April Update: Taking My Own Advice

March started off slow, which I suppose is to be expected, since I pushed really hard at the end of February to meet my February writing goal.

But once I got going, things went pretty well. And they went really well once I read back over last month's post and reminded myself of the two valuable lessons.

Changing projects was vital to my success last month. Working on something else, even if it doesn't seem conducive to my timeline, is still progress. Following what I'm passionate about at whatever point in the month keeps me fresh and keeps me moving forward, even if it means tweaking my timeline. The timeline is fluid, designed to keep me on track and moving but with the freedom to shift things.

Also vital was to remind myself that I'm not a writer that writes every day. I do start to feel antsy if I haven't written in a few days, but it feels great once I get back to it. If I push really hard a few days, I have to take a mental break. And that's okay. As long as I keep my word count goal realistic, I can still meet it even if only write half the days in the month. And right now, I'm intentionally keeping my word counts low so I keep making that slow progress without getting burned out. Slow and steady still gets books written.

I really ought to read those lessons every time I start to get down on my progress. Which happens at least once every month.

My goals for March were to write another 15k on book three and incorporate beta reader feedback on Druid Wars, with secondary goals, if I was feeling up for it, to poke at the zombie CYOA and maybe work on a Cafe story.

I did, in fact, write 15k on book three, which brought me up to 80k on the book. That feels really good. I'm not sure I'm completely happy with the last 30k words I've written, but at least I'm feeling my way through the story so I know what happens, even if it's not written all that well yet. It's a first draft. As people have said, the first draft is just putting sand in the sandbox. Editing is where I'll shape it into an amazing castle. I will admit that I wish I could write cleaner first drafts so I didn't have to work so hard editing. But. These days, I'm better at editing than actually writing (and seem to enjoy it more), so I let myself write sloppy prose and waste a lot of words figuring out what happens. I've stumbled on some good stuff that way, so it works, and I have faith in my abilities to fix it up in editing.

My second main goal was Druid Wars, and if I'm totally honest, I let that one completely fall of the radar. I didn't even open any documents, although I did spend some time thinking about some scenes. I pushed my beta readers so hard to get it read, then didn't even do anything with it. I do feel kinda bad about that, in some respects. But I'm not ready to do it yet. Which does put me behind on my project timeline a bit. By a month or two. I just couldn't face it. This is the next one I want to query. I am still feeling kind of kicked and sore from querying my last book. I am not quite ready to dive into that madness again, especially as I watch Dianne going through it now, too. That's a lot of it. The rest is fear. Of failure, yeah, of course, although I have my backup plans for failure. What I don't have is a plan for if I succeed. I'm almost more afraid that this book will get picked up. What then? Then I'm not a hobbyist anymore. Then come commitments. Contracts. An editor. Potentially readers. I probably won't get to choose what projects I work on at any given time. I might not have the freedom to change projects if I get frustrated or stuck. It's terrifying to think of the expectation that comes with being a published writer. So...maybe I'm not in as much of a hurry to do that as I thought I was. Which isn't to say I won't edit and query this book this year. It's stupid to stop because of fear. But it turns out I'm okay with taking an extra month or two before I start editing and querying.

Still, the editing portion of the month wasn't a total loss. I followed my own advice and let myself work on a different project. After a delightful afternoon spent with the folks of Bottle Cap Publishing, I got excited about Sally Prescott again. Rachel wants to read the first season. Yipes! So, I spent a few days polishing the first adventure within an inch of its life and sent it her way. Then I edited the second one. Then I poked at the third, fourth, and fifth ones. The last three need some work more, but there's a ton of good stuff there.

So after all that, I was fully immersed in the Sally Prescott world, so I changed my Camp Nano project for April from finishing up book three to finishing the first adventure of the second season.

So much for the poetry of finishing up book three during Camp, eh?

But that's okay. Looking back at the last few months, I realized that expecting myself to write 30k in a month is too daunting. It's setting myself up for failure. I can take two months instead of one to finish up book three. I'm already taking extra time for Druid Wars, so it doesn't really set me back that far, anyway. And will allow me to immerse myself in Pandemonium edits for two consecutive months rather than trying to work on it several months apart later this year.

I also need a break from book three. It's eaten my soul for two months, and I am banging my head against walls. I am excited about SP, so it makes sense to do the next adventure for her now. I have to do two of those a year at least if I ever want to put those out, and Camp are the perfect months to commit to that. That guarantees I'm working on them at least twice a year, and should, in theory, be able to finish them in the months I work on them (although theory and practice often drastically differ).

So, to sum up, my achievements last month were to write 15k on book three and spend 20 hours editing the first two SP adventures. I also wrote 6k words on a brainstorm for a young adult high school romance story, which may never go anywhere but it was fun to lose myself in that world for a few days. I had a really good month. In March. Which is typically pretty grim. I'm very pleased with my progress, and I hope I've found a good balance between writing, editing, brainstorming, and relaxing that I can keep this up each month going forward.

My goals for April are to write 15k on the next SP adventure, hopefully finishing it off, and then actually do the Druid Wars edits. That way, I can take May to put some space between those edits and the line edit, which I will try to do in June so I can start querying in July. May and June will also be finishing up book three, and July will be another SP adventure.

And then I will transition into Pandemonium in August! And I can work on that and maybe some Cafe stories (and a Writers Weekly contest) until NaNo hits.

I know that's looking pretty far ahead, but I'm excited. I'm getting all this stuff figured out. I truly believe I can do this.