I moved around a bunch of directories on my domain, broke every single image link, ran some mySQL scripts to fix it (scripts? queries? code?), changed a few more directories, ran a separate plugin to fix that, entered the wrong information that I couldn’t undo and had to manually fix a few dozen posts, then manually updated every single post to get the featured images to update properly.
I combed through two defunct subdomains that got borked at some point years ago and figured what might be worth saving, archived images and a few posts, and then deleted the installs and subdomains full of thousands of files. Because WordPress needs to install thousands of files every single time.
My house is forever a terrifying disaster, but the file manager on my domain is looking rather tidy these days. My hosting service is changing things on me sometime in the next month or so to “meet industry-wide standards” (read: give you worse service for a higher price) and they are infuriatingly vague on what those changes are going to be or how much they’re raising the price so I need to make sure things are cleaned up in case I need to start shopping for a new hosting service. (Although current “best” lists for hosting services put the one I’m already using at the top so…)
My brain is really grappling hard to get back to consistent writing. I have three stories that are actually kind of solid in their current state of plot (for me at least) and one that is really vying for attention despite the fact that major points feel really unrealistic to me. And then BASIL just keeps what-if-ing loudly in my ear with half-formed thoughts involving all the same characters in marginally different settings and it’s not helping matters in the least.
I don’t write complete chapters at a time or scenes in chronological order. I don’t even put in chapter markers at all because the scenes are so rarely complete and most don’t connect directly to the ones before or after it. If I have any sort of differentiation it’s usually marking months/years/seasons based on however much time the story is meant to cover. And I use those markers to help keep track of where to put new scenes as they happen. It’s entirely possible that some of my high word count stories have what could constitute a complete chapter or two, but I read through things in much the same way I write them, in snippets and blurbs out of order based on where my mind is veering at any given time. I probably wouldn’t recognize a complete chapter if it bit me in the ass.
And then I go and make a liar out of myself.
The story I’ve been tangled up in the most lately dumped out a few thousand words and then got derailed. But when I read through it a couple of times, I had a moment of intense confusion when I realized…I think I wrote a complete chapter. And not just A chapter, but the FIRST chapter. I rarely have a solid beginning when I start throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. But this one just kind of happened.
It’s still a mess. There are parts that I hate and parts that I really like. I’m still not entirely dedicated to certain character names. There’s a lot that probably doesn’t make any sense. There are parts that feel too cryptic, but for those I have to keep reminding myself that not everything has to be explained all at once (or sometimes at all). Some things are better revealed at a later time or left to the imagination. We’re not even going to touch on proper grammar/sentence structure/punctuation/all those rules because that’s the shit you fix once you have an actual draft.
I have five-thousand-some-odd words that just might make a complete first chapter.
Or maybe not.
Who knows.
(By Nathan W. Pyle)
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