Stuck in the middle with awoo

So, I’m still stuck.

At this point, this is a sign that the scene I’m working on is, no matter how cute, wrong for the story in some respect. Maybe it just needs a little tweak, but there’s something I need to figure out that I haven’t.

When I wrote “Finding the Story,” I had this thought about the story’s theme:

The story’s central question seems like it’s whether Kani’s “search for the next chapter of their life” leaves them as a resident of Mensura rather than a visitor. If that’s the case, though, there needs to be a plausible reason why the coyote won’t stay in Mensura.

But is that truly Kani’s problem? That while they came to dislike working in tech, they made enough money to take a year or so off while they figured out what to do next? I mean, it’s not that there can’t be some drama there, but it’s hardly a tough position to be in. That could be “fixed” by having Kani be out of money, of course. Why not just do that?

Here’s where things get personal, into things I’ve been consciously dancing around.

Kani was, long ago, supposed to be my fursona.

Sort of.

He (and it was he back then, not they) honestly wasn’t too well-defined. He had a sliver of back story when introduced on FurryMUCK, and got a bit more of one in an unfinished story called “Bed & Breakfast” whose first and only part ran in MegaMorphics, the closed-membership macrophile APA. (Everything that I contributed to MM has been published, with the exception of two never-finished pieces including that one.) I liked Kani, but he never quite clicked. A female coyote, Chipotle, became my default fursona. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, either; my very first semi-fursona, Mika, was a male cat, but I also roleplayed a female bat, Jemara, who just seemed more fun and natural to play.

Chipotle is still around—-and finally had a canonical story appearance in Saida & Autumn—-but if I’m truly honest with myself (and you), Arilin has the best claim to be my fursona these days. A writer, an accidental academic, a lover of cocktails; fairly soft-spoken and introverted but still social, with a wry sense of humor. She’s classier andway more dangerous than I am, but she is, more than many of my other characters, me.

So, the scorecard: Two attempted fursonas who didn’t click, Mika and original Kani. Three other characters who fit like fursonas even though I didn’t plan them to be, Jemara, Chipotle, and Arilin. The characters who didn’t work have something in common, and the ones who did have something else in common. What could it be? Hmm.

When I thought about revisiting Kani, I thought about making him, well, more like me. I’ve been in tech in Silicon Valley, which the story’s Port Clarita is modeled on. I had wild ups and downs in my income. I job-hopped between collapsing startups, bureaucracy-stifled big corporations, and freelance work that somehow felt simultaneously carefree and harrowing. Eventally I had burnout so bad that I’m pretty sure it qualified as a mental breakdown. My story doesn’t exactly match Kani’s—-through a bit of good fortune, I made the move from web development to technical writing, which has staved off the burnout and, against the odds, increased my salary. I came close to doing what Kani’s doing in the story a couple times, though (albeit probably with less in the savings account than the coyote has); that’s the “what if” jumping-off point that separates Kani from their author.

And, well. There’s that pronoun.

Characters who truly come alive, whether heroes or villains or sidekicks, reflect the concerns of their creators. There’s some of me in Saida and Autumn and Mradhi, in Gabrielle and Mirasol. I hope there’s not much of me in Raiben or Harry or Commissioner Newcomb, but there’s a throughline there about things I care deeply about: abuse of authority and the corruption of pursuing money for its own sake.

So. Kani.

They’re recently “out” as non-binary, and struggling to define what that means for them. They’re dealing with what they suspect is undiagnosed depression, and the voice in the back of their head saying “seriously, what do you have to be depressed about?” isn’t helping. They’re wondering whether their history devoid of virtually any romantic relationship means they’re asexual, or aromantic, or... have something wrong.

Other than that pronoun, though, none of that is actually in the story. And that’s a problem. A cute nonbinary coyote being teased by a giant young squirrel woman may be a truly magnificent image, but it’s not enough to build a novella around. Both Jillian and Kani need character arcs. That central question about whether Kani is going to stay in Mensura is part of the coyote’s, but their full arc is about coming to grips with their identity.

∗cough∗

The first introduction to Kani’s story I wrote was, well, a little closer to this one, but I backed off because it seemed too personal. And I’m wondering if I’ve been doing the same with the story itself. Kani may not be my fursona, but they’re working through things that I’m working through, too, in a way none of my other characters are.

And to figure out this story, I probably need to let them do that. Assuming I’m ready to, which right now feels like one hell of a big assumption.

Anyway, this is more of a brain dump than anything else, I think. But it’s where I’m at right now. I don’t know what it bodes for Kani’s story, but I need to step back and think about where, if anywhere at all, it needs to go. I don’t plan to abandon it, but I don’t think I’m ready to write it, either.

I suspect the next story I post will be another vignette with the Grumpy Bunny, a/k/a Moira (she’s not keeping her name secret, it just hasn’t come up storywise). I don’t have that story written—or even started—yet, but she’s simultaneously mysterious, even to her creator, and delightfully uncomplicated.

Thanks for putting up with my unevenness this year.