Oh, hey. It’s six days into 2016 and I’ve managed to not continue writing the date with a 15 at the end. I’ll chalk that up as a pretty solid victory. Hopefully you’ve all had victories of your own, both creative and otherwise. (Really, though; can we take a moment to appreciate how easy it is to slip up and put the previous year on something? Because if you think otherwise, you clearly have your shit far more together than I do.)

With a new year, I find myself with new ideas. This shouldn’t be mistaken for me having new ideas and knowing what I want to do with them, of course, given that the new year also brought me being relocated to a new store at work. At least the ideas are there? 

What I’m really dwelling on is this: I have a better understanding of the folklore that guides a novel I started working on last year. Do I start fresh, creating scenes from this folklore and leading into the general direction the story was going? Or do I keep the work I have and attempt to fit the new/updated material in?

There are clear pros and cons to both sides, of course. If I start fresh, it gives me an interesting beginning, a way to integrate this information into the story, and hopefully a better understanding of where the story will be going (given that I now have an actual, physical destination in the world I’m building for the final battles and so on). The cons are that it could turn out to be an info-dump if not handled well, and I could continue to find myself stuck. We’ll not go into the feelings of being stuck, creatively-speaking, because that’s a rabbit hole I think better filled with quick-drying cement and forgotten about for now.

On the other hand, if I keep what I have and try to incorporate the new material I still manage to build upon the world of this story (and its history) while maintaining what I already have worked on. The downside being, yet again, it could feel clunky to just add that all in.

Thoughts?

Meanwhile, I’ve come to the conclusion I have far too many notebooks with blank pages. This year, because of that, needs to be one where I really buckle down and write ALL of the things, damn it.