I've started a new project...
reflections on setting aside my life's work to open up for something new
Yes indeed! After 30ish years of living predominantly in just one world, I’ve been inspired to and given myself permission to start an entirely new writing project, and I am jazzed! 😃 But I also want to sit in this moment and reflect and share my thoughts on what a big deal this is.
I want to acknowledge the almost-block that came up when this new idea came to me. I found myself reflecting on all that work, and how little of it has been shared, and if setting it down was me saying I give up. It is difficult to set aside a world and characters and a story that have been a staple through every formative evolution of my life. From grade school to four iterations of secondary education to the cusp of what I hope will be the beginning of my prime when I turn 40 next year. From 8 to 38 - so much life has been lived and creativity evolved and experienced.
But I’m happy to say that I’ve arrived in a place in my life where I could readily admit that setting aside something I’ve poured my heart and soul into doesn’t mean I don’t love it anymore. And just because I don’t have a finished product or much of anything published and shared doesn’t mean I didn’t do the work or invalidate all of those years of dedication.
Basically - Changing projects does not make me lesser than.
I still love the world I’ve built and intend on sharing it piece by piece as I gather the information together into a cohesive whole. I cherish all of the lessons I’ve learned - Quaison taught me how to world build, how to write, how to be committed, how to revise, and how to be open to change as newer and better ideas came about from experience. But it is time to set aside the storytelling piece of it.
It doesn’t mean it’ll never be finished. It also doesn’t mean it ever will be finished. It’s like storing your most well-loved blanket into a treasure trunk at the foot of your bed, still ready to be snuggled with at a moment’s notice, while also enjoying the absolutely fluffy, luxurious softness of cuddling a new blanket (goodness the loving emotion that surfaced writing that sentence! 💙).
I feel so refreshed and liberated to be embarking on this new writing journey. Right now it’s in a gloriously untethered brainstorming and exploring and researching and outlining phase and I’m reveling in every minute of it and cherishing the ease of the flow I’m experiencing. I’m also hyper aware though of something I did not succeed with when writing Quaison - being organized.
The side effect of working on a project over decades, a large portion of which while I was young and technology just wasn’t where it is now, is that everything I’ve done is scattered in so many places and organized only by date. Writing for so many years for me was like keeping a journal - I faithfully dated pretty much everything I did with the best intentions to preserve it for my older self, but what I did not do was gather things together in a way that would make it easy for me to reference this massive world I’ve built. A lot is handwritten on lined school paper, even more is typed up on scattered word documents across decades of computer and word processor evolutions. Compiling field guides and sharing the World of Quaison here on Substack is giving me the opportunity to get it organized, but DAMN is it a lot of work!
So with this new project, that I am lovingly coding CMC, I am intentionally being far more organized from the start.
I’m writing and taking notes in only one place, and I am carefully cataloguing and labeling everything to make it easy to find. This also gives me an opportunity to share my writing process in the moment instead of trying to reflect back on things I did 5, 10, or 20+ years ago.
Because this project is in its infancy - though rapidly growing!- I’ll be sharing my process only with paid subscribers at first. Eventually I’ll likely share things more publicly, but for now I need a smaller, less “omg it’s the big world” space to let CMC nest and grow while still allowing me to share my excitement, triumphs, and any struggles.
If you’re interested in following this new journey and experiencing my writing process while it’s in progress, I’d love to have you along for the ride!
If you’re new to my Substack and/or curious about my writing journey thus far, here are some posts to catch you up:
And if you’re interesting in the Quaison worldbuilding posts I’ll be sharing, here’s the first:
To end this post, I want to say a big thank you to all of my followers and subscribers. 🥰 Having you all along on this adventure helps me keep my little flame lit when the road gets dark. 🔥
More ways you can support me and my work 🤗
Very excited for you and your new project! But I also know the kind of strange grief & fear of putting aside such a huge, well-loved project. I’m someone who chronically bounces between projects with many fully abandoned, but they kind of live on in other pieces of work… but the ones I return to are stronger for having left and spent the time learning new things in another world. You never have to say goodbye to them forever, and it’s definitely a good thing to be able to start something new!!