When I started brainstorming “The Story” 20 years ago now, I hadn’t anticipated how many thousands or millions of ideas it would take to bring that idea to fruition. “Novel 01” was mostly improv with a two-week brainstorming session done part-time while working full-time. “Novel 02” has, conversely, been in pre-production from April 21 2023 until starting the writing proper, which could be years from now. Videos/Essays like this can help set the pace and understanding through my writing process.

Major spoilers after the jump.

I’ve documented roughly 235 ideas as of recording this essay’s video.

What that means in practical terms is that I’ve had at least 235 ideas float through my head since I started documenting them in my archive of ideas on May 15, which is over three weeks since I started the “pre-production” phase of writing “Novel 02,” which is where I will use analogies from filmmaking to talk about how it’s like writing a novel. In the video I’ll publish later on your-tonight, which I recorded my-earlier-today, I compared the ideas of writing fiction to writing movie scripts, where you have the pre-production phase in making movies where you do all the kind of research, financing of actors, and myriad other factors before you begin the production, which here would be analogous to the writing phase of a novel. With the writing phase, if you have everything lined up well enough from your own finances so you don’t get distracted by, say, having to scrape up the money to pay for rent or utilities, you can be left with a solid chunk of time each day for writing.

The primary mistake I made was excluding any time for breaks or relaxation.

I also only had two weeks of pre-production for “Novel 01,” compared to over two months now for pre-production with “Novel 02,” factoring in as well the years of time I spent thinking of “Novel 02” after I finished “Novel 01,” along with the experience I gained through writing “Novel 01.” There is plenty to critique in “Novel 01” that a critic could accept as a fault of timing with that in mind – I had one month to write / produce “Novel 01”  with two weeks of pre-production – could allow some acceptance for faults. My end-goal is to do a complete re-edit as “Novel 01.5” to bring the novel both into the canon of “The Story” universe as well as to correct any mistakes of oversight, lack of research, or even rudeness that might have fallen in by accident.

I write all of this as a way to explain why this “Novel 02” will probably, likely, take years still.

I want to get it done, but, I want to avoid burning myself out. Over this four-day weekend, I spent hours doing recordings of “Novel 02” material. I sacrificed five hours, at least, to “Novel 02” over these past 96 hours. I could have spent any of those hours going to get groceries, exploring reality, having a fun road trip, or doing anything else with my life. I say this not to request empathy or understanding, but just to say that these things take time, and I figure that with these videos showing all the material that goes into writing fiction, that if I succeed in all that I want to succeed, maybe you can use this series of videos and overall perspective as a benchmark through which to assess the quality of materials. How much effort is put into writing fiction, making other media, or other things is not an immediate thing. It took me twenty years to get to the point where I can now start writing good, substantial brainstorming ideas on a daily basis.

If I take an afternoon off, that’s my own business, and it’s for the good of the writing.