantasy is about 70-90k in length, far as I can Google. Which means, I'm 10k off from having, length-wise at least, a thoroughly mediocre, in-need-of-editing, amateurish fantasy fucking novel. 

Five days to go.

Despite procrastinating, self-flagellating and too much ruminating I've almost made it. Over time, with bad shoes and nowhere near first. 

It's all possible.

The quote below is a funny one. "That's was the day I started to understand." I did not, not really.

It's funny to me because I don't really understand. Wolf chasing me? I fucking run, sure, but that wolf's nibbling on my ass and ruining my boxers. I don't outrun the wolf all the time. Okay, it's a metaphor for pressure and fear, I get that, and we all know what it's like to have that deadline, how it helps.

Then there's the wolf you're chasing- okay, you're chasing your dreams, your goals, you are now in control. That helps, definitely. But I can stop anytime, I'm not running faster to chase a damn wolf, when the wolf's, you know, a goddamn wolf.

I went for a run a few days back, thought about a wolf behind me, saw how fast I went. Then I tried a wolf ahead, not sure it made much of a difference- though I did speed up.

But I knew I still had gas in me, needed tapping into. I realised there's a third option.

The wolf's in front of you, facing you head on. It's running straight at you, teeth bared, and it thinks it's going to win. That wolf is your fears, your insecurities, your doubts, the words of others, all of them, every single reason that's stopped you from doing every single thing worth doing.

And that fucker's made the mistake of facing you head on. Because what else is a person going to do when that wolf's charging right at you?

I ran my ass off. Ran right into and through that fucking wolf, because Fuck You. And behind that; another wolf.

Wolves all the time, every day, that we can hunt, we can run from, or we can fight. 

Charge right into them. You'll surprise yourself when you do.