Re-read Red Streak yesterday and have some Thoughts
why did I hate myself about this so much? girl it's okay. girl why. oh honey. at least we're better now
it's amazing to me that I wrote that much, at all, ever. it's particularly amazing to me that I wrote that much THAT FAST. It's nigh unbelievable to me that, for the most part, the writing was very, very good, and the story feels HUUUUUGE. wtf. no wonder I crashed and burned so hard. What the hell. I have no idea if I could ever do that rapid, high-volume level of output ever again. Probably not, and that's probably a good thing.
That's not to say I could never finish it. Just not. Like. Posting 8,000 words A WEEK??? Or whatever insane shit I was doing. Girl put the ADHD hyper-fixation down and back away slowly.
I can actually see the drop-off point; can just feel it in the writing. there's a point after the Mako sex scene where I abruptly had [another] mental breakdown, lost all confidence, and became totally consumed with untreated anxiety and depression. That time in my life was absolute chaos; years spent at rock bottom. Not because of this story, (in fact, the incredible ME community probably kept me from killing myself more times than they'll ever know) but the pressure I put on myself didn't help matters at all. I started pushing chapters out because I felt like I owed it to people, and I wasn't giving the writing the time it deserved, nor was I enjoying any part of it at all. I can feel all that in the writing, and it just makes me want to take that woman aside and get her into dialectical behavioral therapy years earlier.
speaking of the ME community, it's beautiful to me how many of you are still here. I know tumblr is like the back alley dive bar of social media, and I've gone through about a thousand hyperfixations since Red Streak, but a lot of the OG readers and friends are still here, and I appreciate all of you
For those reasons, it's been difficult for me to revisit this fic, even though I never stopped loving it. The core of it was this wondeful sandbox for me to play in creatively, it's just that it got tangled up in all the too-real self-immolating mental illness and alcoholism that I didn't want to deal with.
WELL I FINALLY DEALT WITH IT (spoilers: depression lost) and now it's fascinating to look back on that obsessive, chaotic journey from a totally neutral place.
It's been ages since I played the games, which was actually helpful for evaluating the story on its own merits. For the most part, overwhelmingly, it is *good and fine and sometimes even incredible* and the criticisms I levied at myself were entirely made up by the serotonin-eating Demons that live between my misfiring neurons.
There are places to fix, yes, especially toward the end because I just kinda gave up and started panicking, but like, those problems are very fixable. It's just a matter of clarifying a few things, finishing up some re-writes, and taking appropriate amounts of time with any new material. The bones are rock solid. It's not this huge disaster I made it out to be.
(turns out I was the disaster the entire time)
Anyway. It's big that I can even read it without having any emotional reaction whatsoever. No egotistical mania or suicidal depression. I can finally just observe the thing I made and not reflexively love it or condemn it, or tangle it up with my self worth.
Good job, me. I really think, if I got some things figured out, and used the current WIPs I'm working on to train myself into to a *HEALTHY WRITING PROCESS*, I could take on this big beautiful beast again.
............ and then what?
