August Update: Better late than never!

I called myself out last post about how I should do these blogs when I'm thinking of it rather than waiting. I thought about doing it Friday the 28th but decided to wait for Monday the 31, but...I should have known better. It was mom's death day, and I ended up not even getting on the computer at all.

I really might just go back to doing these at the beginning of the month rather than the end. Mostly because I never know how the month is going to shake out until that last day, and sometimes, that last day has me staying up late to finish up projects.

In this case, I'm glad I waited. Because last night, I finished up the Mystwatch Shane short story I've been trying to write for years. I'm not completely in love with how I got to the end, so it may change, but at least I can say I have a complete zero draft. Can't edit something I haven't written yet.

So that's my big accomplishment since I started working on it again on August 27th. The last time I'd added words was back in February. It feels good to have it done. It's about four thousand words more than I intended (the Makai short is only 3k and this is just over 7k), but I think it needed to be. The Makai one was more just to get a glimpse of what goes on in his head and some backstory on how he got his scar (and what his relationship to Lindsay was). Shane's story is actually a cohesive story, where Shane goes out and does something on his own. So it needed more words, I think.

Anyway. I've finished one of my outstanding short stories. I also finished my outlining pass of Mystwatch book 2. It took a lot longer than the "few days" I predicted last update. It took almost all month. After nearly 17 hours of work, I've got another 13k word document full of the chapter outlines and all the things I want to do in each chapter to make the plot and character motivations more cohesive. It's somewhat discouraging, since now I have a TON of work to do on this book that I thought was good enough. But I want to do it. I'm, well, not excited to do it, but I am eager to make it the book it deserves to be. I just needed a little break from editing. I've been in the mood to write, so that's what I'm going to do for a bit.

I thought I needed a break from the Mystwatch world, but the story I really wanted to work on was Shane's. Now that that's done, I have a few other things I want to poke at. My biggest goal for the next month is to wrap up the Witch's Daughter short story I was supposed to publish to the Cafe a year ago come October. It bugs me that I never did finish that story or get it up there. I know I don't owe the Cafe a thing, but I always meant to finish this story and post it, so that's what I'm going to do next. One of these days, I might revisit that character and that world and either put together a collection of stories about her, or just outright write a novel for her. I even found a cool cover on Selfpubbookcovers for it.

Oh! Speaking of covers from that website. I actually bought a cover I've been coveting for awhile. I can't remember if I mentioned this or not, but Rachel talked me into buying the cover for the first Druid Wars book. I've loved it since I first saw it, so I dropped a hundred bucks last month and bought it. Which means, of course, that I need to get cracking on book 2 one of these days. I do have about 100 words written on it, and they're good words. I like the beginning, and I can hear Osiris's voice in my head. So. That will come before too much longer. Maybe spring next year when I get past my winter slump where I tend to do better with editing.

I'm doing better at recognizing my cycles. When fall hits, I am in the mood to write. Late spring to early summer, too. Late summer and the doldrums of winter I do better with editing. So I'm trying to map out the projects I want to work on according to those rhythms. Rachel and I are still meeting online a few times a week to poke at our projects, so I am making slow but steady progress these days. The worst thing for me is to sit down for writing time and have no idea what to work on. That's why I started the writing project spreadsheet all those years ago. Not as a publishing schedule, but as a way to make sure I always had something lined up next. It got overwhelming and detrimental when I started treating it like a deadline thing, where if I got behind, I was never going to make it as a writer. I've actually started using Mywriteclub again to track my projects, for now. Maybe I'll go back to that spreadsheet if Rachel and my writing times continue to go well.

They have been going really well, though. They're low-key, no pressure, celebratory of our progress, no matter how small, but forgiving of the slower, less progressive days. And if we need a break, we don't meet. It's really everything I need in a writing date. And once the world isn't ending anymore, maybe we'll start going places to meet in person. Or maybe not. It's nice to be able to write without pants or a bra and be able to wander to the kitchen for a snack if I need one.

