May Update: Finally feeling motivated

I don't have a lot to add this month that I didn't cover in last month's update.

Line edits came a week late, so I did them this month instead of last. But! The book is out and it is glorious and Rachel dedicated it to me and made me cry.

I shouldn't have any more book-length projects this year until Kevin gets me his book. Rachel has a few short stories and novellas to throw my way, but those don't take long at all. I should be able to mostly focus on my own stuff the rest of this year, with short breaks to edit for Rachel and Kevin throughout.

I am still querying book one of MystWatch. I'm up to fourteen rejections, with queries out to six at the moment. That puts me a third of the way through my agent list. So that's coming along. More and more I'm thinking this isn't going to be the book that lands me an agent. It's a good book and there's a small group of friends and family who love it, but I don't think it's going to be a huge commercial success. But querying it is good practice. It is also something to make me feel productive while I work on book three and try to clean up other novels.

I haven't done much in the way of working on book three, though. I did spend some time brainstorming some ideas for the YA trilogy in my MystWatch world. I have another scene partially written and I'm solidifying more characters and what the motivation of the big bad might be. That's been a fun one. I'm really no good at YA and I don't read much of it, but it'll be a nice change.

I've been working on a Cafe story this month. My first in a couple of months, so that's good. It's writing, even if it's not much. I'm having fun with it. The prompt was to write a story based on song lyrics. I've always wanted to do "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" so I am, finally. Only I'm kind of making him a good guy, because he's actually hunting werewolves. I've had the song stuck in my head for days, of course. But I still chuckle when I think of it.

I've all but abandoned my adventure series at this point. I want the whole thing to be written because I really like the character arcs, but getting there is painful right now. I haven't quite gotten the formula for each adventure down yet, plus I keep changing the formula even when I nail one down. I also keep trying to write these stories without enough research. I've really pants'ed the last two, and when I got to this one, as fun as it is, it is also going to require more research. The whole series needs research and I'm too lazy at this point to do it. Or maybe less lazy and more disinterested. Other things are more interesting.

Like druids! I really want to push ahead with Druid Wars. Most of book one needs minor tweaks. The first chapter needs a rewrite (my first chapters always do, grr), but the rest are minor things. A few lines here and there. Now, it still needs a beta read. So more might be needed after that. But. I can't even get people to beta read book two of MystWatch. So I'm a bit stuck. I'm hoping the husband will look at it when he's done school. I'm pretty sure that's the next series I want to do.

My Pandemonium series is really original and awesome, but the first book is such a mess. Every time I go in to fix it, I get overwhelmed. Eventually I'll make a to-do list and just do one thing at a time. It's just figuring out where to start. Some things will affect other things. Every time I start pulling on a thread, all of it threatens to come unraveled.

What it all comes down to is, I wish I had more hours to dedicate to writing. I am at a computer for 40 hours a week for the day job. And when I have freelance projects, it's more like 60 hours a week. With the precious few hours I have left, I have to eat and sleep and hang out with my family and walk my dog and read books for fun and get in touch with nature. Therapist appointments and massages and friend/writing group obligations. There's just too much and it's hard to prioritize.

Once I get my writing career rolling, I'll be able to look forward to the day when I can focus more time on it.

Not sure if I've mentioned my goals here, but I plan on being able to write full time within ten years of publishing my first book. And within twenty-five years, I plan on having made a million dollars writing. I'm keeping track. I have a spreadsheet. I just added another $2.50 for the story I sold to Empyreome. I think that puts me at $275 so far. Wooo!

I really thought coming here to talk about my lack of progress for the last month would leave me feeling depressed. But amazingly, I feel more motivated now. I do have a plan. And even not having written a lot, I am still taking steps toward my goals.

And hey. ConQuesT is this weekend. That always recharges my creative batteries, too.

It's May. It's my time of year. I should be able to get back in gear and make some progress after this weekend.

Y'know. As long as life doesn't do anything else to completely derail me. Knock on wood.

April Update: Slow Month, but Gearing Up

It's been a slow month as far as productivity. My least productive month so far this year. I still have another week to throw words at various projects, so I may at least end up on par with last month's word count. But. My writing mojo has taken a hit the last couple of months, obviously.

It doesn't look like the first adventure in the second season of my adventure series will get done by the end of Camp NaNo after all. I do hope to get it done by the end of this year, but it probably won't be until later. I don't feel too bad about putting it off, though. I'm still not certain anything will ever come of this series, so for now it's just supposed to be a fun palate cleanser between larger projects.

I have been gearing up to write book three for MystWatch, though. I've poked at it a day or two without adding much to it this month, but I did tweak the first chapter so I'm not stuck anymore and added stuff to the outline. I should be ready to start seriously writing starting in May.

