July Update: Shifting inspiration

I was so proud of myself for my writing progress in June, so I figured that would inspire me to keep writing in July.

Unfortunately, it did not. I kinda wanted to write for the first week or so, but anytime I made time for it, I got that squirmy, uncomfortable dread feeling. I just haven't been in a writing frame of mind this month.

A lot of that is battling health stuff. I'm so tired all the time. A lot of that is being out of practice. Throwing crappy words at things feels like such a waste. Although the only way I'm going to get back in the swing of things is by doing.

I'm just not driven to write as much now as I used to be. It's not for a lack of ideas or projects. It's just the physical act of writing doesn't do much for me anymore. Not that I don't love going back to read over what I've written. I will always love that part. I just can't get excited to actually write. The magic seems to be well and truly dead.

My new creative outlet has really become watercolor painting.

I actually managed to do quite a bit of watercolor this past month. I started a 10-day challenge (that I actually gave up on because I decided I hated the way the person did the tutorials), had an afternoon where I painted without tutorials, and now I'm playing with my new palette so I can get ready to attempt some tutorials from my favorite Youtube artist. I'm hoping I can keep painting next month, as well. Even if it's just some of the brain relaxing abstracts from Andrea Nelson Art.

I might be picking up a new freelance editing client, as well. It's weird to me how that stuff is always cyclical. I gave up writing for editing awhile back. Even changed this blog over. Then I completely abandoned editing to focus on writing. Then Rachel got to writing again, then I took Lisa on as a client, and now, I've backed off to just dev editing for Lisa, and I might be doing some content edits for Kacey. And throughout all that, I have lost my writing mojo.

I don't want to give up on writing completely. That will always be an element of my life I return to. Even if it is just in the form of blogs and short stories or poking at old projects or being captivated by something new long enough to jot down a few thousand words. And I do, of course, want to put Mystwatch into the world someday. I need to fix book two to do that, so that's definitely high on my list of things to do. And I do want to keep writing a SP adventure a year, so at some point, I am going to have to write 10k-15k more on the adventure I started last month.

So maybe what I should do, now, is make time to sit with my writing. Maybe just one weekend, or one week. Say, okay, this is writing week. I gotta think about writing or touch a writing project every day this week before I go back to painting again.

I think that will be my goal for August. Jack will be gone on a spiritual retreat for a few days. My goal is to spend some time writing while he's gone.

Even if they are crappy words. I want to write some words. Four days. It shouldn't be hard to write some words for four days next month.

And maybe that will even open me up to writing some more.

I really want to finish this SP adventure this summer. Then, this fall, I can try my hand at editing Mystwatch. Or maybe I will poke at Sleepy Shoals or Once We Were Witches. Maybe even CLC.

I do want to write. Or rather, I want to want to. So, like I said, I'm not giving up. I'm just not pushing too hard. If I'm more inspired to paint, or even take photographs, then I will likely follow those inspirations so I can actually enjoy what I'm doing rather than suffer through for some perceived important end product.

June Update: Some small progress

I wrote in June! Woohoo!

Not many days of the month. Not according to my plan. Not nearly as many words on the days I did write that I had wanted. But. I wrote.

I wrote nearly 7200 words!

About 2400 of those words were me wrapping up Shadow Self, the Witch's Daughter #4. It needs a lot of editing, but the story is there. It's longer than I wanted. Each episode of her story has been a bit longer. But I think that's okay.

The rest of the words went to Sally Prescott. About 5k. Just shy. It started out kinda rough. I didn't really feel like I had the Sally humor, and I did a lot of meandering. But I finally hit my stride with it today and got some definite Sally moments. So. I am happy with it. It took five thousand words, but it's finally ready to launched into the main adventure. Which, to be honest, I should have probably gotten to faster. But I left the last adventure with a lot of upheaval, so it made sense to me to deal with the aftermath a bit at the start of this next adventure.

Anyway. Rocky start, but feeling good. I think I might be able to write some more on it next month. Maybe won't finish it. Maybe won't even get 10k, since that seems like a lot for me right now. But hey. When I was working on the last Mystwatch book all those years ago, I kept telling myself that 5k a month would get me to the end of the book by the end of the year. And so it goes with this as well. If I write 5k a month for two or three more months, I will finish this SP adventure.

