Seriously? Twelve years?

After an off-hand comment by a friend while I was describing some of the plotlines in xaos, I decided to excise any last messianic archetypes lingering on the character of Ashura, and in the process fixed about 5 gaping plot holes. (See Also: I was a fucking moron age 13-17.) So I found myself today tooling on the xaos Master Doc (my handy bible of critical information for this 'verse). I've been working on this document on and off for the past 4 years, and I keep telling myself that once it's in decent shape, then I'll start writing. I'm starting to wonder if this is a mistake, though. Because the more I think about it, the more this story has been mutating and growing in new and interesting ways. And I can't possibly document all of them without, you know, actually writing the story.

I'm wondering if maybe the Master Doc is just an excuse. Because the characters are starting to talk now, and if I don't take advantage of that, maybe I'll end up waiting another 5 years.

I dunno. I had so much trouble with this the first time around because I didn't have an outline and then wrote myself into a stupid corner. And so I decided that I would have an outline this time around, but now the "try to make an outline" thing is utterly failing because the outline keeps changing (or doesn't even exist), and maybe I'm wondering if I should just give up and sketch out notes on how the universe works and then let the characters go.

By the way, it's ridiculous how much I cannot know about characters I designed twelve years ago. At least I now know why a certain character resisted all my attempts to pair her with a boy. (Seriously. TWELVE YEARS.)

Question for anyone reading: would you prefer I posted these things about original works (xaos, Wintermarch, "Taming Fenrir"-verse) under a filter? I'd kinda like to be able to toss snippets and plot ideas and background info around and have people critique them or offer their own ideas. (Or hit me with a clue-by-four when I need it)