Still, this month won't be a total loss, even if I don't write any more words. I did a developmental edit on Rachel's next book from Bottle Cap Publishing. I'll probably get line edits for that sometime next week. I have also started to query the first book in my MystWatch series again. I'm back to following my original plan there, where I'll send it out to five or six agents at a time until I get through all the agents on my list, then switch to publishers. I haven't ruled out self-publishing, either. Rachel has been very encouraging, saying that it's a solid enough book that I should do well either way I decide to go.

I had a bit of a job scare yesterday. More and more of my coworkers are being laid off. After spending about an hour looking at potential job prospects, I got really, really motivated to kick into a higher gear as far as my writing career. I can't face another admin pro job, and editing jobs, especially locally, are few and far between. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I haven't been serious about getting a book published--after all, that's been the primary focus of this blog since its inception six years ago--but I've definitely increased my urgency. It's time. The first book is ready. I'm ready. Let's do this.

Of course, this also means getting back to actually writing. I need to work on the third book. And other books, in case this series doesn't land an agent or publisher. I have two other potential book series that may do better, I just need to edit them and clean them up for submission.

Anyway. My plan for this month is to write as many words as I can for episode 2.1 on my adventure novella and do line edits for Rachel's book.

For the rest of the year, my plan is to write book three over the next three or four months, give episode 2.1 another go, write a couple of Cafe stories, then try something completely new and different for NaNoWriMo in November.

Also important to note...I've left my Decembers open for relaxing on my updated project timeline. After NaNo and around the holidays, I'm no good at working. Maybe that'll change this year, but I'd rather look forward to a scheduled break than realize three quarters of the way through the month that I'm not going to get anything done. It's bad for moral.

And as I discovered at work yesterday, low moral equals low productivity. It's a vicious cycle.

One I intend to break when it comes to my own work any way I can.

March Update: More Progress (and some rambling)

I continued to gain momentum through the rest of February and through the first few days of March.

I finished up the adventure novella a couple days into March (although who's keeping that close of track, right?).

I also wrote and submitted a March Cafe story. I'm two for two this year, woohoo!

But since finishing up my February stuff, I am leaning toward a slump. I have a couple of things I could work on this month, but I haven't settled on anything, which means I haven't actually done much work on anything.

I really wanted to dive into the developmental edit of Online Dating for Demons, since I'd finally come to terms with the work it needs and did an editing treatment for it. But. When I sat down with my notes, that all to familiar feeling of disgust and exhaustion hit me.

I don't think I have it in me right now to do the massive edit this beast needs.

This poor novel. It keeps getting pushed back and moved up and then pushed back again. I know from my experience with Monsters of Lawrence that the first edit is always the hardest. You have to really break a novel and put it back together again, and that is scary and torturous.

I keep wondering if this novel will actually ever get there. With MoL, it was definitely a labor of love. I still love that book, even after half a dozen editing passes over five years. ODD...I have always hated it. I hated it when I was writing it. I never wanted to look at it again after I finished. When I got beta reader feedback for it, I made a list of things to do, and then trunked it.

I wonder if it should stay trunked? I mean, I know I was enchanted by it when I read through it to do the editing treatment. So there's something there that I love. I mean, part of it is that I'm daunted by the amount of work it needs. But it honestly doesn't need any more than Towers of Kansas did. I gutted that thing more than once to get it right.

Anyway. That book was slated for this month, but instead I'm working on the first episode of the second season of my adventure series. For a few days anyway. I should be getting a book to edit pretty soon.

So this month will be a bunch of poking at various things until I get that, and then some more poking until Camp NaNo starts in April. I'm planning on finishing up episode 2.1 in April, regardless of what I do in March.

I'll probably write a Cafe story, too. My goal is to do at least six stories for it this year, so if I can get them out on slower months, that'd be ideal.

Maybe I'll try to do more reading this month, too. I'm really struggling with my reading goal for this year. Nothing has really captured my imagination, so everything I've been reading has been a slog. I hope to find something good, soon. Otherwise I'm going to keep plodding through awful books that are short just to add books toward my goal.

Oh, one last thing before I end this for now. I did revamp my project timeline today. I do that when I want to feel like I'm doing something writing-related but am not actually writing. Hah. I now have most of the book projects I want to start on the timeline, including the whole adventure series, so I know when I can start releasing it. At my current rate, it'll be a few years yet. That's probably better. Gives me time to write, edit, and maybe find someone who I trust to proof them for me. I keep thinking maybe I'll throw them at Carina. Sure, the romance doesn't end with a HEA until the very last episode (oh, spoilers and stuff), but that is the over-arching plot. I could probably sell it as urban fantasy, even though I kind of consider it action adventure fantasy. Maybe even mystery, because there is one in each installment. It's basically Indiana Jones meets Stephanie Plum.

I really should save it for myself. I'm getting a bit obsessed with the idea of being published, so I'm endlessly tempted to throw everything I can at the wall to see what sticks.

But writing isn't like making spaghetti. I need to wait until something is completely done cooking before serving it to people, otherwise they'll get salmonella or something.

I still have three years and change before I had hoped to reach my goal. I can take my time at this stage.