Fearing the ordinary.

It took J. R. R. Tolkien more than a decade to write The Lord of the Rings.  Admittedly, the process involved creating new languages and building world histories from scratch while working a demanding full-time academic job, but still.  It took him more than a decade.

My middle grade fantasy series isn't a literary masterpiece, nor will it likely sell 150+ million copies if (when!) it's published, but it's nice to know that slow doesn't necessarily mean aimless.  I see so many writers fly through their manuscripts in two or three months and I wonder if I'm going about this all wrong.  

The idea for my series came to me years before Stephanie Meyer dreamt about a girl in love with a vampire.  Or before I'd ever picked up a Harry Potter.  It was eleven years ago that I had this flash of an idea which grew into the beginnings of a story and soon spread to this vast weighty thing that's been thundering around inside my brain ever since.  There are some days it takes up so much space it's all I can think about.  

Then why isn't it finished?  After eleven years?  If time was the only consideration not only would the entire series be done, but Warner Brothers would be on the fourth film by now, if we were to imagine it on that level.  I've had the time.

Here's the thing.  Any book I write will never be as literary as LOTR, as beloved as Harry Potter, as infatuating as Twilight (that, I don't mind), as clever as A Series of Unfortunate Events, etc.  So what's the hurry to write it?  It could never be anything more than ordinary when compared to the greats and I fear the ordinary.

But here's the other thing.  There's nothing wrong with ordinary if that's the best I've got. Ordinary is better than unfinished.

And while we're at it, there's nothing wrong with being slow either.  So long as I'm not just fearing the ordinary.

Okay, maybe I'm fearing the ordinary just a little.