Tab You're It

New tab! New writing! This is so exciting! (Yes I'm rhyming). After reading this, go straight to The Notebook tab. While none of the writing is new in the sense that I wrote it this past week. But it is writing from my sophomore year of college and they're pieces that are long enough that they warrant their own page. Writing a story is like meeting a new person. When you begin it's really exciting because you're still getting to know them. However, eventually you become friends with them and you learn not only the good but also the bad. Friendships run into problems and you have to work them out. That's where I am right now with Guardians, and even though I'm learning a lot from the editing process I miss the excitement of starting a new story. There's times when I have random ideas that really won't fit into Guardians and instead of just shelving them, it's nice to be able to put it into a longer excerpt. It's nice pacing to go from writing new stuff to editing and back again. It keeps writing fun instead of making it into a chore. 
These stories are not my main focus and they're not fully outlined. For the first three, The Pillow Fort, River Story and Colgean Desert, I don't have full outlines. I'm just enjoying working in alternate worlds. Unlike Guardians, these three stories take place in entirely different universes without any mention of the real world. It's been an interesting challenge trying to make worlds believable. My theory (and what my writing professor has said) is that if I just write as if everything makes sense, then it will. Essentially, I just have to give the information and explanation naturally as I go along. There will never be a large chunk of explanation because my characters understand their worlds and know exactly where they are. It's a different type of writing to ease people into an alternate world without have to ease any characters into it as well. These stories are nice breathers because I'm not trying to make anything work, per se, I'm just writing and seeing where things are going.
The last excerpt Families and Fairytales (also a very tentative title) is more outlined. I've wanted to work with fairytales for a while and lately I've been exploring familial relationships. In bringing these two concepts together, I'll be writing about fairytale characters living in our modern world and ground the fantasy in the relationship between siblings and parents. For this story I do have a background, and a slight outline. This story is different and exciting because a) it takes place entirely in our world, I'm just bringing magic into it and b) I work with flashbacks, and different types of writing, like newspaper articles. It's a different type of experiment to keep everything, especially timing straight and to not just write in classic prose.
So there it is. Four new works in progress that will hopefully one day become full fledged novels. While Guardians is still my primary focus it's good to know that if things get too rough I can always go back to my notebook and get to know a new friend.