March Update: Valuable Lessons

Despite a few days of complete inability to write more than a hundred words on anything, I am very, very impressed with my progress in February. It was touch-and-go toward the end. I had to write like mad for a few days, but I got very close to my 15k word goal on book three. And wrote another two thousand words on a completely unrelated project. Go me!

I also managed to get Druid Wars off to beta readers. One of them read it straight through in six hours and told me it was phenomenal. So that's heartening. It also means that I spent a lot of last month researching agents for this book. As always, cart before horse, but in some ways it's good. Future Sara, when she's ready to submit, will be glad that groundwork has been laid. I even have a crappy draft of a query. And an even crappier draft of a synopsis. But. Progress!

My plan right now is to split March into editing Druid Wars and writing more on book three. With my writing goal only being 15k words, I should be able to do both. That way, by the end of March, I'll be ready to go full speed into (hopefully) finishing up book three in April. I'd really, really like to finish book three done in April. May at the latest. I kind of want to finish it during a Camp Nano, though, since this series began in a Camp Nano. There's a certain amount of poetry there.

Either way, I can do an in-depth line edit of Druid Wars in May so that by the end of May, hopefully, I can start querying. If all goes well and according to plan (although when does it ever?). I've got 35 agents lined up that I'll submit to in batches of seven. I haven't decided if that's seven a week or just seven at a time, sending one back out for every rejection I get. Either way, it shouldn't take more than five or six months to get all that out and back, which leaves me at the end of this year ready to try publishers for Druid Wars. I'll cross my fingers that Apex and/or Angry Robot does open subs again, but if not, I will do Tor, Daw, Red Adept, and maybe even Ant Colony (a new, local KC press that liked tweets for Druid Wars awhile back).

That'll take me through about this time next year, which is when I'll be working to get MystWatch ready to put out into the world myself. I am pretty sure which cover artist I'm going to use. I still haven't found an editor, but I still have time. I won't worry about that this year. It's cart before horse, as I so often do.

I have to remind myself that this month, all I need to do is write 15k words on book three and edit Druid Wars book one. That's all I have to focus on. Because if those two things do not get done, the rest of my five-year plan can't happen.

Although I will say that I sat down and calculated that if I were to write at least 5k words a month the rest of the year, book three would be done by the end of this year anyway. I'd like to write it faster than that, obviously, but that was a nice realization. It will get done this year. I can write that much on anything in a month. Even bad ones.

And I'm bound to have at least some good ones if history is any indication.

Although as I showed last month, a few bad days or even a bad week doesn't equal a bad month. I had only written about eight thousand words on book three when I got stuck. I hated everything I'd ever written. I couldn't even power through. That only resulted in a hundred words or so each day and me hating writing even more. Thankfully, my zombie apocalypse choose-your-own-adventure sparked my interested, so I worked on that for a couple days, which seemed to have recharged me.

I learned two pretty valuable lessons this month.

First, sometimes I just have to change projects. If I hadn't worked on Druid Wars and Suddenly, Zombies! I might not have found the creative energy to write as much on book three as I did. Other projects can recharge my creative batteries, so I should never feel bad about working on something else, even at the risk of not reaching a monthly project goal.

And second, I am not the type of writer who is going to write every day. I know that so many "real" writers tell you to sit down and knock your words out every day, like you go to work every day. And I can do that sometimes. NaNo, namely. But then I have to take a month or two off. On months that I take a few days off between big spurts of writing, I am able to more consistently write. Even September last year, by far my best non-NaNo month ever, I took a few days off here and there, and nearly a week at the end.

Sure, I could probably start publishing sooner, and make more money once I do, if I were to push myself to write more than 20k words a month. But honestly? I think I'd burn out so much faster if I didn't give myself time to breathe. Pushing harder on creative endeavors doesn't actually equate to more product. Besides, 20k a month for ten months a year equals 200k words. I'd say that's two books and some shorts, wouldn't you?

Right now, my goal is to get 15k words a month somewhat consistently. I can work my way up from there once I start actually publishing. It's going to vary month to month, especially if I get a lot of freelance work. Or we travel. Or I'm depressed (although I've managed my depression a lot better lately...that's no guarantee for future success). Or if I'm having a stellar month. Or a NaNo month. Or a massive rewriting of an old draft month (see Online Dating for Demons when that comes up later this year). I think, though, that taking all that into account, I could probably average 15k words a month.

Anyway. As always, TL;DR: my goal this month is to write another 15k words on book three (putting me at 80k words total) and to incorporate beta reader feedback into book one of Druid Wars. I may poke at my zombie book, too, if I get to feeling bored or tired. I may even write a Cafe story. The prompt interests me.

And my achievements last month were: getting Druid Wars off to beta readers, putting together an agent list and drafting a query for it, writing 14k words on book three, and poking at my choose-your-own-adventure novel.

I also put together a 10-year plan for my publishing career. It's equal parts terrifying and do-able. That's why I put so much stress on myself to meet my goals last month. I want to stay on pace so this amazing plan can actually work. It may not. I even toyed with the idea of pushing it all back a year to give myself some breathing room. I still might, but for now, I'm keeping it as-is. My long-term plans are always flexible.

I also found my quarter-hourglass I bought for NaNo a few years ago. Well, I found it awhile back, but I actually used it to push myself to write the last few days of February. There was a night my friends convinced me to commit to writing for 15 minutes before gaming the other day. I did about 20 minutes, writing 750 words. Not too shabby for a short little spurt! After trying this out with my quarter-hourglass a few nights, I discovered that if I think about what comes next in a scene and know where I'm going before starting a timer, I can write about two thousand words over three fifteen-minute sprints. It just takes some focus, a glass of whiskey, some bumping tunes, and my quarter-hourglass a few times. Seems to be a recipe to push through the "I don't wanna's" and get the words written.

We'll see how that works this month and if it continues to work for Camp NaNo next month. Even if I just do one sprint a day, that's progress. Good progress. So yeah. Days I need to write and can't seem to focus, that's what I'll do.

But I'll also give myself breaks some days, too. Breaks so I don't break. Breaks so it stays fun.

Because Jack reminded me that I don't have any contractual obligations at this point, so writing can still just be fun. It should be fun. These may be the precious few years it's still fun. I need to fully embrace that. I lose sight of that a lot of the time, but when I let go and stop pushing, writing is still magic for me.