A Nostalgia Post for the 12th Anniversary of the Asherthea Chronicles That Nobody Asked For

[meroinde]

I got up early today so I could get more work done, but I was hit with a bad case of allergies, so this is all I have managed to achieve so far. Today (or yesterday, I really don't know anymore) is the 12th anniversary of my main story universe, Asherthea. For no good reason, I decided to take a look back and chronicle my work on the stories within this universe over the last decade. Note that only the two major stories/series within the universe are covered, as all the others were eventually dropped and I don't really have good records on when I wrote them anyway.

This is pretty messy but since I don't want to spend any more time on it than I already have, I'm leaving it as it is:

• July 7, 2004 - began writing original story, The Guardians of Nazareth (now The Gatekeepers of Asherthea)
• October 4, 2004 - began writing The Lost Pyramids of Alankar (Book #1 in The Journal Trilogy)
• June 3, 2005 - began writing The Secrets of Valduen (Book #2 in The Journal Trilogy) (AN: Less than a year after the first!!)
• August 29, 2006 - began writing The Bridge to Aternity (Book #3 in The Journal Trilogy) (AN: Damn, I was popping out one a year!!)
• 2007 (before June) - completed The Guardians of Nazareth, but the ending was pretty badly done, so I needed to come back at some point and rewrite it
• July, 2007 - ironically, computer crashed and I lost the ending to GoN, among other things. Luckily for GoN, I had extensive handwritten notes from which to rewrite the ending, this time better. Even so, I didn't get around to doing this for almost a year.
• May 28, 2008 - Skipped my high school graduation to finally rewrite the ending to GoN (LOL, not really; I skipped for other reasons, but I remember I was writing it on the day of graduation and it rained and I laughed because it was an outdoor ceremony, so it sucks for everyone who went).
• 2007/2008 - I actually don't see anything from 2007 for The Bridge to Aternity, so either any notes I wrote for it got deleted in the first half of the year (I know I didn't touch the actual story during that time), and/or I didn't really do any work on it the entire year. This suggests that I was already stuck at the "Sun Dance Children Arc", about 1/3 of the way into the book. In 2008, I made multiple attempts to get out of the hole I had written myself into, and made a lot of notes, but to no avail.
• May 4, 2009 - Reading over The Lost Pyramids of Alankar again, I note the lack in quality after all these years and, it being my favorite story, I decide to rewrite the whole thing.
• June 26, 2009 - Less than two months later, I complete the "remix" of The Lost Pyramids of Alankar, which has now doubled in size. I started the "remix" for the second book (which I had renamed to The Emblem of Treasure) immediately after this, but only got through a few chapters before getting stuck.
• June 28, 2010 - I resume working on the second book, but am only able to add another chapter. (What was I doing during all that time?? Lmao…) (Oh, right, probably working on one of my other 10+ stories)
• 2010 - This is just a guess, but it looks as if I started reading The Guardians of Nazareth again during this year and doing some editing. At least, there are some notes from throughout the year and new documents for the edited version in December.
• December 23, 2010 - Finally, I get some ideas for the second book (in The Journal Trilogy) and get through about 100 pages before running out of steam again in January. This is the last time I wrote something within this trilogy *sad face*
• 2011 - I don't really understand the time frame for some of these next parts, but from what I remember, one of the reasons I stopped working on the remix for The Journal Trilogy was that I started reading and editing The Guardians of Nazareth and was reminded of just how horrible it is (LOL). And while normally I would just shrug it off as an older work that had lost its relevance, GoN was a story that came chronologically before LPA, so it had to stay relevant. I just really hated the idea of someone having to read through GoN to get to LPA. I tried at first to read through GoN and fix it up, but somewhere during the third part (of five) I hit a wall and just could not continue. I hadn't really improved on anything before that part either, and worse than a bad story, I had extremely bad characters that I couldn't work with, let alone root for…
• May 6, 2011 - I get this crazy idea...

• May, 2011 (later) - Ironically, the worst writer's block of my life begins.
• May - October, 2011 - I write notes and make some attempts at starting the story, but nothing works out.
• November, 2011 - I struggle through a month of NaNoWriMo writing the beginning of the new version, called The Gatekeepers of Asherthea. Most of what I write this month gets scrapped. Despite this, I hit 50k.
• 2012 - More notes, but less this year than any other because I was acting as a Full-Time Fangirl on tumblr.
• November, 2012 - Another painful month trying to start this story. Again, I hit 50k, but scrap most of what I write afterwards.
• March 26, 2013 - I somehow write the prologue to this story, which is relatively the same as it is now, but that's as far as I get.
• June & September, 2013 - I write some notes.
• October, 2013 (early) - I watch anime and read fanfiction for the first time in a long time. This is somehow relevant.
• October, 2013 (middle) - I write some more notes.
• October 25, 2013 - Feeling inspired, I begin writing and it's like a dam having been broken; the words start pouring out.
• November 1, 2013 - NaNoWriMo begins. I've already written 50,000 words.
• November 30, 2013 - NaNoWriMo ends. The word count has hit over 200,000.
• December 16, 2013 - I finally start to run out of steam and get stuck near the start of Part Six. The total word count is now 258,000.
• August, 2014 - Returning to school for the first time in some years at the start of 2014, I'm too busy and distracted to write again until August. I read over the story again and edit some parts before resuming work on Part Six off and on when I find time away from my class work.
• October, 2014 - I complete Part Six after weeks of struggle and have to take a break from the story. I work on a different series during NaNoWriMo the following month.
• March, 2015 - I watch a Chinese Drama called Boss & Me. This is somehow relevant.
• March 19, 2015 - Reminded of my beloved characters and sorely missing them, I resume writing the story from Part Seven after editing a bit of Part Six.
• May, 2015 - I stop writing on the 15th and then resume again on the 23rd, only to stop again on the 27th for good. I seem to have a nine or so week limit for writing non-stop. My total for the spring was 227,000 words.
• August 11, 2015 - I begin reading through and editing parts of the story again.
• September, 2015 - By this point I'm writing new material again.
• October, 2015 - I stop writing on the 1st, but resume again on the 6th until the 24th, where I finally run out of steam and get stuck. My word count for this period is over 152,000.
• November, 2015 - I try writing a new story for NaNoWriMo, but it's no fun so I slack off and marathon a 58-episode K-Drama instead (quality life choices!). On the 15th, not really wanting to fail NaNo in my tenth year, I decide to just force work on GoA. It's a struggle, but I manage to get another 36,000 words done. Combined with the other story, I achieve at least 50,000 words, but not without a few scares (the power kept going out the last few days so I had to write portions by hand, OH THE HORROR!!)
• June, 2016 - Due to life being a total asshole, I don't get any work done on the story in the spring like I usually do. I finally decide to do another reading and editing project to reconnect with the story after being apart from it for so long now, and begin that at the end of the month. Unlike previous reading and editing projects, however, I try hard to be thorough with this one, taking notes and rewriting places I have skipped over in the past. The result is a pace so slow (one chapter a day, roughly) that I estimate not being done until the end of the year. OTL

I think this is actually the first time I've written this all out. With the exception of some dates and word count totals, everything came from my head. It's useless for everything except remembering shit like this, lol.

Anyway, I better get back to editing now. Eight chapters down, 143 to go...

[muffled crying]