#diffrentzeethaau

I first came up with the AU/What –if idea of: what if Zeetha hadn’t managed to avoid getting enslaved by the pirates, several years ago, not to long after I started in the Girl Genius fandom. At the time I think only Leaving Skifander was on my account and I had only just gotten an Ao3 account just to put it somewhere.

I posted the idea up on Tumblr and got some interest. It was one of the earliest AU ideas that I have ever posted up there, though now I post them with some frequency, but for some reason that one in particular stuck with me. Years later I honestly don’t know what about it that got me so attached.

At the time when I first started writing In Which Zeetha Was Sicker Than She Thought, it was December, I had just missed nanowrimo again through forgetting about it up until it was already a few days in, and then failing to really keep up with it. So I was stuck wanting to be a writer but failing to find the motivation and ability to write both to completion and just to the point where a story could be called a novel.

At the time I had started a thousand and one projects and only ever finished one (fanfic at least) that was more than say a thousand word oneshot, a short story called Alone for the Mysterious Benedict Society (And yes it’s posted on the internet somewhere, if you really want to go find some High School trash—just know I really loved Kate and thought her underappreciated).

So with this AU bugging my brain (or at least I can only imagine it had been, I don’t really remember how it was like way back when) I decided that I was going to impose a challenge on myself—I was going to write this AU, and both prove to myself I could finish a multi-chapter story but also to use it as training wheels both to learn just how to write prose, and also how to write with any real length.

So I wrote and surprisingly enough over the course of winter break I started and finished In Which Zeetha Was Sicker Than She Thought. Was the prose great: not even close and the shortest chapter was 880 words but from there I got better and better, by the end I had 25,891 words total and my avg per chapter was about 2,500 words. It still had tons of grammar issues  and I’m not really sure it’s plot can really be called a plot, but It was mine, I started it and I finished it.

I posted it, got comments, got excited, and very quickly started on part 2. By this point I knew for sure that there would be at least three parts (with a possible forth for Skifander, something that one day may still happen) so I added something new to my challenge, each part would be significantly better than the last.

The second story, In Which Zeetha Takes a Stand was written almost just as fast. It was pretty much double the word count and my average words per chapter doubled as well, only the first chapter coming out under a 1000 words. I also felt my characters and prose had grew significantly, as had my handling of actual plot. I admittedly leaned heavily on the Girl Genius Novel now that I could, but I don’t mind that. The whole point of this series was to learn and grow, some training wheels only helped in that regard.

Then came the third story. By this point it was mid-spring and finals were coming up and I figured it might be a good idea to take a short break on the Different Zeetha universe as a whole for a little while. So I only really started writing it at the start on June once school was done.

The first 9 chapters came just as easy, but then I hit a snag. I went looking for help but unfortunately said help, if unintentionally, lead to a shattering of my confidence of my ability, and an honest sick feeling whenever I looked at those chapters. It took me a good 4-6 months, in which I wrote several others little one shots and stories before I came back to In Which 3.

By that point it had been about a year since I started writing In Which 1, and I was starting to feel guilty and ashamed for taking so long to finish for my readers. I started picking away at later chapters, and after a little more time decided after so long, and because the amount of chapter I already had was already had the same amount of words as in In Which 2 I would post it, if only to force myself to keep going.

So I did. It led to several hiatus and lost of stress and guilt, but it did get me to push back my nerves over the trouble chapters and keep going, and while it took another year before now, where I can finally say I have finished everything, I’m proud of what I have accomplished.

Especially as where In Which 1 was long enough to qualify as a <>, and In Which 2 was long enough to qualify as a <>, In Which 3 comes out to <> words and is long enough to qualify as a novel. Which mean my first and main goal was accomplished, and with it I learned a lot in grammar to plot to characters to style.

The Big Drag:

To focus some on just In Which Zeetha Fight for Mechanicsburg for a bit, as it’s my most current work, and also the one I had significant trouble with, to say the least it was a journey.

I went into it with just as much enthusiasm as the first two, so it makes sense that I stalled out at about the same length as the second was. But the hiatus that followed was a struggle. I never fully stopped writing on it; it was just a little here, a re-read there. But it was still enough that I honestly believe that the story suffered some. I lost track of plots and character development and style, I forgot things that I hadn’t realized I needed to write down in my notes. It wasn’t an extreme loss in any sense, but the story lost a little bit of it’s compactness with it. And I found myself realizing I wasn’t sure how a thread would work, or where it was going, or what to do with it.

For instance I had really wanted to do more with Tarvek and Zeetha’s relationship throughout—that didn’t come to pass, and while I have it set up to explore later if I want I’m still a little sad I couldn’t figure out how I meant for it to work.

Other open bits here and there I’m sure still exist, especially with my staggered updating and editing. Though some are on purpose, to be explored in possible sequels or are just questions I have, that I was sure the character in question would voice, of the Canon story that just simply hasn’t been answered yet in canon.

So while it did help in some ways, I don’t think I’ll ever start posting a story unfinished again, at least not one like this, it just lead to much stress.

Though to be fair, there was another problem I had with this part that I feel I overcame but likely played tribute to my issues in writing the story. It was simply I wasn’t really sure where I was going, what was the ending, and all that. With the other two I knew exactly what the ending would be, and while I mostly did for this one, it was also a lot more complicated and had a lot more “shrug” filling in blanks that made things more difficult that it needed to be. I likely would have benefited from planning more before starting chapter 1.

As a third thing, like the second story I stuck to canon pretty closely for lot of bits, the GMC was visited as was Lu’s lab, the stabbing still happened, ect, despite the fact I had plenty of chances to diverge and go extremely off course. And I know some would have preferred I did. And yeah I could have, but like before, this was my first big story/series, and I was mostly focused on the ides of managing on finishing one, so I wasn’t super ready to drop my training wheels so quickly. I’m sure to do it less in the future, but I’m pleased how it came out regardless of all the borrowing.

And that’s really it really. I’m not sure what comes next. I have an oneshot that’s almost done, several shorter chapter stories to maybe finish. Zeetha Wulfenbach, a second just as loved major AU idea, still burns in the background even if I still am not sure I’m a good enough writer to tackle that one the way I want to, though I do have a few snipplest almost ready to share. I could do another in the Time Skip series or another chapter of Through A Princess’ Eyes. I’m just not sure. But I hope people enjoy them regardless.