Hehehe, now, it's no secret that I am constantly typing my fingers to the bone on many different stories at once. And that means that I might finish a brand new chapter of one story, but it might take some time for me to cycle through a bunch of the others before I pick that story back up again. It's something that I've been really working on fixing for a long time now, and I hope that I'm getting better at it.

However, I'm sure that there are some of you dedicated authors out there who have simply let one or more of your own projects linger for one reason or another, and might want to get back to it and finish it off, once and for all. Who knows what happened there? Maybe you lost some of your enthusiasm for the story, maybe life got in the way, maybe you found yourself in the middle of a new relationship, or are suffering the heartbreak of an old one. The point is, our work is a product of our current mood and mindset, and it takes time and energy and effort to create the stories that we do. It can't always be forced through our determination to finish it off and a craving from our fanbase. Sometimes you have to just wait for the creative expression to blossom like a flower growing in your garden. Yelling at the seed isn't going to make it grow any faster, so why even try? Hehehe!

This is what creates long lapses between chapters for me, personally...and sometimes for others as well. But when you began writing that story, you truly had something to say. And that will remain a splinter in your paw until you finally get the chance to say it. Luckily...there is always an opportunity to go back in and pick up right where you left off. There's no real trick to it. Just dive right back in and make it happen. For any of you who have some unfinished stories that you've been procrastinating on, or worried about tackling again, this article is for you. It can be done...and that's what we're going to talk about today. The 'Not So Hot Potato'!

I think that this becomes a lot simpler when you are personally invested in your own characters. That's an important part of this process. Because if you're invested in your characters and treat them as though they were real people, chances are that your readers are going to feel the same way. There's a bond and an emotional investment there. That will work in your favor. Every time. I've been asked countless times, "Comsie, how can you keep track of all of these stories at once and continue them all the way you do?" Well...how do you remember all of your friends and family members? They all have different stories of their own, don't they? Your mom, your dad, your siblings, your cousins, your aunts and uncles, your grandparents, your classmates from high school, you co-workers from a job that you quit years ago. How do you remember all of them? You might not have seen your best friend's wife's second cousin in ten years...but if you had a good experience with them and recognized them on the street as you were walking past them...you'd be able to greet them and pretty much pick up right where you left off, right? You might want an update on what's happened since then, but it's not all that difficult to remember what you originally liked about them or what interested you in their personal story or influence in your life. When it comes to picking up an old story of yours to rewrite, re-edit, or continue...the idea shouldn't be all that different. These characters may be fictional, but you created them from parts of yourself, your life, or your past memories. Reconnect with that, and try writing a new chapter. You might be surprised just how easy it is once you get started. The hard part is realizing that getting started is the most intimidating factor. But it doesn't have to be.

I grew up in an era when things took time and people had to be patient with their entertainment. You didn't get seven new movies released in theaters or streaming services every week. No binge watching TV shows for nine hours straight to hurry up and get to the end. No...you got a satisfying piece or tasty morsel every now and then and you waited until the next one was ready. I don't know, something about that made me appreciate my entertainment much more back then. Now I just gobble, gobble, gobble, and devour everything in a day and then I ask, "What's next?" It's just not the same experience. But, if you do it right, and you get your audience invested in your characters to a point where they think about them outside of the boundaries of your current plot...even if it's been days, weeks, months, or even years, since you last updated it, you can pick that story right back up, blow some of the dust off of it, and finish your original work of art with just as much enthusiasm and creative energy as you had when you started it.

The secret is in capturing that magic that made you start writing in the first place. And I've got a few tips on how to do exactly that. But first...a few examples of a single story (franchise) that can easily be continued in a successful way, no matter how long it has been between chapters. I have always loved "Alien", it's one of my favorite movie franchises ever, despite a few missteps here and there. But, the point is, every major chapter can literally go YEARS without any continuation whatsoever, and yet I can watch a new movie, and it's like I never missed a moment. In the blink of an eye, I'm right back into it. It's like revisiting an old friend, you know?

The first "Alien" scared the living shit out of me as a kid, and that came out in 1979, so I was probably WAY too young to be watching that movie anyway! LOL! Thankfully, I was at home, and this was years after it had been on the big screen. Otherwise I would have been traumatized for life. But the second chapter, "Aliens", came out in 1986...and I think I was ten or eleven years old...so I handled it better, but that movie kind of freaked me out too when I first watched. That's a seven year gap! But the feelings that I invested in the first movie still lingered within me, and within the first five minutes, I was right back where I left off. And much later, when "Prometheus" came out in 2012...I'm a full blown adult now, and yet, I'm still tethered to the old movies even after all this time. So I was teleported back to watching those and now I'm getting a prequel that wasn't the best of movies, but my heart is invested in it just the same. It's weird.

Again...the key all lies in the investment of the characters and the situations that they happen to be going through at the moment where you left off. No matter how long it's been since your audience has seen this story...the moment they get something new, if you've bonded them with the people populating your fiction, they will be eager to sit down and re-engage with them on a personal level all over again. Don't let the time lapse intimidate you out of writing that new chapter. Just write it. And follow these five tips when you're going back to an older project and breathing life back into it so that your readers can have a sense of closure.

