Journey’s End, Chapter 9: Marlin’s Tale

a/n:

First, if this is your first foray into Journey’s End, please go check out the table of contents and start from the beginning!

Well, it’s been quite some time since I’ve posted a chapter for Journey’s End, hasn’t it?  The interesting thing about this chapter is that it was actually written months ago, but my focus on the presidential election drew all my energy and attention away from this story.

I had initially planned on making this chapter much much longer, but what struck me upon reviewing it in the process of writing it is that ending it exactly where I did just seemed to make sense.

Here we are introduced to yet another integral character to the story who I think I will ultimately add a little spice and comedy to the mix.  Given the nearly saccarine sweet character of the relationship between Lindsey and Trevor, I think I would be in danger of having something so sweetly dull it wouldn’t be worth it.  But this character kind of becomes the needed voice of dissent as the plot begins to take a more solidified shape.

As for Chapter 10, don’t hold your breath.  Much has been written, but it is also a much longer chapter than this one is, and I haven’t even started contemplating how to continue writing it.  Before that happens I have to get myself back in the habit of spending a little time in Journey’s End in my head.

The story so far and the actual chapter below the jump!

Journey’s End, Chapter 8: Trevor’s Mistake

a/n: As always, if this is your first foray into the Journey’s End story, please, click here to go to the table of contents and start from the beginning.

If you’re still here…

I think I should lay out my philosophy for all future posts of this story so that I don’t end up repeating the same thing over and over again.  These chapters are, to say the least, rough drafts.  I will likely never post whatever turns out to be the final draft as I hope to someday publish this work.  I’m saying this because increasingly I realize that I need the benefit of a dedicated editor and collaborator with whom I can bounce my work off of, and thus make this story as smooth and engaging as it can be.

I say this now because this chapter feels as though it’s the roughest of the offerings I have delivered so far, even if I’ve combed through it and made changes at least three times.  There are still parts that feel… off… somehow, and I don’t know that I can tweak those bits and pieces enough on my own.

In any case, despite certain eccentricities, I am still rather pleased with this chapter.  The thing I think that hurts it the most is that it is itself a bridge of a chapter, not exactly carrying any one momentous moment of its own, but instead polarizing itself around the end of one major moment and the beginning of another.

Thus this is a comparably longer chapter (though, at under eight thousand words, I suppose it isn’t), but it feels as such stretched a bit thin.  I suppose a natural ending could have been put a little earlier, or I could have split this chapter up between the previous chapter and the next, but one of the great things that I like about this chapter is that it has the rhythm that I’m shooting for.  It resolves to a degree a cliffhanger brought on at the end of the last chapter, and introduces the cliffhanger that will be fleshed out in the opening of the next.

Also, I like this chapter because it really starts to flesh out the character of Lindsey, and most specifically about how she feels towards her new companion.  This is by far one of my favorite aspects of this story–getting in her head, and trying to express the feelings and thoughts that she is having.

In any case, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and while I know I’m not maintaining this site on a day to day basis, I’m already deep into the next chapter (which will also, I expect, be rather long, depending on where I choose to end it).

Journey’s End Chapter 7: The Golden Woods

a/n: Not much of an author’s note this time around, other than to say that the ending originally for this chapter sucked.  I think I fixed it this time, but there might be some grammatical errors now so I reserve the right to republish this chapter at a later date.

As always, if this is your first venture into Journey’s End, I encourage you to go check out the Table of Contents and start from the beginning.  And please please please let me know what you think!

Journey’s End Chapter 6: On A Dirt Road

a/n:  This is probably one of the riskiest chapters I’ve written so far.

I say this because I worry about the speed at which I cultivate the relationship between Lindsey and Trevor.  With the plans I have for them over the course of this story and whatever stories may follow, it is vitally important that I move neither too fast nor too slow.  And yet this entire chapter is about them.

So that does set me up for poorly pacing.  On that score, we’ll have to just wait and see.

