What is a story?
Is it something with a start, a middle and an end? A playground for the characters the author makes, where they can interact with each other for the fun of the observers? Does the concept of 'a story' hold any meaning or a purpose in our actual lives?
Over the time I have spent on this novel, I've understood some of the things that I thought I never could or never really thought about.
And yet, some of these questions still elude me.
How does someone make a non-existent person real? How to make a world feel alive and breathing? How to tie it all together and give it a meaning?
Doubts came to my mind amidst all these questions.
About this novel.
Should I end this story? Should I abandon it and move on with my life? Should I try rewriting it? Maybe it could regain traction if I add new characters, locations and plots?
No.
All the time I've spent on this book and everything that it amounted to was - just a prototype.
A prototype of what creating a world, with its own mechanisms, quirks and characters is, of what writing should feel like, as well as what the feeling of reading the very book I wrote with my own hands is.
This past year (and a few odd months) that I've spent without writing a single word hasn't been for nothing. I have experienced many things, some that I regret and some that I don't.
I have felt on my own skin that each story in our lives has its purpose - and meaning.
A beginning - as well as an end.
And as a prototype, this story has done its job.
The time has come to let it die with at least some of its dignity remaining intact.
Rise of the Looper is officially dead.
But my journey as a writer has only just begun.