May Update: Success and Difficult Decisions

 I am happy to report that I have both my depression and my writing stagnation under control. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm high on life and firing on all cylinders as far as writing, but I am not in the hole I was in for most of the winter and early spring.

That said, I didn't get as much writing done this month as I'd hoped. Or rather, I went above and beyond my word count goal, but didn't get the work on projects accomplished as I'd hoped.

Some of that is because I didn't do quite as much as I'd wanted in April, so I was playing catch-up a bit. I had hoped to get more of the current SP adventure written so that I could easily finish it up in May and then work on CLC a bit.

That didn't happen. But! I did finish this SP adventure. Yay! And it had some synchronicity there, because I finished this adventure exactly a year later, to the day, that I finished one last year. So that was neat. A little disappointing in that it's still taking me a year to finish an adventure. But at least I'm making consistent progress.

The downside is that I really rushed the finish. The whole adventure is kind of a mess. I have a big editing project down the line when it comes to this adventure. It's probably my least favorite one so far (which is saying a lot, because I also didn't love the last one, either, although I do kinda love it, now). I guess my least favorite adventure is always the one I just finished. I hated the aliens one, and the Seattle fairies one, and the Australian scuba diving one and...well, like I said. All of them. At some point or another. I guess that's part of the process. It always feels like a hot mess when I finish. But after some time away from it, I think I will be able to wrangle it into something good. I will say that even though I don't love the romance stuff I did in this adventure (it feels really forced), I do love the character growth Sally shows. I worry that I'm having her grow too quickly, though. This is only season two out of five. But maybe it's right. Season three is the season where her love interest actually starts seeing her as more than a kid, although season four is the one where he actually realizes he's been falling for her (and actually acts on it).

But I digress.

Or maybe not. I am here to talk about my writing, after all.

The other thing I did not do this month that I'd talked about was work on short stories. Which, I don't regret at all. Finishing the SP adventure was my priority. I still have a few days left this month, so maybe if I get some time, I'll poke at short stories.

But. I'm not going to have a lot of time. I get a manuscript for dev editing on Friday. I have a week to turn it around before I leave for vacation for a week, so it's a tight turn-around time. That brings me into June. After I get back from my vacation, I have a week before I get the MS back for copy editing. And that takes me through July.

So, June is going to be tricky. I have one week to work on my own stuff. Well. I guess when it comes to writing, even during edits, I have scheduled time to work on stuff. For an hour or two twice a week.

Trouble is, June was supposed to be Mystwatch 2 editing month. I was planning on finishing it. With everything else going on, I'm not sure I'll be able to manage it. Unless I dedicate the whole week after I'm back from vacation to it. We'll see. If I don't get it done next month, I do have October, which is a miscellaneous projects month, basically a buffer to finish up whatever I didn't get to this year, before NaNo and before my break in December.

I think I need to make some hard decisions, though. After wrapping up this SP adventure, I'm sitting here wondering if I will actually be able to write a second one this year in addition to finishing CLC. I think I'm going to have to make a choice between SP and CLC. July is supposed to be another Camp NaNo month where I'd planned to write maybe 14k. I didn't manage it in April. Do I think I can do it in July? And then finish it in August with enough time and energy to write a few thousand words on CLC?

I currently have all of September set aside to finish CLC. Right now, it needs probably 20k to wrap it up. I know I can't write that much in a month. I think 15k is my limit. I definitely can do 10k, as that's been my average this year. So I need to find a way to fit in another 10k in my current schedule. On top of finding time to finish my Mystwatch 2 edit.

So, yeah. I have to give something up this year. Either the second SP adventure, finishing CLC, or possibly not doing NaNo this year. The dev edit of Mystwatch 2 is nonnegotiable. I have to finish that this year.

What I think I'll probably do, or what I'll plan to do right now, is get as much of the Mystwatch edit done as I can in June. July and August I will finish up CLC. September, I might start a new SP adventure, just to give me some space from this last one and get a start on it this year. That way, maybe I can do one and a half SP adventures a year? And work up to two someday? That leaves October open for, like I said, finishing stuff up. If I want to finish SP, I can. If I haven't finished the Mystwatch edit, I will. Or if for some reason two months isn't enough to finish CLC.

The only thing that endangers is the Druid Wars 2 outline. Which...in all honesty, I don't think is going to take me more than a few days of mulling and brainstorming and then sitting down and putting stuff together. I have a lot of scenes in mind already. Just organizing what I've already got and finding connective tissue shouldn't take very long. I could probably even do that in December, because it's a project that will be good progress but not feel like a lot of work. Because it doesn't have to be perfect.

Heck, maybe I can just make December outlining month rather than break month. We'll see, I suppose.

And then there's November. Still not sure what I'm doing with that beast. We'll see when the month gets closer!

But for this month, I wrote 10.5k words, finished SP 2.4, and spent the minimum seven days working toward my goals. It was a successful month, even if it felt like pulling teeth some days! That's typical. At least the writing ability was there again, if rusty. The terror of losing it forever has passed.

And I have a tentative plan for the coming months, including my super busy June next month!

Now it's time to settle in and read Mystwatch 1 to get me in the mood and frame of mind for next month's edit. Yay.