Hi!  It’s me!  The Creator!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, and I’ve got a lot to say.

I started Lily almost exactly five months ago.  In that time, she has evolved a great deal.  She is growing up.  She started out a silly, bubbly sixteen year old girl.  And she’s had so much stuff thrown at her.  By me.  She can’t help but to grow up a little.  In that time, she’s found out more about her life, she learned her birthday, who her birth mother is (and met her), went to Disney World, found a boyfriend, and, well…  she’s not the same girl she was when I started writing this.  Every time I sit down and write her, she surprises me.  She’s a normal sixteen year old girl, but she’s mature too.  I think that’s because she has Sabby to guide her.  Would she make nearly as good decisions if it weren’t for Sabby?  I don’t really know.

But it’s hard to write her sometimes, too.   I get discouraged.  I don’t know how to get word out, I don’t know how to market her, and I’m not even sure I want to in some ways.  Everyone who knows her, loves her, but no one knows her.  And I’m pretty discouraged by that.  I wish people would find her, and read, and fall in love, and follow her, and that maybe I could turn that into both a force for good and an income stream.  But I feel like neither is happening.  Honestly, I’d just take the “force for good”.

And sometimes it feels like she’s a little one-dimensional too.  It’s true that if I’m mirroring a real diary, she’s not going to give a blow by blow account of her whole day, just the important things.  But some of the main characters feel a bit underdeveloped.  Beth, for example.  But because of the format I chose, I really can’t develop their characters past what I’ve already done.  This is a story told from Lily’s point of view.  She only knows what the characters tell her or what she sees them doing.  How can I develop characters when they don’t really have their own voice, short of giving them their own diary?  That might yet happen, but do I really want to double my workload and have to keep so many more things straight just for the sake of realism?

And then there’s the fact that this diary is, currently, the only window into Lily’s world.  If it doesn’t show up in her diary, it didn’t happen.  I guess she could make oblique references to things that may have happened offscreen, but then that’s really not telling the story.  So sometimes I have to have her retell things that would get her in trouble in real life.  Would Sabby like every detail of their life and relationship to be put out to the world?  Not in a real life situation, of course not.  But I have to suspend that, because otherwise, the story can’t get told.  Would that letter she got sent by her anonymous benefactor be best published?  If it were a real world happening, surely not!  It could cause a lot of problems!  But she has to post it, or it didn’t happen.

A serial novel is such a wonderful medium to write in, but it has its own challenges.  I know I need to go back through and close up some plot holes.  Nothing serious (I saw one fic once where a character came back to life and died again with no explanation) but enough to bother me.

Lily is a good girl.  She is a beautiful creation.  I think she represents, to me, what a (mostly) uncorrupted feminine energy looks like.  She has her faults, and makes mistakes, but she’s generally guileless and trusting, and she only wants what’s best for herself and everyone else.  That’s as much a fault as it is a strength, but it’s really fun writing such a lovely character and family.  They love each other, and this seems to be something so missing in the world today.  I think that’s why I sit down at the computer every day and keep writing, no matter how discouraged I am.

But I really hope that people find her someday!  She can’t be beautiful without someone to see!

Anyway, if you’re reading this, thanks.  I’ll try to think up some more Patreon perks, and might try my hand at doing videos or streaming.  Somehow.  I may have to hire a voice actor.  Unfortunately.