It’s also important to note that every time I go back to read through this story, I catch myself making changes.  Some are good, some I wonder as to their wisdom, and when I go back to revise the story in toto, I am almost certain that this will likely have to be the most heavily edited.

That being said, I’m still not fully disappointed with this chapter, and still actually kind of like it.  And as for you, if you’ve liked the last two chapters, this one should be right up your alley.  I have a little more excitement planned for the next, but we’re not really going to be changing tempo for a couple more chapters yet.

In any case, for those of you just joining us, please don’t forget to head over to the Table of Contents to catch up on the chapters you have missed, and for everyone else, we’ll get this chapter underway right after The Story So Far.

Journey’s End Chapter 5: An Interesting Proposal

A/N: Here we go, chapter 5.  I’ve probably written more news posts about this than I have any chapter prior to this.  That’s what you get when you are struggling with a chapter, I suppose.

As I’ve mentioned in earlier news posts, this chapter started off difficult to write, but got easier as I progressed.  One thing that continues to impress me is the strength of the characters, and their ability to carry a scene, and in this chapter specifically, with its utter lack of action, that is exactly what happens here.

I will warn you that I’m posting this early primarily because after my initial read through, I just couldn’t find much to complain about and correct, though I’m sure you folks will be more than helpful on that score, and I’ll no doubt want to go back and rewrite it.

But that brings me to something that I find interesting about writing this story and is a big departure from the stuff I wrote on MNFF.  I’m ultimately HAPPIER writing this stuff.  After five chapters, I’ve yet to produce a chapter where I finish it, go over it with a fine tooth comb, and think “God this is garbage, but I have to post it anyway.”  I haven’t hit there yet.  Yes, some parts feel more challenging to write than others, but I still end up being ultimately happier with the results.

And I haven’t even gotten close to the good bits yet.  Oh the good bits I intend to be great fun!

One other thing.  From now on when we get below the fold, I’m going to be doing something new–a “the story thus far,” feature.  The reason for this is that I intend on eventually performing this story in an audio format, and I’m hoping to be able to publish on Podiobooks.com, and little breeze throughs of what’s happened to date is pretty much standard operating procedure.  Plus, I’m hoping this will help if it’s been a while since you have read the previous chapters.

After this chapter, I will only cover the previous chapter in this little feature, but in this addition, I’m going to do a brief overview of the entire story thus far.  Also, fear not, if you’re just coming to this story, you can also check out the Table of Contents page here so you can start off at the beginning.

Journey’s End, Chapter 4: Everywhere Town

I almost forgot (actually, I did forget, so this is a couple days late).  If this is your first venture in the Journey’s End story, don’t start reading here.  Please go check out the table of contents and read from chapter 1.

For me this is an interesting chapter, and I’m not sure how it will work.  When I’ve written everything I imagine that this chapter and the next chapter will probably be the two chapters that will require the most rework to them, but as it stands I’m relatively happy.

My problem is that I don’t like it when things move too fast.  I don’t know, it feels like there should be an infinite between everything that happens, so when transition chapters come along, I tend to be a little apprehensive.  This, I suppose, stems from my approach to story telling, where every chapter is really supposed to be a scene, or something like that.

As it stands, I’ve already explained part of why it took so long to write this chapter.  To be sure, there will be many chapters that will take no time at all, but this chapter was tricky because it is the beginning of one of the most important relationships in the story, but also because, as I’ve mentioned before, because I didn’t realize that this chapter needed to be split up, and so I had actually written another scene that will be the beginning of the next chapter.

But beyond that, there’s not a whole lot to remark upon, and I suppose it is up to you folks to determine if what I was trying for was a success or not.

So, we’ll have to see.

Journey’s End, Chapter 3: The Old Dead Tree

author’s note:  Well, here we are, a full day ahead of schedule.  I suppose I could do another read through, and may actually do so, but it wouldn’t likely be for content, but instead just for grammar.