That's really the main goal I want to accomplish this year. I just don't think I'd be okay with myself if I didn't get at least one SP adventure written a year. She's been a pretty constant companion the last five or so years. I've had goals where I wanted to get two or three adventures written a year so eventually I finish this series so I can start publishing it. But. I think I write her for me more than for publishing. Especially now. It's like with painting. I paint these landscapes to share on Instagram or put up to admire, but the abstract stuff I've been doing lately, that's for me. For me to do the act of painting without worrying too much about the end result. It's about the process.

Publishing is still one of those things I go back and forth on in general, though. I'm in a "I don't ever want to publish except maybe so my brother has a physical copy book of stuff" phase right now. Maybe when I finally retire and have more time, I will spend more time writing and I will be more serious about wanting to put it out there. But for now, I mostly want to finish things for me.

That may change before I retire. It has many times before.

So anyway. I met my goal of working on SP and finishing Shadow Self. Next month, I want to write at least 5k on SP. Maybe 10K if I can. But I will have a dev edit for a client in the middle of the month, plus nieces and nephew birthday parties and the 4th. So I will be pretty happy if I manage 5k.

At the end of July, we'll see where I'm at. I'll likely do a push to finish the SP adventure. But I also might be ready for Mystwatch by that point. Those characters were whispering in my head the other day. And Jack and I went downtown and made vampire jokes, which made me a bit nostalgic.

Sally first.

Then maybe Diana.

Then...maybe the Order and Chaos kids. But probably more likely it will be Sleepy Shoals.

That's probably more than I can get to this year, so I will leave it at that. I am just beyond happy I got over 7k written this month.

May Update: Hopefully finding my way back

I didn't update last month. Obviously. Partially because I forgot. But mostly because I still haven't been writing.

I didn't write in May, either.

That said. The last couple of days, I've been feeling that pull. That pull all artists know so very well. The pull to create. I toyed with the idea of painting. And I may still paint. But I've been thinking about Mystwatch a lot lately. I had an intense dream about Diana and Drexel, so they were on my mind for a few days. I decided that maybe I'd open up book 1 and see if I could get myself invested in the world, then maybe poke at book 2 edits. Work has finally slowed down, so I have time during the day, now. And I don't just want to watch hours of YouTube.

So today, I finally opened up my writing folder and took a chance. I read the first two paragraphs of book 1...and bailed.

Nope nope nope. That is not where I am right now. I was tweaking language and rethinking my opening line and just...no. It was supposed to be an immersion project, not a line editing project. Apparently I am in editing mode. Which makes sense. Every time I open that book, I want to make tweaks to make it even better. And it's not a strong enough opening for me to be immediately immersed. So. I have choices. I can either skim it until it gets to the immersion point. Or. I can skip book 1. I know that book backward and forward. I don't need to read it to edit book 2. It might help with mood, but once I settle into edits of book 2, I will be immersed enough.

But I don't think that's where my creative yearning is leading me right now.

Lighthouses. The world has been sending me lighthouses lately. So I opened up Nightmare of Sleepy Shoals after noping out of Mystwatch.

Oh. Oh yes. I was hooked by the first paragraph. This. This is the book I should be focusing on.

I could go back and tweak the first Mystwatch book until I die. It will always be a book with a slow start and a slow build. The second book will always switch plots halfway through. And the third book will always get bigger every time I read it, because there's always more I want to add to the world. For Mystwatch, I really just want to put book 2 back together and walk away. Maybe publish it so Aron can read it, with poorly designed stock photo covers. Maybe next time I visit, I can talk to him about my cover ideas, about either using the iStock photos or having Mary model for me. 

But I think it might be time to let Mystwatch go and move on. No self-publishing on Amazon for everyone to read. Just an on-demand set of books for friends and family that want to read it.

I know how to start books with a hook, now. Or at least, I did when I started Sleepy Shoals. The books I've written will always have a special place in my heart. I wouldn't be the writer I am without them. Although again, I haven't been much of a writer for over a year at this point.

But maybe I can be a better writer if I let go of the projects holding me back, and instead, move forward with new projects. Projects I started when I knew how to write a book, rather than projects I learned how to write a book with.

So, yes. I think in June, I would like to do some writing. I don't know how much, yet. And as excited as I am about Sleepy Shoals...I might actually start with Sally Prescott.

