Middle of Nowhere
I went through my old geocities site earlier this week to rescue all of the stories that I still had there. Or, really, to rescue Middle of Nowhere, because in some ways, no matter what else I write, or how much editing it could use, I think that story is always going to be one of my favorite things I've written.
(Um. For those of you who weren't around these parts 8 years ago, Pop was my fandom of choice for many years, and Middle of Nowhere was my epic, a.k.a, the one where Justin ran away. 220,000 words, 600+ pages, 11 months of my life.)
This story started with an image: a tour bus stopped on an empty road, Justin getting off and not getting back on. I wrote the first three pages (that image) in the summer of 2000 while I was sitting in a room I was renting at a fraternity, totally lost in this story... and then my friend's boyfriend came into my room and I went 'click!' on the little 'x' in the corner of the screen, because I didn't want him to see what I'd been working on.
The story wouldn't leave, though, and I rewrote the beginning, and then I wrote a little more, and then I thought, this is going to be a 30 page story, isn't it? (I was very new to this whole writing thing and 30 pages was long.) Then I passed page 30 and, oh, I had barely even started the story. I thought, wow, this is going to be the longest thing I've ever written! I bet it hits 100 pages! (Yes, I still had no idea what I was doing.) When I hit page 60 or 70 and realized I was still just getting started, I stopped estimating how long the story was going to be.
I maintain to this day that the only reason this story got written was because I had no idea how long it was going to be. If I'd known, I think I would have intimidated myself out of writing it. As it is, by the time I realized what I'd gotten myself in for, I was too far along to turn back. And I really didn't want to.
I went home for 3 weeks at the end of the summer and proceeded to write a chapter a day for several days in a row. By this point, I was 19+ chapters in. I'm pretty sure that I started posting the story in September of 2000. And the story kept flowing, though school and my sorority had a way of interfering with the writing flow. I'd hit chapter 32 in December, which is when my parents and I headed to Australia for 2 weeks--and was the one and only time I hit writer's block on this story. I didn't write for close to a month and I was miserable. I realized when I got back that I was trying to force Joey into a role that he didn't want to play (or maybe I was trying to force someone else into Joey's role) and once I figured that out, the story started flowing again.
At some point in early 2001, I picked up a cheap drugstore calendar, because suddenly I had to balance a tour and travel between cities, basketball games and playoffs and championships. I had the whole story mapped out to the date. One thing you will not find, however, is accurate Kansas geography. Or Kansas counties. I was too new at this whole fandom thing for accuracy in those regards to mean a lot.
I started writing 2-3 chapters a week, locking myself in the study room of my sorority, laptop balanced on my knees. (Um, this story is also one of the reasons I bought my first lap top. Because I couldn't write it in my room without feeling like my roommates were looking over my shoulders.)
So, I wrote and wrote and I made myself cry, and then came Shasta Weekend, where most of my house went to go get drunk on boats for three days, and I stayed home and finished the whole thing. Three chapters in as many days and suddenly I was done.
Mill Creek is based heavily off of my grandmother's town, down to similarities in the name. Maggie was not actually originally named Maggie, but I changed that within about two weeks of starting the story. While she probably reads as slightly Mary Sue-ish now (and maybe--probably--did so even then), she was really not me channeling myself into the story, I promise. Stu was my favorite original character I'd created, at least until Devon (Moose/Kid2) from the way-future of the frat!verse entered my head. You can probably tell that basketball is my sport... and that I've watched Hoosiers too many times.
It has some definite issues (and requires more suspension of disbelief than I wanted to admit when I first started writing it), and could definitely do with a good hard edit (which I'm not going to give it), but I do love it, because I proved to myself that I could write something that long, over that great a period of time, and finish it. Because it was completely self-indulgent. Because, in ways, I think it's always going to be my baby.
So, anyway, I rescued it. And put it into google documents (three of them! it was too long to fit into one or two!) since I refuse to only have it backed up one place. And I figured I might as well share it, wonky formatting and all. Just because. Well. Because issues aside, I'm still proud of it.