Anyway. That's my update for the last month and my plan for the upcoming month.

Beyond that, I'm thinking I might try to finish the next Sally Prescott adventure, since I've been trying to write at least one of those a year. I had thought about calling that one quits, but I read back through the last few adventures and found myself laughing outloud, excited to read the next one. They're fluffy, fun reads that don't matter. Published under a pen name, I can enjoy the money if people like them but not worry about people refusing to read my other work if they don't. But. That's a long ways down the line. Mystwatch and probably Druid Wars come before SP. I need at least three seasons written before I start publishing them, anyway.

The only other thing I wanted to note is that, right now, I'm no longer committed to having Mystwatch book 3 ready for Christmas. I think what I may tell my siblings is that, I want to self-publish these. To wait for the re-reads and the final book for when they have been through an actual editor. Actually formatted. They've waited this long. What's another year and a half, two years? And they may disagree, and maybe I'll give them cleaned up book 1 and 2 for Christmas and tell them I expect book 3 to be ready sometime next year. I am thinking about editing it in January/February when I'm itching to edit something.

But. That relies on me having book 2 ready by the end of this year so Rachel can read 1 and 2 in order to beta read 3. My plan right now is to do my book 2 fixes once I've gotten over my writing mood. Probably November/December. I think for September and October, I will keep writing. If I get through SP, I might even work on Once We Were Witches or Sleepy Shoals. Or Druid Wars. Or maybe something new!

I'm excited (and a little overwhelmed) to have so many options. But, I know I will be able to keep plugging along, because Rachel and I have a good system. Any fatigue is short lived. We get each other excited about writing, and encourage progress in a relaxed, no-pressure way. We're going to do this. We are doing this!

I'll let you know how it's going once October hits.

July Update: Foundation work on book two (and beyond)

Here we are. July is drawing to a close, and I'm actually doing a blog post before it does. I would have liked to wait a couple more days, but I know myself. If I wait, I will forget.

So, it's been a very busy month for me, writing wise. I mean, I haven't worked a great number of days, but I have spent more than 15 hours working through the rest of MystWatch book 2 this month. I finally finished my read-through.

That's the good news. The other good news is, there are a lot of really great scenes, in this book. But, there's bad news. Jack was right when he beta read for me. Well, it's not bad that he was right. It's bad that I ignored what he said and didn't fix things. Now, I have to fix those things. And there are a lot of things. An almost 10k word document of notes on things I want to fix. Luckily, a lot of those words are brainstorms on how to fix stuff, and also things I like. Regardless, I have my work cut out for me.

But, I'm ready and willing to do the work. I'm deeply immersed in the world. I have a lot of ideas on how to make this book better. A lot of that is helped out by the fact that I've also finished writing book 3. I can use that to inform some of the things that need to happen (or are left out) in this book. Some of those things are going to require a lot of rewriting, and some of those things only a few sentences here and there. I'm looking at doing a lot of cutting, too. One chapter entirely is heading for the cutting room floor. The book was around 123k when I went into this edit. It's up to almost 125k now, and I haven't even begun the bigger edits. I'm hoping to keep it around 125k, so once I finish this developmental edit, I may have to do some intensive surgery at the language level.

I'm really proud of myself for working so hard this month. Rachel and I have set up a loose writing schedule, where we aim for Tuesdays and Thursdays and one weekend day. The sessions can be an hour or two hours or three hours, depending on the day and how we feel. We've canceled several of them, but also met several times. It's helped us both keep accountable and make progress. It's so laid back and chill, with her. We say hello, we state what we're working on, then settle in for 20 or 30 minutes. And then we check back in, unless we're on a roll. If we can keep that up, we'll both be in good shape.

Of course, I do sometimes write outside of our meetings. And I think someday she will, too. We're setting up a foundation, right now. We've both had our writing homes obliterated by disaster, so we're both starting from the ground up again. Luckily, we're experienced builders. We just have to learn to trust ourselves again, trust that we know what we're doing.

