STV - My Five Year Cycle On A Never-Ending Story

Yes, I plead guilty.
I am going to Abuse the Spread The Vibes feeling for a little bit of self-promotion.
But I have a good reason for that, or several good reasons.

And of course, I could have written this post without linking it to spread the vibes, but it´s Sunday, there is a post, or rather 119 posts that triggered this story so why not?

Why WhyWhy?

Then what are those reasons why?

Let me tell you.

I was really looking forward to another Sunday School Session about the Gospel of Thomas. And then life happened. I got a root canal treatment out of the blue on Friday, and it hurt like hell throughout my Saturday.

As those stories take a lot of research my plans went down the canal, but at least you have something to look forward to Dear Reader.

Still my Sunday was not as bad as that Saturday, it still hurts but no longer as hell. And I was planning on doing this story anyway I just did not get around to it.

So let´s kill two birds with one stone (are you still allowed to say that btw).

My Five-Year Cycle

And I figured out something, I am going through a 5-year cycle thingy.
Fifteen years ago when I moved to Spain I drafted a story, a very long story. It took me a little over a year to finish it and in all honesty, it wasn´t that good.
The quality aside I was happy that I did it, that I finished my first novel if I can call it that. Of course, I was proud and had a bit of a hard time when I received the feedback.

I had two critical readers, and they did not go easy on me. They told me everything that was wrong with it and then some. Well, that felt like a wasted year.

I read through their notes and left it at that. Maybe life happened, maybe I was disappointed that my first time was not perfect. That I was not the wonder boy I thought I was. In the past, my writing had won me some prizes and lots of wonderful compliments. How could it be so bad now?

Five Years Later

Finally, after five years, I had gathered the strength I needed to get over my own ego and read the story once more myself. And although I really liked the narrative I had to admit that it really was just a draft and it wasn´t that good.

Parts did not connect, there were some plotholes, and most of all... the way I would mix past & present tense, and use the all-knowing perspective without thinking.
I started to correct that a little and get the story online as the PC I wrote it on was broken and I had to work off the printed version.

It kinda worked, I did version 2 and fixed several issues but the work that went into the conversion from paper to online caused me to focus less on making it a coherent story. It took me probably another year to get the story online in v2. And again I got some feedback, less critical this time. And when I finished v2 I knew that one day the story would continue, that this was not the end.

Another Five Years Later

Now we are getting close to the present and it must have been about a year ago that I reread my v2 and still was impressed with the storyline but thought I could do better. On top of that, I was thinking about doing a translation. After a couple of years here on Hive I thought to be comfortable enough in English to write v3 in another language and so I got started.

This time I took the time to get stuff right and make sure I used the present tense. On top of that, I added a song to each chapter and created an image to illustrate it.

Now it´s probably still not perfect but three times is a charm, I hope. One thing is for sure I did figure out how to continue, what the second book should be about. Five years ago I said I´ll be back, this story ain´t over now I finally figured out what I meant when I said that.

Now there of course is a post and a song that relates to this story. Tomorrow I will post chapter 120 so I guess 119 is the post this little story is based on and all the ones before of course:

Beyond Doubt: Whispers of the Unseen - Chapter 119

And I used 119 songs to end each chapter but for some reason, the one most fitting today's little story is this one;

This story is born as wheels within wheels, beyond the boundaries of time, like the windmills in my mind.

And I wonder if the second part of my never-ending story will take me another five years...or maybe even fifteen?

Who knows, I will let the windmills of my mind lead me.

What is Spread The Vibes

If you want to know more about the Spread The Vibe Challenge not A challenge please clikerdeeclick me

Thank goodness you made it till the end Pees, Love and I am out of here!