Problems
Writing is hard. Also, I think I naturally try to make it harder. Here are my current problems:
I am trying to figure out how to organize my book. To have this make sense, you'll probably need to know something about the book, so here is my elevator pitch.
Bear is anxious and depressed. He works as an assistant librarian and some day he wants to be a video game designer. But his mental health is really getting in the way. He has panic attacks going to the grocery store and at work. Some days he lies in bed all day and can't get up because of how sad he feels. He feels like his life is stuck in a rut. Naturally, he sees a therapist, who encourages him to treat life as being like a game. There are do overs, there are achievements to unlock, there are skills to gain and ways to level up. The hope is that as he gets better at playing the game of his life, he will start to feel better too.
But, being a writer who is incapable of telling a simple story, I have a twist to add to this. One day, Bear wakes up and there's a dragon in his bedroom. Not clear what the dragon is doing there. He thinks at first that he's become so depressed that he is now having psychosis and imagining things that aren't there. Until, he realizes that everyone overnight has suddenly gotten their own personal animal as well. The animals, or "dopples" short for dopplegangers as they come be known, mimic their people. They are sad when their people are sad and happy when their people are happy. Suddenly, you can tell how anyone feels at any moment just by looking at their dopple. The world changes.
In the middle of this, Bear finds a lost cat. Of course, it turns out it's not just a lost cat. It's actually a lost dopple. A dopple who is missing their person. Bear sets out to find the missing person for the dopple, and in doing so faces his social anxiety, his fears of groups and battles his depression.
All of this takes place in the context of a story that is set up like a video game and told from the second person point of view.
And I haven't even mentioned the role-playing game that Bear plays with his friends called Ghosts and Ghosthunters.
If you're thinking, there is too much going on for one book, I completely agree. Yet here we are. Aaaaahhhh!