I am scared to start into a book that has such a great first chapter when I am this rusty at writing. If I can get through a SP adventure, maybe finish up the Witch's Daughter short I never finished back in January. then I will feel more confident about my ability to write this book I've built up to be so amazing in my head.

Because that's what it comes down to. It isn't that I don't have the ability. It's that I lack the confidence in my ability. I know if I just took my time, started slow, thought about each scene before I wrote it, I would be able to continue the momentum into this amazing book. But instead, I'd like to rush headlong into a Sally adventure that I don't have to think too hard or worry about.

Plus that is one of my goals this year. To finish at least one more SP adventure.

Then there's Chain Letter Choice, of course. I don't know what to do about that one. I want to finish it. I know I'm probably 20k shy of getting to the end. It's outlined. I have hashed out most of the details. Although I have forgotten everything Ewan and I talked about for the final order vs. chaos battle, so I will have to re-figure that out. But at the same time...I wonder if that's also a book I should let go of. I wanted so badly to finish it so I could be like, yes, detailed outlines work great for me. But at this point, maybe I need to give up on that idea. I may have to be an immersion writer. A discovery writer. Which might mean I spend six months at a time writing something, then don't write for six months to a year after that. As a hobbyist writer, that's totally okay. I don't have to write every month of the year. I don't even have to write every year.

But I should commit to projects and try to see them through once I start them.

So. I think tomorrow, I am going to try to finish Shadow Self. Friday, I will take a look at what I have for the next SP adventure. And then this weekend, maybe I will do some writing.

It's too damn hot out to do anything else. Summer is here, and outdoor adventures of my own are no fun anymore. Time to escape into other people's worlds.

Escape is good. While I am doing much, much better (after being sick with COVID for the first three weeks of May), I am still not 100% healthy yet. I am confident I will be, soon. But I have just enough energy for something creative, and not quite enough to do more than camp in the backyard or go for short hikes.

I feel optimistic about June. I just need to make sure I make time and make a point to write.

Even if I'm scared. Even if I'm rusty. Even if it's hard. Because it always is. Whether I'm coming back to it after a long break, or if I've been doing it almost every day for a year. It's always hard.

And honestly, that's one of the reasons it's so rewarding.

March Update: I'm so tired

I've mostly been dealing with health crap this month. Finally went to the doctor about my stomach. Not sure what he had me do changed much. I didn't even lose weight on this elimination diet. And I feel like I'm barely eating.

Anyway. This blog isn't about health. It's about writing!

But I didn't write this month. And I don't find it likely that I will in the next few days, either, as I have come down with a cold. Again.

I did get Lisa's copy edit done, though. She published it yesterday! Already some good reviews. It feels good being part of something like that. And although I will be glad to have the time back not doing her copy edits anymore, I will also kinda miss that part, too. Ah, well. Maybe I will go back to it someday. If she'll have me.

At any rate, Lisa's edits have been great practice. I hope to be able to apply all that practice to my own books.

I am planning on doing a SP novella for Camp NaNo next month. Camp NaNo are a good excuse to do SP, and SP is a good way to get back into writing when I haven't for awhile. So I am looking forward to it. Even if I don't get as far as I laid out in my project timeline spreadsheet for this year.

One thing writing adjacent that I did this month (other than Lisa's editing) was cover exploration. I found two and a half covers I adored for the Mystwatch trilogy, and I almost bought them. But then there was some weird stuff from the website I was going to buy them from, so I bailed. Now, I'm poking around on iStock, and I found all the images that were used. I'm debating putting together my own covers from those images. I can get so many images for a membership, or I can just outright buy stuff for probably less than the three covers would have cost. Yes, I will have to do it myself, but if I own the images, maybe someone artistic will take pity on me and help me fix them (Mary or Em or Jack, maybe). Alternatively...and I haven't broached this subject with them yet, but I'm thinking about seeing if Mary will model Diana for me. And then maybe use some Photoshop magic to make them look good. I know she's busy and this isn't really the kind of photography she does, but I think she'd make a perfect Diana, I have a couple of places I'd like to take pictures, I have the crossbow, and I think it'd be so cool to have covers that were taken in Lawrence. It would also be cool to have Mary do them, especially since Aron's the one who wants to read them in hard copy.

