MTYG Wrap-up
Another year of MTYG has drawn to a close. Author reveal was a fun delight -- I haaaaate publically guessing, but I've always got a few guesses in my head (most of which were so, so wrong). Wilde Stallyn and I were each other's Santas, which is pretty fun -- I'm well pleased with the story I got, and it's nice knowing my Santa was someone I got to give a gift to!
I wrote cigarettes & sunrise, and it was... an interesting process. My first MTYG, I ended up coming up with a pretty clean and simple process, and I ended up being really, really happy with The Kirkpatrick Guide to Aging Gracefully. Last year ended up being a lot more rough, since writing the middle got... convoluted. I ended up compounding my writing problems this year, but I'm pretty happy with how I worked through it. Despite needing an extension yet again.
Random facts about my MTYG story:
-It ended up getting overhauled... two or three times. A lot of feedback I got mentioned it was weird/confusing at first. Y'all have NO IDEA. The original version? Was so, so weird and confusing. Initially, it wasn't a dream world. It was two different, actual realities, and AJ was slowly losing his grip on where he was (he'd forget what lyrics/songs were right in the universe he was in, etc). There'd be a period of grogginess right after he woke up for the first part of his day. The problem I ran into was, near the end of the story, I realized that A) I had two or three HUGE plot holes, and B) the moment I realized that, technically, the only way I could figure to end it resulted in no one being happy and possibly the entire destruction/dissolution of one of the universes, according to Bus School in-universe physics. While I had a lot of fun writing it, when I to the end, I realized I was too depressed by the ending for a holiday exchange, and I and I had no idea how to fix the big plot holes (amusingly, I figured out almost all of them while rewriting). I just couldn't make the plan work, so I went back to the beginning to poke some things and the concept.
-This issue was because originally, a big point of conflict for AJ was whether he was willing to fuck over Nick's life for the sake of his own, and what you would do for someone who is a brother in your heart. There was actually a LOT more Chris originally, because he was the one most noticing that AJ was cracking up and he ended up finding about AJ's universe jumping well before Nick, and got all protective of his man (that's the part I regretted cutting the most, but I couldn't really make it work with the changing it into a dream).
-It had AJ and Kevin having another confrontation or two when AJ couldn't remember the right lyrics.
-JC at the end was originally gonna be Howie. Then I decided I wanted Howie and Brian's relationships to stay as they are, and said to myself, "Self. If someone were trapped in a weird dream alternate universe where they had the peron they always wanted in their bed whenever they wake up, who would that happen to? Let's be real, it'd be JC or AJ or Nick. TIME TO COMPLETE THE TRIFECTA."
-I absolutely had a plan who JC is dreaming of at the end. >:)
So that's some stuff from my long MTYG process.
I wrote cigarettes & sunrise, and it was... an interesting process. My first MTYG, I ended up coming up with a pretty clean and simple process, and I ended up being really, really happy with The Kirkpatrick Guide to Aging Gracefully. Last year ended up being a lot more rough, since writing the middle got... convoluted. I ended up compounding my writing problems this year, but I'm pretty happy with how I worked through it. Despite needing an extension yet again.
Random facts about my MTYG story:
-It ended up getting overhauled... two or three times. A lot of feedback I got mentioned it was weird/confusing at first. Y'all have NO IDEA. The original version? Was so, so weird and confusing. Initially, it wasn't a dream world. It was two different, actual realities, and AJ was slowly losing his grip on where he was (he'd forget what lyrics/songs were right in the universe he was in, etc). There'd be a period of grogginess right after he woke up for the first part of his day. The problem I ran into was, near the end of the story, I realized that A) I had two or three HUGE plot holes, and B) the moment I realized that, technically, the only way I could figure to end it resulted in no one being happy and possibly the entire destruction/dissolution of one of the universes, according to Bus School in-universe physics. While I had a lot of fun writing it, when I to the end, I realized I was too depressed by the ending for a holiday exchange, and I and I had no idea how to fix the big plot holes (amusingly, I figured out almost all of them while rewriting). I just couldn't make the plan work, so I went back to the beginning to poke some things and the concept.
-This issue was because originally, a big point of conflict for AJ was whether he was willing to fuck over Nick's life for the sake of his own, and what you would do for someone who is a brother in your heart. There was actually a LOT more Chris originally, because he was the one most noticing that AJ was cracking up and he ended up finding about AJ's universe jumping well before Nick, and got all protective of his man (that's the part I regretted cutting the most, but I couldn't really make it work with the changing it into a dream).
-It had AJ and Kevin having another confrontation or two when AJ couldn't remember the right lyrics.
-JC at the end was originally gonna be Howie. Then I decided I wanted Howie and Brian's relationships to stay as they are, and said to myself, "Self. If someone were trapped in a weird dream alternate universe where they had the peron they always wanted in their bed whenever they wake up, who would that happen to? Let's be real, it'd be JC or AJ or Nick. TIME TO COMPLETE THE TRIFECTA."
-I absolutely had a plan who JC is dreaming of at the end. >:)
So that's some stuff from my long MTYG process.