I am a much better writer, now, than I was when I wrote (and edited) this book. The fixes are necessary. There was a time I thought about just doing a copy edit and leaving it, but I can make this book so much better. And I want to. I'm excited to. Which is an awesome feeling. I haven't been excited to write and edit in awhile. Leave it to MystWatch. It always gets me excited.

My plan right now, since I've written up some notes on a couple of plot fixes, is to do another quick read of this book, making notes of what happens in each chapter. I found I had a hard time figuring out where to insert the new plot elements because my old book outline is out of date. So, going through, writing up chapter synopses, and then inserting editing notes for each chapter is what I'm going to work on for the next few days. That will likely bleed into next month. I'm assuming it'll take at least a week to get through this entire thing again. That said, I'm slow at work this week, so I can sneak in some of this work on work time.

Basically, I'm making up what I call an editing treatment. I've already done that for this book once or twice before, but clearly it needs it again. I was tempted to do it for book 1 again, but at this point, I don't think I'm going to do much more editing on that book. Heh. Famous last works.

At any rate. I'm going to keep working on this book until I get sick of it or feel too much fatigue to move on. That could totally happen after my summary pass. I hope not. I'm starting to feel short on months. It's August, in a few days. I'm starting to worry I may not have book 3 ready by Christmas. I have four months and change. Some of that will be time that Rachel is reading the books. At least when I reach that point, I can start to explore other projects.

Other projects are beginning to tantalize me. I've been in the mood to write new fiction for about a month now. I will probably switch to writing brain when I reach capacity on work for book 2. Not sure what I will work on, first, but I admit to being very tempted to dip my toe back into Druid Wars, even after swearing it off last month. I showed Rachel the cover I've been coveting for the first Druid Wars book, and she loves it. So, I told myself, if I can get a good start on book 2, I may allow myself to drop the $100 on it. I've been in love with it for years, and it still hasn't sold. It must be mine.

And that's pretty much it for me. July was mostly work on book 2 of MystWatch. My goal for August is to do the editing treatment and get started on fixes. I hope to keep meeting Rachel online as often as we can, and maybe even keep doing a day here and there on my own. And those times I get to feeling overwhelmed, I'll just remember what Jack told me. One step at a time. Baby steps are still steps, as they say.

One step at a time. One foot in front of the other. I'm going to get through this. One way or another.

May and June Updates: The Series I Can't Seem to Quit

Pandemic time is so weird. It feels like I've been sheltering at home for years, but at the same time, I somehow completely missed that it's been two months since I last updated by writing blog.

The kinda bummer about not updating last month is that I actually did some work I wanted to talk about! But, it wasn't a ton of work, so it's fine just mentioning it in this update.

So, in my last post, I determined I no longer wanted to be a career writer. I do want to publish a book or several sometime in my life, and that may be traditional but is more likely to be self-publishing. That hasn't changed. In fact, if anything, I feel even more strongly about that. Both of those things, actually. That I definitely don't want to rely on writing to make a living, for sure. But more and more, I am becoming increasingly more certain that I do not want to deal with traditional publishing at all. It's a mess out there, and I am not young or hip or savvy enough to keep up with it all. Nor do I have the energy to try. Which, I admit, isn't a great attitude. But, it is what it is. That is how I feel about my writing.

I also mentioned last entry that I might look into the MystWatch books, if I had the energy and was so inclined. And it turns out that I was, in fact, inclined! It took me a couple of weeks, but I went through book 1 and did some cleanup on things that have always bothered me, incorporated some information about crossbows now that I've actually fired one, and tweaked a few scenes that didn't flow as well as others. I have done some really amazing work on that book. There are so many scenes where I'm just like, yeah, I nailed it. That needs no additional tweaking. I would love to get every single scene that perfect, but I recognize that's probably too much to expect. Anyway. It was a fun little romp into a world and a story I love so, so much.