Middle of Nowhere | 'N SYNC. Written June 2000-May 2001. 220,000 words. Justin runs away.
Chapters 1-22 | Chapters 23-39 | Chapters 40-57
(Um. For those of you who weren't around these parts 8 years ago, Pop was my fandom of choice for many years, and Middle of Nowhere was my epic, a.k.a, the one where Justin ran away. 220,000 words, 600+ pages, 11 months of my life.)
This story started with an image: a tour bus stopped on an empty road, Justin getting off and not getting back on. I wrote the first three pages (that image) in the summer of 2000 while I was sitting in a room I was renting at a fraternity, totally lost in this story... and then my friend's boyfriend came into my room and I went 'click!' on the little 'x' in the corner of the screen, because I didn't want him to see what I'd been working on.
The story wouldn't leave, though, and I rewrote the beginning, and then I wrote a little more, and then I thought, this is going to be a 30 page story, isn't it? (I was very new to this whole writing thing and 30 pages was long.) Then I passed page 30 and, oh, I had barely even started the story. I thought, wow, this is going to be the longest thing I've ever written! I bet it hits 100 pages! (Yes, I still had no idea what I was doing.) When I hit page 60 or 70 and realized I was still just getting started, I stopped estimating how long the story was going to be.
I maintain to this day that the only reason this story got written was because I had no idea how long it was going to be. If I'd known, I think I would have intimidated myself out of writing it. As it is, by the time I realized what I'd gotten myself in for, I was too far along to turn back. And I really didn't want to.
I went home for 3 weeks at the end of the summer and proceeded to write a chapter a day for several days in a row. By this point, I was 19+ chapters in. I'm pretty sure that I started posting the story in September of 2000. And the story kept flowing, though school and my sorority had a way of interfering with the writing flow. I'd hit chapter 32 in December, which is when my parents and I headed to Australia for 2 weeks--and was the one and only time I hit writer's block on this story. I didn't write for close to a month and I was miserable. I realized when I got back that I was trying to force Joey into a role that he didn't want to play (or maybe I was trying to force someone else into Joey's role) and once I figured that out, the story started flowing again.
At some point in early 2001, I picked up a cheap drugstore calendar, because suddenly I had to balance a tour and travel between cities, basketball games and playoffs and championships. I had the whole story mapped out to the date. One thing you will not find, however, is accurate Kansas geography. Or Kansas counties. I was too new at this whole fandom thing for accuracy in those regards to mean a lot.
I started writing 2-3 chapters a week, locking myself in the study room of my sorority, laptop balanced on my knees. (Um, this story is also one of the reasons I bought my first lap top. Because I couldn't write it in my room without feeling like my roommates were looking over my shoulders.)
So, I wrote and wrote and I made myself cry, and then came Shasta Weekend, where most of my house went to go get drunk on boats for three days, and I stayed home and finished the whole thing. Three chapters in as many days and suddenly I was done.
Mill Creek is based heavily off of my grandmother's town, down to similarities in the name. Maggie was not actually originally named Maggie, but I changed that within about two weeks of starting the story. While she probably reads as slightly Mary Sue-ish now (and maybe--probably--did so even then), she was really not me channeling myself into the story, I promise. Stu was my favorite original character I'd created, at least until Devon (Moose/Kid2) from the way-future of the frat!verse entered my head. You can probably tell that basketball is my sport... and that I've watched Hoosiers too many times.
It has some definite issues (and requires more suspension of disbelief than I wanted to admit when I first started writing it), and could definitely do with a good hard edit (which I'm not going to give it), but I do love it, because I proved to myself that I could write something that long, over that great a period of time, and finish it. Because it was completely self-indulgent. Because, in ways, I think it's always going to be my baby.
So, anyway, I rescued it. And put it into google documents (three of them! it was too long to fit into one or two!) since I refuse to only have it backed up one place. And I figured I might as well share it, wonky formatting and all. Just because. Well. Because issues aside, I'm still proud of it.
Middle of Nowhere | 'N SYNC. Written June 2000-May 2001. 220,000 words. Justin runs away.
Chapters 1-22 | Chapters 23-39 | Chapters 40-57