I’m actually very HAPPY with the content.

As I’ve said before, writing this chapter was just plain old fun for me, and when I’m having fun writing, or when I’m feeling the emotions, or when I get really engrossed, that’s when I know I’m doing well, so I am, to say the least, hopeful with regards to how this chapter is received.

But, as always, your comments and criticisms are always welcome, and I would gratefully accept any grammatical nitpicks you may find.

A couple of quick notes on how this chapter came to be, and why it is the way it is.  The concept actually comes from a song I wrote on my guitar, and hopefully I’ll find some time to sit down and record it and post it for you guys (if I could only figure out how!).  Now, I’m okay at writing tunes, and I’m terrible at writing lyrics, so the song never was actually completed, and remains nothing more than a guitar chord progression, but the music, and the lyrics I would have written had I known how, would have told a story.

That story was of a young boy who goes down to an old dead tree, and asks the tree if it would mind terribly much if he chopped her down and used her wood to build a coffin for himself  and his true love (I know, totally morbid, but if and when you hear the actual music, I think you can understand the kind of mindset that feeds the music).  Like I said, I never got around to writing the song, but I think that that little mini storyline kind of fueled what eventually evolves into this chapter right here.

The other thing I wanted to talk about was the style of this chapter, just a little.  Like the two chapters before it, it’s sort of episodic in nature, and it won’t be until the next chapter that we really begin the longer journey that is Journey’s End.  The reason for this was at this point when I was telling the story to my girls, I was doing it in a kind of egg timer story telling mindset.

For those that don’t know what I’m talking about, egg timer story telling is when you sit around with some friends, one sets an egg timer for a specific amount, starts a story, and when it’s done, they have to pass it on to the next friend.  Each person gets the same amount of time, and they have to pick up where the last person left off, but they get to take the story wherever they want.

Now, I wasn’t sharing this story telling with anyone, but I was in that mode where I was kind of telling my way into situations, and then trying to tell my why out of them, just to keep the story going for the girls, and this is why there is such a massive disparity in setting, and content from one chapter to the next in the first three chapters.

Anyway, that’s about enough out of me.  If you’re new to Journey’s End, don’t start reading here.  Instead, check out the Table of Contents, and start from the beginning!

For the rest of you; enjoy!

Journey’s End Chapter 2: The Someone Else Room

Okay, unless and until I go back to do some editing and revising upon completion of the book, I’m going to call this the final incarnation of Chapter 2.  I know this version, too, can be much improved, but as it stands now, I think I can go back over this chapter again and again, and never actually make it to Chapter 3.

Of course, if anyone catches any grammatical errors, please feel free to let me know, and I’ll address them as I get time to do so.  But outside of that, we’re calling her done, and I’m going to work on Chapter 3 starting Friday.

For those who have read this chapter already, you should know that for the most part I didn’t touch most of the chapter, but completely rewrote the opening sequence, while the sequence directly after it had a few fine touches added.

With that, I hope you enjoy.

 

Journey’s End-Chapter One: The Man in the Room

Author’s Note: Well, here we go, the beginning of what I hope to be a great journey that we’ll take together.  I suppose the first thing I should mention is that I hope no one will expect updates on this story to come particularly rapidly.  I have some parts hashed completely out, and some parts that will take quite a bit of work before I can put them down in full words.

But procrastination will only lead away from one’s destination, I suppose.

A quick note.  This chapter does start off a little slow, and there’s a specific reason why that I discussed a little with my friend Kathy who is going to help me keep this story nice and tidy.  The main reason is that when I first started telling this story to my daughters, the main character was originally much younger.  But it became quickly necessary to grow the main character up a bit, which is what accounts for the kind of slow exposition that leads into the story.  I could have done this a different way, but at that point we would have had to burn several chapters just to get to the real story, so I made a choice and ran with it.

Other than that, I truly hope you enjoy!