Seven times.

That was how many times I had written the seventh chapter of Follow the Leader, start to finish. Each time, I scrapped it. After the seventh, I reread it, accepted that I didn’t absolutely hate it, then posted it.

I don’t know quite how you feel about the story, but I do know my own relationship to it. I really liked Follow the Leader in the beginning, but its story began to weigh on me more and more as I wrote it. I thought it would be a change of pace that I would enjoy, but as chapters came out, I had to accept that I wasn’t writing a runaway story that I couldn’t stop writing and readers couldn’t stop reading. Whatever you may think about Follow the Leader, unless it’s positive, I will tell you now that I likely had the same thought once or twice. It was weighing on me, and I realized I was not only not completing the story, but a big part of my backlog was also due to me feeling too guilty about not finishing this story to finish other stories.

So, I’m clearing my mind and saying, “fuck it.” I like the concept of Follow the Leader, and all other thoughts I shall keep to myself. Nevertheless, I’m posting the chapter, and ending the story. As I said, fuck it. It’s a neat little bit of lore for those who enjoy the criss-cross of story plots, and I’ve internalized the things I’ll do and drop for the next story.

I think I should say “fuck it” a little more often. When I get a scathing comment, either a well-deserved one about my inconsistency or a well-intentioned one about my stories, I tend to let them emotionally affect me a lot. Virtually every critical comment has emotionally affected me, which I think is a good thing. I should be emotionally affected, because that means I’m listening in some way. If I was the type of writer to say, “Fuck the haters, I’ll never care about negative comments,” I think it would be a matter of time before I just stop listening to criticism. I certainly know other writers who act like that, and all of them have a very “fuck the haters” attitude. Frankly, I’m not convinced I have “haters.” I have opinionated readers who care and want things to improve, and have ideas how that can happen. That sounds very productive to me.

Comments are one thing, but stories are quite another. I often go through peaks and valleys when it comes to opinions on my own stories. I usually dislike them when I first finish them, and then after I edit them, I go back to liking some. Dinner Break is the most recent example – I have a lot of thoughts on that story, and want to expand on them in (God willing) next week’s blog. I even have stories very few people seem to like that I still enjoy. A Miraculous Affair is definitely the crown jewel there. But there are stories my readers like that I can’t bring myself to like, such as Mutual Benefits. I don’t enjoy what I did with that story, and I think that apart from spunky and emotionally realistic dialogue, I’m not a very good writer. But: fuck it. If even one person enjoys those stories, then it’s worth it. I say that genuinely. Writing is, in my eyes, a very community-oriented activity. A lot of people have headcanons about the stories because the stories resonate with them and they want to continue them. I know of at least one writer wanting to write a “what if” story based on if, shall we say, the final two chapters of Consequences played out a different way. I think that’s wonderful, and a great showing of what stories should be to people. All authors, myself included, shouldn’t be held up as the be-all-and-end-all of their own stories’ creator. Stories take a reader too, and readers have more of an authorial role than I think they sometimes realize.

That’s another reason why I have my attitude of “if one reader enjoyed it, it’s worth it.” Somewhere out there, at least one person liked Follow the Leader. In which case, that’s awesome. It makes me glad to have written it. I wish I handled the concept differently, but I have my own theories about where I disappointed myself, and luckily, my own believed big error is easily fixable in later stories. So, fuck it. The weight is off my shoulders. It’s time to write again. I’ll talk to you all next week.