Does the Perfect Story Exist?
I’ve mentioned my young adult space opera many times.
I wrote the very first draft way back in November of 2012 for NanoWrimo. This draft was utter garbage, by the way.
Since then under my Jo Schneider name I’ve written and published seven post-apocalyptic books, five urban fantasy books, ten fairy tale retellings, one contemporary romance, and a handful of horror short stories.
And zero space operas.
Once in a while, at a conference or convention, I’ll get waylaid by an author who has been working on their book or series for ten plus years. They can talk about it for hours. I mean HOURS. But have they written a word of it? Nope.
Looking at that November 2012 I wonder…have I turned into that person? At least with this series.
Really, it’s been on my mind for almost ten years! I’ve written the first book 3 times now. The “final draft” is with my final editor. I should be writing book two.
But…book one still isn’t right.
It’s bloated. The conflicts aren’t compelling. It feels incomplete, despite the 120k word count.
Am I being too picky?
I’m not sure. As I stated above, I’ve put out quite a few books now, and I feel like I’m an okay storyteller. Which means I should listen to my gut on this. Even if it’s telling me to once again delay this series so I can work on it some more.
I feel like Ahab, and not in a good way.
Although I do have to ask myself, am I chasing the perfect story? If so, when do I stop? Will I ever be satisfied?
I’m going to take one more stab at this dumb series. I’m going to recruit some help and do my best to make this not just a good book, but a great one.
If that doesn’t work, you’ll probably see a lot of crying emojis on here.