#1 - Don't feel bad. That's the first, and maybe the most important part of this process. Yes, it's been a long time. Yes, people are going to hound you, criticize you, or make passive aggressive comments about it...but you need to get past that. When you started that story, you had something that you wanted to say. What was it? Focus on that. Where were you going with it? What were you trying to express in terms of your feelings at that time. Maybe you were going through something difficult when you started it, and you've dealt with it and are trying to move on now. Whatever the reason...your story exists because you had something that you felt you needed to get out of your system. So get it out. You're not finished yet. There's no reason for you to feel bad for taking time to work your emotions out and translate them into a fictional story. It's ok. Stop beating yourself up and get back to the story whenever you feel up to it. It'll come out better if you don't force it. Trust me.

#2- Start from scratch. Especially if it's been a really long time since you've worked on a particular project. Don't just read it and start writing again. It might have only been a couple of weeks or so, but you've changed as a person since then. Your views on life may have been altered. You skill at crafting a story may have changed. Your vocabulary might have grown. These seem like little things, but they aren't. And if you try to match the writing of the 'new' you to the writing of the 'old' you...it's going to be noticeable to everyone reading. Re-open that file, read your own story, and re-edit it as you go through. One thing that I've really enjoyed when going back through my stories while making my ebooks (Shameless plug! Comicality ebook 'director's cut' versions of the stories are available at https://imagine-magazine.org/store/comicality/ Just so ya know!) is going back to stories that I wrote years ago and seeing them from a different perspective. Adding details, rephrasing certain sentences, putting in new scenes and dialogue...I mean, I was a totally different person back then. And it took a reread of everything that I put out to realize just how different I am now from the person I was when I started. So if you're picking up an old project and getting ready to work on it again, make sure to really go through your previous work with a fine toothed comb and mold it to match who you are now, as opposed to who you were when you started.

#3 - Keep the same vibe that you started with. Even if you're writing has changed, or if you've evolved as a person since your last chapter...it's key to make sure that your story keeps the same theme and tone that you had when you started it. A drastically obvious shift in tone can be a stumbling block for your readers. Ir's almost like...'false advertising', you know? Remember, keeping your readers invested in the story and your characters is what's going to make this work. So if you've got a story that has been on a particularly long hiatus, and you suddenly switch gears to change the fiction and deliver an entirely different narrative than the one you started with...there's a chance that you could lose the fans that you started out with. Some of this can be smoothed out during the rewriting process, to match your previous work with your new work...but there's a limit to those adjustments. Make too many changes in the overall 'feel' of your story can be confusing. And you don't want that.

#4 - Update where necessary. While your story may be frozen in time until you get back to it, the passage of time in the real world keeps going forward. Always keep that in mind. I've written stories in the past where there are things like 'video stores' or 'public arcades'...and obviously, these things don't exist anymore. Not really. So, to continue those stories, I would either have to make them retro (which could be fun) or update things like the music, the technology, the activities that my characters get involved in, etc. Every couple of years, certain aspects of life either vanish, evolve, or take on a different meaning. So you have to accommodate for that time jump.

A great example of this is the movie, "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers"! This is a story that has been told over and over again in the movies, but it evolves and changes to fit the times in which it's being told and what's happening in the world at that particular time in history. For example...the original movie came out in 1956, where the science fiction story was basically a metaphor for the big Communist scare during the Cold War. They could be your neighbors, your friends, your family members...oh no! (We always have people telling us that we have something to be afraid of, don't we?) Then, the movie got a remake in 1978 during the rise of interest in Occultism and cults and the whole Jim Jones Kool-Aid era. It showed up again in 1993, where everybody was a gangster or a drug dealer or had AIDS or something. Again, the fear that it could be your next door neighbor, co-workers, or even your spouse, was the driving force behind it. And then we got "The Invasion" in 2007, where people were living in a post 9/11 era where you had to watch everybody to make sure they weren't secretly a terrorist. The movies are all different, but the theme and tone of the movie was all about suspicion and paranoia, and keeping that element in tact is what made all of the remakes work in one way or another.

#5 - Commit to an ending. If you're going to pick up an old story and start working on it again...you need to promise yourself that you're going to finish it this time. You're being given a second chance by your fans to bring things to a close. Don't waste it. Figure out where you want to go with your story, get your thoughts in order, and then get it all together. Set it in motion, and this time stick with it while the fire is in you. Don't let it linger. Sometimes, a spontaneous burst of creativity and nod from your personal muse is the best time to really get things finished. So plan some time to sit down and think about the first four phases of this process...and then get to work. Like I said before, I know that it can be intimidating sometimes...but once you push yourself to get started and find your rhythm and flow again...you'll find yourself getting right back into that same head space that you were in when you were inspired the first time. Use that to your advantage. And bring your unique brand of magic to the rest of the world. It's needed out there.

Alright, so that's it for today. I know that some of you guys have older projects that you were really excited about when you started them, and somehow lost track of them after a while as other aspects of your life kind of took control and kept you from devoting the kind of energy that you needed to make it something great. But those stories still live in your head, and they deserve to be told. Just as much as they deserve to be read by your audience. So blow the dust off of those older ideas, read what you wrote, update and revise where necessary, and then pick up that not so hot potato right where you left off so you can complete the project and the vision that you originally had in mind. K?

It's SO worth it!

I hope this helps! Take care! And I'll seezya soon!