Around this time, seven years ago, I had finished posting a little story called Raspberry Line, and had started posting a sequel to it called Lonely Oak.
I had started this little tiny world to tell a quiant love story that I hoped had a different feel from ones I had read and found samey. I made it my own by trying to make it more natural in the way the relationship grew.
In focusing on that angle of the story, I developed the world around it. I made some arbitrary or short-sighted decisions to make things seem more interesting, but without actually going into those things.
Towards the end of the story, I took a step back from the two love-birds, and looked at the world as a whole. The clusters of puzzle pieces started forming, chunk-by-chunk, all the way to the very end.
I had so much more to tell.
And I took my sweet ass time telling it, didn't I? Sheesh.
But, finally... I have told a significant portion. There were some ups and downs along the way, some things I was ecstatic with and things I was disappointed with. I grew, a lot, as a writer. I tried out new tricks, many of which are now a staple of my writing style today.
I wish I hadn't taken a two-year hiatus in the middle of it. I was still writing, but not posting. I tried to finish the story to be able to post it in regular intervals, but I think the lack of posting put me into a spiral of intimidating myself and biting off too much at once.
By now, the story has been out long enough that Ket is in 2nd Grade. His parents are still together, and he is eagerly waiting for the summer when he, his mother, and grandfather, will hike up a very tall mountain.
Emmy, Lyza, and Becky, or Rini as she would later decide to be known, are one step behind.
Emeral is helping her mom study to be a nurse, learning a great deal on her own and developing a passion for medicine.
When Lyza does go to school, she's mocked for her way of speaking, called dumb anytime she asks a question. When she is at home, the tormet of Big Bad Brother looms over her, and he will break her fingers during the Spring.
There are some of you out there who have been with the story since basically the beginning. Thank you for sticking with me, and I certainly hope it was worth the patience.
Obligatory rhetorical segue: So what's next from me?
Obligatory sarcastic bait-and-switch: Well, sorry to say, but I'm not done with this series quite yet.
This probably doesn't come as a surprise for those that have been around since I was calling this the Raspberry Trilogy.
See, Raspberry Line was going to be the first instalment. Lonely Oak was to be the second. However, Lonely Oak began to get bigger and bigger as my plans became more and more ambitious (read: I'm bad at estimating).
So, I had to haphazardly rename the series as a whole so as not to be confusing. How can it be a Trilogy if there are seemingly four stories? Except it's just two, but Lonely Oak is split into par--ah hell, too much explaining.
But, the reality is, this is still a Trilogy, where Lonely Oak is just the second story. It's long-winded and dense, but it's still just only the second.
Really, I almost consider Raspberry Line a prequel, now.
But, this means that there is a still a third to come. It will not be as long. Even I'm saying "please no, don't let it be that long." It will probably be about the length as any one of the instalments, chapter-wise. Somewhere between 30-50 chapters, probably on the lower side of that range.
But, that's really just a gigantic guess because... I've barely scratched the surfance of writing it. Also bear in mind I'm terrible with estimations.
Oi, but I'm actually straying from the name of the series, what I was originally tlaking about. We'll get back to the third story in a sec.
Raspberry Saga is a name I was never happy with. I just had to come up with something to remove the confusion of it being a trilogy with seemingly more than 3 stories.
So now that I've completed this milestone, I feel it's an apropriate time to rename the story once again (sigh and eye-roll) to a name that I actuanlly only came up with a few months ago.
Ultimately, this story will encompass a year. It started at the beginning of fifth grade, and so it will come to a series-conclusion at the beginning of middle school.
For that reason, I have decided that the final name of the series as a whole will be Year Of The Raspberry. Kinda cliche, not denying that, but it gets the point across. Plus everyone knows it as "Raspberry" anyway, so at least this flows better.
Now, back to the third instalment. I know some of you are frothing at the mouth, wanted to know when it'll start up.
I'm sorry to say this, and this time I'm not being sarcastic, but I have to take a break.
Not a hiatus, and not just a "break" break, but actually I have to take the time to sit down and plan the story out. I've been so deep in Lonely Oak that all the fragments for the next story are rough and jumbled. They need to be ordered, and the edges smoothed a bit.
I've got crappy thumbnails made for it, have the ending written (since like 2012), and a few isolated chapters, but now I'm actually going to start sitting down and applying some of the prewriting steps I've developed from Lonely Oak and 4X+Y.
Storyboarding, chapter outlines, timelining, all that jazz.
It will definitely not be posted in 2017. But hopefully soon. There will be a teaser, as I have traditionally done, so you know when it will be coming.
I will also be picking up the task of polishing the story as-is, which I had started quite a while ago. That won't change anything, may add to or fix up things only. Nothing dramatic.
Oh, and I think some of you were waiting for it to be completed before reading; well, there it is. The next story is a clean start from this one, so there's no gigantic theme left danging off, everything is more or less tied up at the end (I feel, anyway. Hope I didn't miss something).
Would love to know what you guys think, overall. Favorite parts? Favorite character? Least favorite? Anything in the story hit close to home with something you've experienced, in school or in friendships?
Well, I guess I should stop rambling. Honestly I'm still just... Recovering from the idea of finally finishing this thing.
Look out for another Raspberry related journal sometime soon; not the announcement journal but just a related one.
Until then, I'm going to take a deep breath, backup everything so far, open up the folder for the next story... And start planning.
Happy reading
--LemnifinallyfinishedLonelyOakscate
tl;dr Lonely Oak done, please go read it, more Raspberry to come oh btw it's Year Of The Raspberry now and wtf was with that guy that drummed while Lyza played Colors Of The Wind at the bonfire and never had any bearing on the story before, during, or after what a rnadom scene right lolololol?
