I have this tendency…a bad habit, really…apparently, I never took the old saying, “Look before you leap” seriously.
Not in real life. Oh no. In real life, I look and fret and worry and think, and then I might take the leap. It depends on whether Justin and our friends are really prodding me that day or not.
It’s in my writing that the problem lies. I started writing fantasy as a kid because I liked the fact that I “don’t have to research anything”. Ahem. Yeah. I wish I had a TARDIS so I could travel back in time, smack my younger self, and say, “Better get used to it now, kid!” (But that would create a paradox and mix time into even more of a wibbley-wobbley mess that it already is.)
What brings this on, you might ask? Two things. Forged Steel and Darkglass. You’re probably tired of hearing about Forged Steel, my urban fantasy work-in-progress, but the thing is currently giving me so many fits that I just have to talk about it a lot.
When I started writing it, it was supposed to be a short story. Then it expanded into a novella…a trilogy of novellas…a trilogy of novellas attached to a trilogy of novels…to a series of six or seven full-length books that just happen to deal with a lot of Irish Gaelic myths about faeries, the Otherworld, and all that fun stuff.
So now I’m doing research and trying to figure out how to rewrite Forged Steel to fit into it. I really love the idea of the series. It’s just having growing pains right now. (Not to mention that I forgot to do character sketches and stream-of-consciousness exercises before I started writing. *facepalm*)
The other work-in-progress that is wanting to make me tear out my hair is my novelette, Darkglass, a relatively new work about love and politics and brotherly betrayal. Betrayal, I can imagine.
Politics and love…yeeeeeah. Coming from the gal who won’t read romance novels and who dislikes the very mention of politics…and yes, I know, I have a wonderful love-filled marriage to a man who likes politics. But still, I can’t believe I’m actually writing a story that deals primarily in those things.
Sometimes, I envy those authors who have a firm handle on their stories and can steer them where they want to go. 
Mine tend to run amok, dragging me along on a wild ride that I somehow have to tame during the rewrite.
I have to admit, there have been perks to writing willy-nilly like I have been. the protagonist of Darkglass, Mollan, consistently surprises me with how sweet he can be under his couldn’t-care-less exterior. I really am having fun searching out Irish myths and putting my own twists on them for my urban fantasy series.
Still…if I could’ve really looked before I jumped headlong into these projects, I might have saved myself some hair-pulling and grumbling now.
I think I will do that next time.
Maybe.
But I doubt it. My track record really isn’t all that good.
Your turn. What projects did you jump headlong into, only to semi-regret it later?
