I have been preparing to tackle the Ghosts of the Places You Live while also working on rewrites for There Are Not Enough Midnights, making notes, considering characters, doing some basic story arch brainstorming, rereading the bits of other dead project I’m planning to strip for parts and work into this story, researching, gathering photo references, and of course creating a musical playlist to write by.
The whole project has me feeling a little daunted. This piece is threatening to be the hardest things I’ve ever written, both emotionally and in complexity. I’m putting myself under a lot of pressure to get this one right and I’m putting a lot of myself into it.
I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that is three different stories woven together.
Story A is set during the 1930s and shows the things that happen to set everything in motion, including the magic called into being. Story B is set in the late 1970s and follows the actions and decisions that cause things to go off the rails. Story C is set in our current time and shows the characters dealing with the consequences of the past and trying to save—or at least salvage—the future.
That I want to write these intertwined stories in different voices and styles makes the project even more intimidating.
And yet, when I look at the rural fantasies I’ve written before, they have the truest voice of all my work and are some of the strongest bits of writing I’ve managed to date. I’ve been moderately successful at interweaving A and B stories in one piece, so adding a C will be a new experience, but not something wildly outside my skills.
I can’t help but worry that I will fail the story that wants to be written: that I’m not up to the challenge I see shaping up before me. A part of me wants to pick a different project, something safe and familiar. But then, if I don’t take chances, stretch, and risk failure, well, I’m not really growing as an artist, am I?