And then I stepped into book 2, thinking that, like book 1, it would probably be a fun little romp where I'd have to fix a few things and edit on a higher level.

Boy was I wrong. By the end of the third chapter, I was seriously thinking that I might have to completely rewrite this book. Fortunately, I pushed on, and now, about 10 chapters in, I think I have found a fairly easy solution to fix a lot of my problems with the book. Trouble is, I stalled out on chapter 10 weeks ago. I just couldn't face the book and all the work it needed. I thought this was a fairly polished book! And while it did go through many developmental passes, it really never went through the other phases of edits. Why would it? It's the second book in a trilogy that didn't get picked up.

I was so close to just saying fuck it. Why bother editing this? I don't really owe it to anyone. I've considered it finished for awhile. Why dig into it, now?

But that was lazy writer brain talking. Since I do plan on self-publishing these books someday, I know I need to do this work. Even if I don't plan to publish them for another few years, any work I do on this book now is less work I will have to do down the line. If I can get a solid developmental edit done now, that will be one less editing step I have to pay for. And the next time I read it, it will be a more fun copy edit or even proofread edit, like book 1 was this time around.

Anyway. I haven't done any writing work for nearly two weeks. Not until this morning, when I started kicking around ideas on how to fix the plot problems book 2 has. And now, while I won't say I'm super excited to dive back into it, at least I have a clearer idea on what I need to do to fix it. I just have to decide if I want to start back at the beginning and fix things moving forward, or keep plugging away at my readthrough. I think probably the latter. That way, if I run into more problems, I can brainstorm fixes for those, then I can work to implement all of those things in one big editing pass.

So, yeah. I got a chunk of editing and rewriting done over the past two months. I'm hoping to at least finish my readthrough of book 2 in July. I'm not sure I'll start implementing edits next month unless I get a big burst of creative energy. It could happen, I suppose.

I've also been thinking a lot about my newest novel. All 3k words of it. And also Once We Were Witches. I've been in a very witchy mood these days. So maybe I'll get some actual writing done one of these days. I'd also love to finish writing Chain Letter Choice at some point. That book is over halfway finished, and although it will probably need some structural edits, it seems dumb to waste that much of a written book.

Says the writer who has cut loose all of the novels I've written prior to the last couple of years. Yeah. I decided going back to work on Online Dating for Demons or Dante novels or even the next Druid Wars book was not work I was excited to do, and, in fact was causing me more anxiety than anything. I think nowadays I'd like to look forward rather than back.

Except for MystWatch, for some reason. I'm always drawn back to that series, no matter how long ago I started writing it (nine years ago this summer, if you're curious...which is, interestingly enough, about the same age as this blog). It's the series I can't seem to quit. I don't know what it is about it that I love so much. I still get that excited writer feeling when I read back over it, or when I think about the characters or the things that happen. I often think about what the characters would be doing now (well, not now now, since I have no idea how they'd handle a pandemic...they don't seem like they'd be great at social distancing). I have at least two spinoff series ideas. Even after all this time, I'm still passionate about it. Maybe it's because it's my first finished novel and my first finished trilogy. But I can't help but think there may be more to it than that. Maybe there truly is something magical about it.

And hey, if I'm only writing for myself, I am free to explore that magic anytime it comes calling. I have no obligations to anyone to write other things or give up on this story that still gives me goosebumps sometimes. Sometimes I do fear that I'm stuck. That maybe I should move on. But I can't think of a reason why I should. I've written other things. I still haven't published this, so I can still keep making it better. And I do. Every pass, I add something that makes it better. As long as I still enjoy that process, I don't feel like I should have to quit.

Ehem. Sorry. That was a bit of a tangent. I've been having a lot of worries lately, almost bordering on guilt, that I keep working on this trilogy. I know that's dumb. It's my world and my writing hobby.