Anyway. There's not a huge rush on this. I haven't worked on book 2 edits a year this month. I'd like to get back to them between SP projects. As I mentioned, it's high on my list of things I'd ideally like to finish fixing this year. Along with finishing CLC. But. My energy has been low, my health has been bad, and life keeps freaking happening. So. I'm trying to aim low. I have poor health years every now and then. I guess this is my year.

Poor health and writing do not go very well together. And I'm not going to let myself feel bad for not having the energy to do something that is supposed to be fun. That's only a hobby, now.

February Update: Backtracking

Well, last month, I stated that for February, maybe I'd edit or maybe I'd write short stories or maybe both. What I didn't consider was the possibility of neither.

And that's what I did.

I'm not sure what happened. I lost my drive to finish the Witch's Daughter story, then nothing else seemed interesting, and then I got Lisa's dev edit. I was supposed to get that the 10th, then the 15th, then the 18th, then the 20th, and then it finally came on the 22nd. So of course, I didn't want to start into anything early in February knowing I'd need a week in the middle to work on someone else's book, and then it came over two weeks later than planned, which took up any other time I would have worked on my stuff.

I don't say that to sound bitter, although in hindsight, I guess I am a bit. Trying to leave time for Lisa's stuff takes away from my own. Which, I'm not doing a whole hell of a lot these days. But still. Knowing there are times I won't have any freetime makes it hard to get excited to start anything.

Anyway. I have her copy edit next month, so I'm not sure how much of my own stuff I'll get to in March, either. But. I hope to maybe at least read Mystwatch 1, so I can get into the Mystwatch mindset and maybe poke at book 2 edits. I have April set aside for Sally Prescott, so I hate to get too into anything and then have to switch gears. Copy edits usually take me 10 days or so. So I'd have two weeks, I guess.

Maybe I should just focus on short stories. I can write one of those in a day, if needed.

Or maybe I should just keep relaxing until April.

I don't know. I really thought I'd finally fallen back into this. I was excited. I had a plan.

And now I'm not excited and I'm behind on my plan. Well, not too far behind. If I don't get short stories written this year, that's fine. Those were just a way to tiptoe back into it. I can still work on some of my goals.

I talked to Aron about reading Mystwatch 3. I told him I'd done significant edits on books 1 and 2, so he'd need to reread those, as well. He wants them in hard copy, though. Which means finding covers that aren't awful at the very least. I've spend a lot of today looking at Selfpubbookcovers.com, but things on there are pretty hit and miss. I may be better off just trying harder on my own. Although I did find two that I kinda really like. If I can find a third that matches, maybe I'll do that. Although $300ish on reader copies for my brother...maybe I should hold off on that. I can work on cool covers in the time it will take me to finish editing. It'd be cool to take pictures around Lawrence and use those. Maybe I can even get people to pose in them for me. Jack could make a convincing Shaidron. Mary would be an awesome Diana. Aron could totally be Makai. Then I'd just have to figure out the silhouettes of the creatures I want to include and fuck around with effects and figure out good title/author text.

Yeah. I wanna do this, now. Heh. Sometimes I explore visual mediums to express my creativity. This could be fun. I'll have to brainstorm some ideas. I'm thinking that iconic Lawrence alleyway, the city scape from the top of the parking garage, and then maybe entryways into cemeteries? Oak Hill for sure. Maybe I could venture onto the Haskell grounds. Or maybe under that bridge on the rail trail. The view from Burcham could be neat.

Anyway. That's probably putting cart before horse. But. It's something I've thought a lot about since he requested real books. Getting proofs through Amazon is easy enough. And if they're just for Mary and Aron, they don't have to be perfectly copy edited and proofread. They just have to be as good as I can make them.

So, yeah. My update this month is I didn't do much of anything. I've done a lot of thinking, as usual. Hopefully March, there will be more doing.

January Update: New year, fresh start, old goals

Well, I left off last post not sure I'd actually do any writing in this New Year. And I didn't, to be honest. Not until the very last week. But. After a six-month hiatus...I am making a small amount of writing progress once again.

I talked about this in my main blog a bit, but it seems like half a year is about as long as I ever go without making at least some minimal writing progress. I can't ever stay away. I often need the long rests, especially when I've been hitting projects hard and pushing myself to reach challenging goals.

