#I finished a project finally that won't be left to collect dust

[l0ganberry]

UPDATE ON THE WARLOCK STAFF (FINAL PART)

Yes. Final part. I'm done!! It's finished. I should of had finished months ago but I've been procrastinating over the crystal. But hey! I finished now so yippee!

IT EVEN GLOWS!! The crystal was so hard because I wanted to fit the look so hard with the sketches. But I'm happy either way with how it turned out.

Here's even it compared to myself. It's taller than I am (I'm 5'3")

I hope you like this @carnivalcarrion. I'm very sorry for the wait.

[acewithapaintbrush]

Something a little bit personal. It got longer than I thought so the rest under the cut.

So, even before Corona hit, I had done the (for me) unthinkable:

I had finished a novel.

I have started many ever since I was a snot nosed little brat, but had never actually finished one because I lost the drive or hated what I had written. This time I had an idea that I really wanted to see completed and I told myself that no matter how much I hated my own writing, I would finish it. So I plotted the whole story out and I powered through to get the first draft done. And I did. The first draft was, as expected, horrible (in my eyes) but after lots of rewriting and revising it got better and better and after many months it was finally at a point where I felt it was complete and tried to send it to publishers.

And no one wanted it.

And that was kinda a bummer, but also not surprising because publishers get thousands of stories daily. Why would they want my weird mix of modern fantasy + found family + crime story out of all of them?

I told myself that I would self publish, but I never got around to it because even though I liked the story that I had written (and friends and family told me they liked what they had read) I was never a 100 % happy with the wording. The sentences felt clunky to me. The emotions didn't feel nearly as powerful put into words as they were supposed to.

During the writing process I often felt like I couldn't articulate what I wanted to say in an impactful way. I knew exactly what I wanted to say, but put into German sentences they just lacked the bite, the punch.

I liked what I had written, but I wasn't really happy with it and the rejection letters didn't help any.

And so it collected dust on my shelf. My first finished novel and nothing to show for it because I didn't feel like it was worth getting it out there when I myself had so many grievances with it.

I sometimes look at it and think about the characters I created and that are so dear to me and hate myself for being so insecure about it all. For letting my dream of my own book become buried under a pile of self-doubt and apathy. I felt like a failure. It felt like I had given up an inch before the finish line but unable to pull myself up again.

Starting with fanfiction again and getting so many amazing comments about how I have a way with words, how I manage to convey emotions with my writing and lots other wonderful encouragements, I often found myself wishing I had written my novel in English.

It does sound crazy, but I've always been better with English than with my native tongue when it comes to writing. Not necessarily when it comes to grammar or spelling (as you'll probably have guessed by now) but when it comes to putting emotions and a story on paper, English has always been so much easier for me. I kid you not, while writing my novel I often pictured how I would write the sentence in English and then translated that into German. Totally bonkers, but true.

So yeah, me sitting here, wishing I could have written my book in English.

And then having a "Duh" moment because I can! No one is stopping me!

English is not a barrier in the german book market, it's actually a way to reach even more people.

And if you self publish, the language matters even less.

So, I just wanna give this a try.

A last hurray, a last rebellion in the wake of defeat. A last time breathing life into a beloved project that never left my mind.

I just wanna try again.

So why am I making a big ass post which actually can be summarized as: "I will translate my own book into another language."?

In part to keep myself accountable, to maybe help you keep me accountable ("Yo Ace, working on that novel? Don't slack now!")

But also in part because after "A place for Crows" is done, I won't start another big project like that until the novel thing is done. I WILL STILL WRITE FANFICTION, I WILL NEVER STOP WRITING FANFICTION! But don't expect another over 100k monster out of me too soon. Since my novel is actually done I think translating and revising won't take too long but I wanna do this right and concentrate on that.

As I said, I won't stop writing fanfiction, making art and diy projects and interacting here and with my beloved fandoms, so I really hope you'll stick around for my dazzling personality and stories.

Thank you for your attention.