Like
every writer, I guess, I have a lot of stories in development and story
fragments on my hard drive. It’s only logical not every story started will ever
be finished, but I have led it all run rampant for a while, which is why I
weeded it out a little today. I erased about 60 files overall, most of them
story fragments that never were more than a few pages long.
Some
of those files were pretty old. Some were still written in German, my native
language, which has not been my main language for writing for more than two
years now. Others were formatted in - I hardly dare to write it - Comic Sans, a
weakness I had a few years ago, trying to make manuscripts use like actual
manuscripts (since the word literally means ‘written by hand’). Most of them
still had the elaborate cover pages I’ve given up after I started publishing at
Feedbooks (where there’s a standard cover available) and turning my stories
into e-books after I finish them. I got rid of a lot of stories, but kept notes
and other old stories which I think might come in handy at some point. I barely
dare thinking about rewriting the Case of the Cornwall Vampire completely in
English, since the German version is about halfway done and over a hundred A4
pages long, but it might be worth it, it will make a good crime story with some
supernatural elements. Other fragments still are on my hard disk, because parts
of them, like scenes or characters, might become part of other stories, stories
that stand a better chance to get finished.
I guess I will regret deleting some of the stories in
a while, because I will be reminded of them, but I don’t really care - if I can’t
recreate them, they aren’t worth it, anyway. Weeding them out feels good, since
looking at all those fragments and unfinished stories always makes me feel like
a loser, even though I know deep in my heart I’m not one.