Which I feel I did last year. The fact that I wrote over 30k words on one novel over a few months was pretty intense. I always need breaks after that. And after the devastation of realizing how much work MystWatch 2 needs, it was difficult to make real progress on that one.

I did finish a whole SP novella. The end is garbage, but it has an ending. And oftentimes, I get to the end and think it's garbage, then go back and read and realize it's not as bad as all that. This was an important adventure, where the stakes get higher and the consequences bigger. It's where a shift in the series starts to happen. So, yeah. It was a hard one to wrap up. And while I don't love the execution of the last third of the story, I do like what happens, so I'm okay to keep going, at least. And I have a great first line for the last adventure of season 2! I'm excited to work on that this year.

Yeah. This year. I sat down at the beginning of January and made something of a plan for this year on my project timeline spreadsheet. As mentioned in my last post, it is mostly just finishing things I didn't finish last year. So finish writing Chain Letter Choice, finish editing MystWatch 2, write an outline for the next novel or two I want to write, and write 1-2 SP novellas. When I sat down to figure out the timeline for that, I got a bit overwhelmed. How does one finish a novel and edit a novel when one hasn't written or edited for half a year?

Well, one starts smaller.

I thought about starting with SP, but I didn't really have the energy for Sally's chaotic good energy. So. I am starting even smaller than that.

Short stories.

I haven't written a short story in awhile. I started a couple last year but never finished them. So, this year, these first two months, I am going to write short stories. I have three or four I want to play around with. The first is the next installment of Witch's Daughter. I'm almost finished. I have written up to the climax scene, then written notes for that, then started writing the resolution. I may not finish it by the end of the month, but I hope to. I should wrap up the month of January with around 5k words. Which is not the 8k words that will get me where I'd like to be by the end of this year. But. It's more words than I've written in the previous six months combined. So I'm counting it as a win.

Next month, I will probably try to write another short story. I have the knights unemployment office one that I really want to write, one about witches I started to write for Althea, one about little kids and a dragon that I'd like to finish for Althea (once I find an ending for it), and then, of course, the Makai short I've been toying with for awhile.

Now, I did put an editing month in for February between short story writing. We'll see how that turns out. Maybe I'll edit next month, maybe I'll write short stories, or maybe both. But yeah. Between now and the end of March, I'd like to finish at least a couple more short stories and start again on the Mystwatch 2 edit.

April is Camp NaNo, so I'll switch to Sally, then. She'll take a bulk of the following few months. She usually takes two months to write a complete adventure, and I'm hoping to write that consecutively this year like I did last year, because that worked pretty well. Once I finish month two of SP, I'll take a break month, where I'll try to outline my next novel. Then for the second round of Camp NaNo, I'll work on fixing and finishing SP 3.1, which I started writing ages ago. It needs massive edits to be able to fit the ending I want on it. So we'll see how that goes.

That puts me way beyond the first half of the year. If all that goes well, August will be more editing, September will be outlining another novel (probably the first Shane spinoff, because I've been thinking about him a lot, and I'll be working on Mystwatch edits in August), then October and November, I will dedicate to wrapping up Chain Letter Choice. I think it needs about 30k more words at this point. Ugh. So much longer than I ever meant for it to be (but I always write long, so that's no surprise). If I do a half-NaNo in November, I only need to do maybe 5k-10k in October.

Then, of course, December is a break. Or maybe one last short story. If I can finish three short stories this year, I will be tickled beyond belief.

And if I can finish all these other projects, as well, I will also be tickled. Maybe even to death. To finish CLC and season 2 of SP, finally edit Mystwatch 2 and get SP 3.1 in line with the rest of the series after starting it back before season 1 was even finished...that will feel so fucking amazing. I don't even care if I don't get any new novels outlined. Although I think it'd be nice to go into 2024 with at least a couple of novels ready to start into. Brand new stories.

Mystwatch 3 I think I had planned to poke at as far as editing this year, but we'll see. I may not have it in me. I may turn it over to my brother and sister for feedback. Since they devoured my other two books. Well, three, because both read Druid Wars, as well.

Anyway. As always, I've gotten way ahead of myself. I've written 4.5k words this year so far. Asking myself to write 70k more and edit a very broken novel seems like a lot.

But I've got 11 more months to face that.

So, yeah. My main goal this year is to finish old goals. So next year can be whatever I want it to be.