IWSG: Once More, With All the Feelings

I planned to start writing a book in April.  April is here, and I haven't started.

Yet.  I mean, c'mon, we're only five days in.

But this is where it all starts, isn't it?  This is the point where it starts to sink in, when I know it's time to get started on this mad process again.  This is the time of reviewing a plot I've been working on for nearly two years, going back over character and setting notes to make sure everything works and I haven't missed a plot hole I won't find until I've nearly finished the book.  (Again.)

This is, for this particular story, the time I make sure all the character name and gender changes I've made are reflected in the plot, lest I confuse myself forty-two thousand words down the line.

So it seems natural that this is one of the times of greatest insecurity, hence me saving this moment for IWSG.  No matter how much I talk about the story finally being ready to write after so long, knowing that it'll soon be time to sit down and get to it brings back all the fears.  As much as I like writing interplanar tales, I've never written one that turned out well.  And while I know those were all different books and that doesn't mean anything for this book, the fear's still there.

To say nothing of feeling absolutely sure that the book itself is going to turn out too damn odd and defy categorizing too much for anyone to ever want to buy it.  "Interplanar fantasy space opera race/scavenger hunt" might be the best way to describe it, and who the hell's looking for that?  I think this even as I take steps against it.  Yes, everyone says to not even think about publishing at this stage, and I'm trying not to.  But five months of querying BoLR has embedded those thoughts in my head.

I am, of course, not letting any of this stop me.  It's impossible to know how a book's going to turn out when it's still inside my head.  Every story changes in the writing, and this one will be no different.  I've been going over scenes in my head as I work on other stuff, and it seems like things have gelled and it's all ready for me to get started on this giant chunk of literary weirdness.  And I have not, and will not, change a single damn thing because I think it'll make the book sell.  That way lies madness - okay, more madness.

I just . . . I can't escape the fear that this will turn out like everything else I write.  (I refuse to call it "knowledge", as I can't predict the future, and I'm forcing myself not to listen to the parts of my mind that insist it will happen.)  That this book, a year or less from now, will end up my fifteenth trunked book, possibly never even queried, possibly with nothing of it ever seen by anyone but me and the few people I somehow got to read it.  I know that everyone says to keep going and you'll find the book that works.  I know that trying a bunch of different things is the best - perhaps the only - way to make that happen.  And I know there's no way to see what will happen than to start writing it and find out.

So I will.  Soon.  Wish me luck and/or skill, as I think I'm going to need both.

Final note: I nearly called this entry "Once More, With Eeling" since one of the book's characters is a snake from the waist down.  But I figured no one would get the joke and she'd be very upset at being called an eel.  And I'd be ripping off WoW.

Next week: how to make things harder.  No, not for me, I can handle that on my own...