When I look back on it, there's a lot of things I wish I could change about how Star Cross'd Destiny was handled throughout the last ten years. You always wish you would have waited to start your brainchild until your craft was more developed. They don't tell you that your craft will never stop growing or changing. You're young and you want to tell a story about two characters you really love. They don't tell you that you'll look back on your writing and shudder, or that mistakes is how you become a better writer. Being an artist is like being a teenager - you think you know everything in the present, but you really know nothing. I can't wait to hear what ten years from now me has to say about all this.
I'll be honest - while I wish that the hiatus and all the road blocks never happened, I'm grateful for the time I was forced to take off. I got older, and my perspective changed so dramatically. Sure, I hate that I lost my audience, my numbers, and a great deal of reliability for storytelling - but those three years after the hard drive crash, I learned. I wrote and I dreamt, created and grew. And my brainchild and I fell away from each other for a very long time… What's funny about that, is while we were apart, I found their pain. I experienced it, I repressed it… then I felt it, and I figured out that just because everything hurts, doesn't mean it's raining all the time… that you can breathe underwater.
So ten years later, I'm still only 230 odd pages into my oldest story, and while that's a bummer, I'm glad I waited. I'm glad I had the chance to grow, live, and cry without it because now - now I'm telling it understanding the pain, but more importantly, I understand the joy.
I'll have more revelations next week along with a super special celebration pic. Stay tuned! Here's to ten years, friends.