Progress Update 16

I'm further into planning. Still building up the central conflict (it would be boring pretty quickly if it was just a V+H love story). The characters are expanding nicely, especially the supporting roles to bring the conflict into the forefront. It's so frustrating not to slip by any particulars here, since it's so exciting and complicated at the same time, and I wish somebody would hold my hand. Adhering to the pretense of literary fiction is pretty hard--though looking back through my notes history, the results are worth every furious head scratch in cluelessness.

I'm also in the beginnings of delineating countries with their culture, fashion, key players, agendas, etc in anticipation of the upcoming Palas meeting. My lack of dialogue in DS is really because I suck at it. Hopefully with preparation, I will be able to create real drama.

And with all these steps, another side of me feels like there's never an end to planning, so I should just go ahead and try out the next chs. 7 months of planning have already gone by with no prose. Perhaps I'm delaying the act of writing because I'm again afraid of not being as good as before, again afraid of disappointment, again afraid of writing.

Or maybe this doubt is just a game I play with myself. There's no reason to lose sight of my original goal--to make fanfiction into literary fiction. Readers pick DS out of many, many other stories they could have curled up with for the night, and I must remember not to flag. I have to remember my goals and the readers, and still settle for prose, characterization, story, meaning, and sense of completion above the rest.