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cheswirls · 2 years

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i thought abt sy for an extended period tonight and like always i have a lot of mixed feelings that i am choosing this tim eto.. write down, instead of overthinking solely in my head. this might get long jsyk

its p set in stone now that im gonna rewrite sy. the immediate problem is if i start now, or at any point before ive finished it once through, then ill jus run into the same problems im going thru rn. i dont know when i started thinking srsly abt this besides some point last year, but its made me so unmotivated to even touch sy. im constantly teetering between 'yea this is solid, or at least, good' and thinking its such a giant mess. sometimes the messy aspect overrides my ability to see the good points entirely. sometimes this leaves me thinking, well then, why should i even continue?

but not in a im-done-w-it kinda way, i love sy so much. its more like. like ive decided this version is so unfixable and i need to start over, and ive held myself back for a long time bc, again, its not gonna work unless i know exactly whats gonna happen from start to finish, and bc i dont outline (and esp for sy, when i jus go w the flow and write what i want on the spot, in large chunks, too) that points only gonna come when i get around to finishing sy, which is still a long time off.

i guess ive jus bogged myself down w this. knowing that im writing for smth that im gonna go back andf scrap/change. i didnt think it mattered bc i have so much fun writing sy, but over time ive come to realize thats probably the main reason i havent really written anything for it in a long time. i keep telling myself to embrace that sy #1 is gonna be messy and imperfect and written how i want in the heat of the moment but i havent fully accepted it either.

like. its bc im the author, and im so glad ppl love sy like i do, but every time i look i jus see so many problems. i keep wanting to try and fix things in successive portions and this leads to a Long process of me having to read the entirety of sy before i start writing to refresh myself, and sometimes i spend so long doing that that when im through the motivation is gone.

im gonna jump all over the place here but. so basically i write whatever the hell i want for sy and make it cohesive to the overall plot. thats why theres so many "fluff" scenes that rly hold no base value?? bc i could remove a whole lot and still have to read well, and by "fix" i dont mean get rid of/condense, bc at the end of the day im writing sy entirely for me like its self-indulgence to the absolute max. and i wanted a fic that showed a lot of 'down time', like everyday life, like nothing, normal scenes that dont matter in the grand scheme but are fun to write and cute to read bc I Care Them and also like. if you ship sa youre already desperate for content so why not More??

thats part of the self-indulgent, it-doesnt-matter mindset ive adapted for this version of sy. if i want to condense, i can do it in another version. right now i am having fun

but also i know its a mess. ik i started posting chapters around oct 19 and i started rewriting initial scenes early that summer and ive had a very old gdoc i think didnt/doesnt even have a proper title (like sad sa or smth) even before that, like this fic is very Not old news. i started a tumblr draft that is now suuuuper long for notes on scenes and w/e i want to add eventually, i think back around the end of 19 again, and its sorta in chrono order but its also Not an outline. i delete scene drabbles/notes from it once ive written them proper to clear space and there is So Much happening between each one. the last time there was a good 40 or so pages between one scene id thought up n jotted down points for and another that was a sentence or two of explanation. i dont have smth to follow where i go down the list n knock each off. i rly only reference the top few from that draft when im writing so ik what, theoretically, i should have happen before another, and if i vibe w it ill write it between what im writing in the moment. sometimes i know the beginnings of the next scene and start writing and then come up as i go and never look at notes or anything and then i have 5-10k. outlining wouldnt work. but that also means when i get stuck w what should happen next i Rly get stuck and end up letting it sit for forever.

i keep saying this and never get to why so heres WHY i think sy is, not bad necessarily, but jus messy. i write in the heat of the moment and dont follow up. or i forget abt it. or i dont forget but i dont know how to resolve so i ignore it. except i dont rly ignore it bc its like a nagging, like i want to let it alone but my minds like uh eventually you gotta address this plot point you brought up

sy is also a major fic where i am super critical while writing and then once i let it Sit n read it back over im like oh, wait, why did i have a problem w this?? this looks good. then icoe back again (usually after ive. posted it online hrgrigwr) and am like Oh my god why does this not make sense/not read write/why didnt i edit/change this like. im so guilty ESP in sy or writing smth i KNOW isnt good jus to move on n promise to fix it later and then i Dont fix it?? ig what im saying is im guilty of not editing as harshly as needed, which rly only matters to me in the end since, again, sy is pre self indulgence. i have been typing for over half an hour wow okay i thought this was gonna take like 10m.

