Work Resuming
Hello everyone, first and foremost I can not apologize enough for going so much longer than I had said I would without any updates. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a lot that happened in my personal life involving issues within friend groups and family issues – but those are not the reason I haven't updated here.
The last few years, starting with my initial writing of the first fourteen chapters of A Retelling, and my subsequent burnout and lack of motivation have convinced me that I have gone my whole life with some sort of undiagnosed condition, likely some manner of ADHD based on my own limited knowledge and research. My initial anger and disappointment with the canon series caused me to hyper fixate on this project. All fourteen chapters, totaling just under 100k words were written between August 25th and November 30th.
With the exception of the first four chapters which were written over the course of just two days I was writing one full chapter a week nonstop until the delay between Chapters 12 and 13. The system I made for myself was that I would write a chapter over the course of Monday – Wednesday every week, spend Thursday and Friday editing the chapter I wrote the previous week and then post the final version of that chapter on Friday evening, then taking the weekend off. This means that I was effectively giving myself a second job on top of my actual 9-5 job.
When I decided to take December off as it would be very busy that had been my intention – to only take that month off. What I found however was that once I was no longer in that strict routine my initial fervent work ethic faded. I have at various times times tried getting back to it only to find myself getting distracted or staring at the screen blankly. I wouldn't say it's writer's block, but more of a having difficulty getting the proper focus back in place.
With all of that being said: I am as of now starting to get back into a proper mindset. As of typing this I have finished rereading the initial fourteen chapters and am going back through my notes. Next is to reread the canon material again (gotta get that anger going again). In order to hopefully prevent myself from getting burnt out again I will be going at a slower pace than before, so there won't be weekly updates as there were previously. I need to find a more sustainable pace that will allow me to convey the vision I have for this alternate version of events without resulting in me crashing, burning and losing my drive again.
Again, I can not apologize enough. Please look forward to the story continuing!