My writing is always evolving, and change is always occurring.
I started my Source Chronicles fantasy series in 1998. As of this writing, that’s 25 years ago.
While I began the series then, it remains unfinished. Yes, Book 3 – Harbinger – is ready to go to the editor. In fact, it has been for over a year. However, it’s a long book (like most fantasy tends to be) and will not be cheap to edit. I was working on Book 4 – Guardians – for a while before I set it down over 10 years ago.
I never started Book 5 – Healers – at all. What’s more, since I was largely writing as a pantser with this series, it’s never been more than a very vague outline.
My wife has wanted to see what comes next for years. I also know that there are other readers out there who would like me to continue the series. While I’d like to, I also must face a very real question.
When is it time to abandon a project such as this?
The writer I was vs the writer I am
The best way to improve your craft – any craft – is to practice. Granted, doing practice wrong leads to stagnation and even entropy, but that’s a concept for a whole other article. Practice for improvement and increased skill will impact your art.
I started writing when I was 9 years old. Everything about my writing has changed in the past 4 decades. That’s good for lots of reasons. These include greater depth and life experience, more understanding of how to convey ideas and stories, improved use of language, and better use of brevity, wit, and showing versus telling. By no means do I claim my writing is perfect, but better and ever-improving.
There are multiple stories that I began years ago that will never be taken up again, let alone completed. For example, in college, I started a fantasy called Fall of the Emperor. It was initially handwritten, but I started typing it out and got a good way into it. Still, it no longer reflects the writer I am and hasn’t for a long time.
Evolution is a natural process. Everyone and everything evolves. Thus, the writer I was isn’t the writer that I am now. I feel that this is a good thing because I’ve gained insights and ideas that have improved my work.
Sometimes I look back at blogs I created years ago. While they might still contain salient points, they lack elements I’ve gleaned and assimilated into my craft to make it better.
All of this is part of the overall consideration regarding continuing or abandoning a project. This is especially challenging as I have started publishing this work, and it’s possible (hopefully even probable) that people who I don’t know who purchased the first two books want more.
That’s another part of the dilemma.
A little history
The Source Chronicles is the first fiction project I took on as a fully-formed adult. The vision that started the story would lead me to a whole series. The many characters are as vibrant and real to me as anyone I know in the real world.
For a time, I had a literary agent trying to sell this work. However, he wasn’t the right agent for fantasy, and I later learned the first book, Seeker (then titled Seeker of The Source) was massively unpolished.
Following the end of my relationship with that agent, a friend who is a professional editor offered to not just edit Seeker, but to take me under her wing and teach me things about the craft I had little to no understanding of. While this would be the single most expensive edit that I’ve paid for, it was also the best. I learned so much about writing and editing from Lone that I became a competent editor in my own right.
When she finished editing Seeker, I was halfway through writing Harbinger. It shows. When I went back to edit Harbinger, it was very apparent where my tone changed, as well as the lessons Lone taught me that altered my overall writing for the better.
I finished Seeker, Finder, and Harbinger somewhere between 1998 and 2008. The first two are published on Amazon. I was working on Guardians, the fourth book, until 2010. That work was interrupted when an opportunity I couldn’t pass up presented itself.
I was invited to write a short story for publication in an anthology of pirates and magic. A Treacherous Stone would be the first thing I ever published, in the anthology Rum and Runestones in 2011.
The result, however, would be that I never went back to writing Guardians.
To abandon a project feels like abandoning a child
Writing A Treacherous Stone led to a second short story called The Vapor Rogues for a second pirates and magic anthology, Spells and Swashbucklers, in 2012. This was also a Steampunk story, for which I did more worldbuilding than I’d ever done before. This would lead to continuing the short story and the first Vapor Rogues full novel, Clouds of Authority came into being.
From there, I moved on to a couple of standalone projects, then my Void Incursion and Forgotten Fodder sci-fi series. The Source Chronicles has been increasingly relegated to the back burner. It bubbled up briefly in 2017 when I took a first stab at editing Harbinger, then again in 2021 with a second, deeper (and more complete on my part) edit of Harbinger.
Part of why it took 2 editing attempts has been the evolution of my writing style, approach, and more. While I still love the concept, characters, and everything about the world like I love my niece and nephews, it’s been mostly ignored for some time now.
What’s more, despite preparing Harbinger to go to an editor, I’ve put other projects ahead of returning to writing Guardians. When I think about picking Guardians back up, there’s a sense of dread, since I’ve not touched it in years (though I did reread what I’d done in 2022). I left off in the middle of a scene that, with all the ways my writing has evolved and my approach to certain characters changed, will most likely get cut.
If I’m being utterly honest with myself, I abandoned this project long ago.
How do I know it might be time to abandon this project?
Does the idea of completing the Source Chronicles, from where I left it off, entice me? Excite me? Drive me to dive in and do the work? No.
Stating that feels like I’m neglecting a duty. To a degree, I suppose I am. If I abandon this project, the characters and their stories will never be completed.
Writing is a source of joy. To see my ideas come to life and appear on the screen and page thrills me. However, when I account for the evolution of my work, my approach, and frankly my interests, the Source Chronicles in its original incarnation might need to be abandoned.
However, because nothing in this world is ever, truly permanent, who’s to say I don’t eventually find the passion I had for this project? What if, down the line, I’m inspired to either continue or reimagine the whole concept? How much better might I be able to tell the story of these characters and their experiences now, after all that I’ve learned?
Only time will tell. Today, I acknowledge that it might be time to let this project go. There is no shame in this, and it’s not a failure. It’s simply acknowledging what’s already true and moving forward without letting this incomplete work worry away at my psyche.
While there are lots of instances where quitting isn’t the answer, the truth is that life moves forward. Sometimes, in that happening, things get left behind. This isn’t a bad thing because it reflects the truth that growth and change are inevitable. Sometimes they move you away from people, places, things, tangibles, and intangibles before you get any chance to recognize and acknowledge them.
Trust yourself
It’s okay to abandon a project that no longer speaks to your heart, mind, and soul. As far as I can tell, this is simply another element of the creative process and life of the artist.
I might be leaving the Source Chronicles behind, but I’ve got multiple projects in the works. My love of this craft will continue to grow and evolve because I nurture it to do so. Even if I abandon a project, that doesn’t mean it’s forgotten.
Please keep doing your art, whatever it might be. The world needs all the creatives it can get.
Thanks for reading. As I share my creative journey with you, I conclude with this: How are you inspired to be your own creator – whatever form that takes?
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