i kinda have/have not accepted that i have things i introduce that i wont think abt following up on, and part of that is irritating bc i want this version of sy to be unforgettable and not such a giant mess and my opinion since 2019 has jus changed so entirely. i thought i was going in knowing what i wanted, and now im like, oh well, i can figure out what i want when i rewrite. if i decide to cut, like, some underlying symbolism that needs to be addressed more than once or twice to stick/make sense, then i can! in vers #2. basically im trying to accept that current!sy is going to have loose threads and not be this amazing thing like i want it to be. im basically writing a rough draft and posting it for the world to see. when i get done im sure ill b supr excited to Be Done but also i know when i have everything written, when i have an ending, when i have everything on the table, that its gonna be so rewarding to piece together every little subplot and symbolic thing and repetitive stuff and tie it all together so concisely. i cant do that w sy #1. sometimes i get so excited to write sy #2 and think of how far off it is or the fact that i gotta get thru #1 and then i am not excited anymore.

but i do think abt it. when i came up w a new title (poss the same day i decided on a new scene 1?? poss diff day iunno) was when i p much solidified, alright, this is happening. that was last year. i was thinking tonight that i havent touched sy seriously since nov 20, or at least the end of that year, but then ik ive written so much for this one giant chapter and ik i took a break between thanksgiving and starting to write it bc unnecessarily i hyped myself up that when i finally got to the point i could start it, it was jus so daunting. like i couldnt believe id finally reached that series of points from my notes.

that was def before my surgery, so its probably almost been a year since ive actively written anything new for sy. i have struggled So Much w this chap bc i have to get to to a midpoint and its feeling like a chore to work my way up to it. while still making everything make sense. which is another thing. when i first started i told myself sy was gonna be like soul eater in the sense that i wanted everything from the past to be explained by actions in the present. lmao that didnt make sense basically for those that dont know se, there are no flashbacks. yoiu learn abt characters thru what they actively do in the story and what they choose to explain to others and what ppl comment abt them. i dont think its been hard per se but i rely a lot on flashbacks in my writing so w/o them its been harder to define things. ive already broken this rule a couple times n i have notes on a few other scenes in the past already which again ties into the whole, why dont you jus rewrite it how you want to??

the problem w that also is. wait ill get to that so no flashbacks. to go along w this i told myself that if i didnt wanna explain smth i didnt have to. a good example of this is ace's major, which i didnt specify bc it Wasnt Relevant/Didnt Matter, right, and if it doesnt matter then why should i waste time thinkin abt it? (it actually does matter now, surprisingly. i dont think its a plot point but its v touching n theres sentimentality behind it n its gonna b good) another example is a combo of these two, where im like okay so, im not writing the past n it doesnt matter bc theyre living in the present n im gonna have them work thru things in the present. xcept im not??? im not good at this ig. im realizing more and more that it matters, that i need more of a backstory than i think even if it never gets brought up if only for the fact that ill know more abt sy!sabo n sy!ace at the end of the day. like i keep saying, sabo does this and thinks like this, and has for a long time, but theres not a Reason attached to it. thats a big thing i decided to leave to sy #2 while also thinking i need some form of it in #1 as well. things i decided didnt matter suddenly Matter, now.

i feel like i say things then take them back, or have someone act this way and do things another. like there is no In Character. again this is ONLY gonna be fixed when i have everything written. im not gonna b so wishywashy in #2. but its killing me that i am now. and its making it difficult to write scenes when i dont know what a char should be doing, or when i end up writing them doing smth that doesnt make sense for them, and then that bypasses the Lite Editing. i am confusing myself and im the Author, like i know what happens next, at least in the long run,so i Know im leaving others hella confused and i dont like that either.

