So, remember when I used to write multiple stories?

...yeah. So, I've been pretty damn bad about that for close to a year now. In part, I just don't have the time and energy that I used to have, but it's more than that. I keep making promises that I can't keep. I keep going into neighborhoods, looking around households, then leaving the game or switching to Naroni or otherwise avoiding actual progress. And it's only been within the past couple days that I've really figured out why.

Naroni was my first Sims story, inspired by the great tradition of the Lotherian/Mhalwaean-style RKC: lots of characters, many interconnected stories, generational progression. No real ending, no real beginning... just happenings, like life but crazier (or, arguably, not quite as crazy). When I started my other stories, I was in that same mindset. Every major character had friends and family members who ended up becoming more significant than I had intended, because I was used to a fairly wide distribution of screen time. Characters dying and getting married and having babies would be spotlighted in spite of the fact that these demographic changes didn't have the same effect that they did in Naroni. Looking back now, it was probably a mistake to write these as Sims stories.

I'll stop right now to give this disclaimer: I have absolutely no intention of ever taking down a Sims story and reworking it as a novel, ever. Some people have done it, and some people have done it well, but this is not something I want to do. If these characters and stories have been thrown into the world, then where they have been shown is, as far as I'm concerned, their home. I will stress that this only applies to my Sim stories as I see them; you are welcome to disagree in regards to the general sentiment, but in regards to my own stories, I feel very strongly about this.

That still leaves the question of what to do about. I don't want to cancel anything--as far as I'm concerned, there is still story there--but there's still a lot of serious thinking required in regards to the future of these stories. I suppose I'll just break them down one by one:

Orbis Umbra

Orbis Umbra was sort of an experiment for me: vague ideas, little outlining, all about making stuff up as I went along. I have found that this style of writing does not work for me. I am a planner. I need to plan, and I would like to plan what will happen in OU, but the present state of it is making that exceedingly difficult.

By this point, I kind of see OU in parts. There is Aurora's story, which will end on an abrupt note, and then the story is picked up about fifteen years later with another character, trying to find answers to the many (purposefully) unanswered questions Aurora left behind. Perhaps Aurora's story is already over, and my mistake has been in thinking otherwise.

My other "mistake", I think, has been with the supporting cast: Aurora's classmates, Mrs. Boote, Lox, even Scorpio to a lesser degree for all he is sort of the "secondary protagonist". I don't think any of them are really meant to be side characters. They all have their own stories, and they're all important stories, and I think they all have the potential to be interesting stories. Maybe OU wants to be sort of like TheLunarFox's Ruin: a series of interconnected, overlappings stories in which the world/society itself is the ever-present antagonist.

If I do ever get back to OU (and I plan to, eventually!), it will be full-text, perhaps with one sort of "header image" just for fun. I imagine some important actions that will be much too complex for Sims posing (or at least, my Sims posing :P).

Ashelia

I'm the first person to say that Ashelia at Dusk was bad. Like, really awful, frankly. That whole story was bad planning on my part. Dusk shouldn't have been its own story; it was a bridge between War and Dawn, it was always a bridge between War and Dawn, and my mistake was in treating it like something more, trying to get more out of it than there actually was.

My hatred and shame of Dusk is largely what is standing in the way of starting Dawn. I was--and still am, for the most part--excited about Dawn. I have huge plans for it. In my mind, it's about ten times better than War ever was, so of course it'll kick Dusk's sorry ass to the stars and back. That said, there is still the fear. What if it's not any good? What if it turns out like Dusk? What if I'm kidding myself?

I hope to eventually overcome these feelings. I'm keeping Dusk up because A) it is a part of canon and B) as much as I hate it, I can't expect to grow as a writer if I deny that old and regrettable work ever happened. I am not ready to start Dawn, but for the sake of what I always imagined it to be, I hope it won't be long now.

Realmspeaker

Realmspeaker is a problem, I'll admit it. I enjoy it, and I enjoy thinking about what will happen next, but it is a problem. It has many of the same issues as OU: more world-centric, too many supporting characters who want to be more than supporting characters, and perhaps not enough planning in the initial stages.

The characters in Realmspeaker have gone through several incarnations now, many different plots and worlds and genres, characters who have spent years in my head just looking for the right story. At the heart of it, there is always a lost, lonely boy who just wants somebody to love him. Maybe Realmspeaker has too many red herring plots and just needs to get some of those over with, just to get back to its roots.

The Crazy Massive Legacy Project

...largely my distaste for LJ's post editor, to be honest. I actually have been sitting on an update for a while, but can't bring myself to actually fight with LJ again, especially now that it has a stupid new editor that I can't be arsed to figure out. I'm thinking Ariel and Bernadette will be back soon, but... I'll probably just post the teaser on my LJ, then link to Scrawls and Scribblings.

So... that was yet another whine about this particular subject. Thanks for listening, and for your understanding, and for bearing with me while I am being so, so lame.