its been an hr and im still not done god what is life. maybe i needed to do this more than i thought

i love sy and i want this to be the op fic im known for, but if that doesnt happen until the revised, 2nd version, that is absolutely okay. ive had a new title for a bit, after being wishywashy abt it and deciding i prolly needed to distance myself from sy after getting thru it. tonight after thinking again abt how weird the new abb was gonna be i had a Thought and now i have a sub-title after going so long thinkin i wouldnt, for the new version, and the entire thing is an acronym that i am super excited to be able to share one day. for now i feel like i gotta put it somewhere besides my phone so heres to sy 2 one day: sys(tem) [for future ref this was gonna be (to even me) but then i thought of smth even Better that actually reads well n makes sense so!! hahaha now instead of calling it sys i can call it. system. if i end up changing it i will absolutely share this title]

i said when i first posted ch1 that i didnt have an ending but i knew sy was gonna b super long and that still holds. i know in theory what the last thing i have planned is but i dont know if thats where the storys gonna end. i jave a lot to address and i wanna do sy justice in some capacity which means tying up some of the main loose ends. i cant say for certain if they (all) will be at that point in the story. i wasnt kidding when i said sy was gonna b a thing for a long time

ill make this official (or maybe ill change my plan entirely by then) when i post the last ch of sy on ao3 but. putting here for posterity also since im rambling abt system thoughts maybe if i get it all outta the way i can leave it alone for a while. my plan is to finish uploading sy. then write system entirely. all of it. before posting. maybe in parts?? by that i mean breaks between updates. maybe all at once. when i do im gonna private sy bc that keeps comments intact while still hiding it from public view since itll basically be the same story as system, jus under a diff name. so the order is finish system>private sy>post system. i do not know how long this will take so sy could be up years before system is ready. i jus felt like i should warn ppl so if anyone wanted to like, download or save or w/e before its gone, or like jus generic warning before sy disappears. ik system will be the superior vers but also sy isnt bad n i dont wanna withhold it from ppl that wanna read it while system is in circulation

also ive decided none of this short chapter stuff. i dont even write sy divided at all n have such a hard time figuring out where to break sections for ao3 chaps. i thought it was gonna be fun naming chapters too but it was for for all of 2 maybe 3 and then it got to be such a chore. system chaps re gonna be massive and there will be far less of them. the first scene is going to be new content. the 2nd scene will be the 1st of sy. i feel like i can post the entirely in one go and be done? but also there will be SO much in each chap that i can also get away w spacing them out a lil. system isnt gonna be Just Like sy, but Rewritten, so i might not wanna post all at once bc that gives the impression that its basically the same?? at least i feel. system is gonna be sy Improved. if that makes sense. i feel like when ppl (n me) do rewrites its updating everything to newer writing. like rewriting the same thing you wrote 5 yrs ago is not gonna be different fundamentally but it will read a lot better bc youve had 5 years to grow/improve. system is not going to be like that. its the fix to sy. its making things more comprehendible. i started before 1 and its 230 :'c

i am. glancing over the draft bc i have no self control so one more point. i have a 'slowly reveal over time' list and Half of these ar things i dont know how to address properly. or where theyre going at the end of the day. so like, when sy is done, i can go back in system and introduce them properly AND THEN carry them properly throughout the story. theres only One on here thats gonna b one of those unforgettable twists that im p sure defines the midpoint of the fic, and thats gonna be a spoiler for system but also i think its gonna be one of those fun things where youll catch all the hints if you know going in, so its gonna be fun too. otherwise the others are all gonna benefit from being handled better the 2nd time around.

ok if i do have prelim stuff for system its somewhere else n i dont have time to dig (nor do i want to) - if you read thru this whole rant bless you. heres a reward: the next chap of sy is the first big turning point of the story. i am super excited to post it. i am still going to wait n hold myself to finishing the 2nd half before posting the 1st half. i feel like writing the 2nd half in full will contextualize things better and ill end up going back to change things in pt 1 so i dont wanna post it then say Sike, Read It Again. i am so excited tho. i think? ive been away for long enough that it wont be so hard to start writing it again, i jus cant now lmao. i kept myself from touching it during school and overloaded myself during winter break and thats spilled into spring term. i write so much all at once n i cant rly afford to write for sy now so its still gonna be prolly until summer/may, but like i think the length of pt1/2 back to back will make up for it.

this is all jus throwing out my struggles n why things have been so slow. there are so many things i cant wait to get to in sy. my interest hasnt died at all. (and then even after its done, ill still have more to look forward to)

also im highkey not tagging this w anything if u find it n its relevant to u good for u i guess

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