May Update: Patterns and Progress

I'm only four months into this year at this point, but I'm keeping up a pretty good routine. My overall goal for this year has been to try to write around 15k words a month and spend at least a little bit of time editing each month. I spent most of January editing, but the last three months, I've been trying to find a balance. With varying degrees of success.

I've noticed some patterns the last few months of tracking my word count and progress. The first half of the months, even if I write every day, I don't seem to make much progress. The writing comes slowly and laboriously. I don't get lost in the world as much. But by the second half of the month, I seem to hit my stride. In April, I had more than one day where I wrote 2k words or more. Six days like that, to be exact. And while the previous two months there wasn't a substantial difference in word count from first half to second half of the month, in April, I wrote 3k words total in the first two weeks, and 16k in the second two weeks.

I don't have a good explanation for this. It could be coincidence. It could be that I expect myself to change gears right at the change of month, and it takes a week or two for my inspiration to catch up. It could be a deadline thing, where I procrastinate the first half of the month, then work to catch up the second half. Which would make sense if the level of energy for writing wasn't so drastically different. Maybe it's a new moon verses full moon thing. The day after the new moon last month, my progress skyrocketed. That's my best explanation so far, since going back and tracking progress over the last year, it seems to correspond with the moon phases. Saying that out loud sounds a bit crazy, so maybe that is all in my head. Who knows.

Regardless, it's nice to see patterns in the month. It's comforting to know that my slumps won't last forever, and that I go through them every month.

At any rate, my goals last month were to finish up SP 2.1 and edit Druid Wars to incorporate beta reader feedback.

The start to the month, like the month before, was slow. Despite sitting down to write every day that first week, I made minimal progress. But the second half of the month, things kicked into gear, and I not only managed to surpass my word count goal for the month, I actually even did manage to finish the adventure, which, until the last couple of days, I wasn't sure I could pull off. I even threw some words on the next adventure, which was fun and ridiculous, but I'm so glad I did it. It'll make Camp in July easier to get into, since I have a start. And easier to finish, since my average word count goal is 15k, and I already have 1.5k words written.

I still haven't worked on Druid Wars, though. I spent about two hours poking at it one day, and I talked to one of my writing friends about some of the edits I had concerns about, but I've not done anything substantial.

I can't put it off any longer, though. The Twitter pitch contest SFFpit takes place on June 28. I want to have this thing ready by then, so that means dev edits this month and line edits next month. My goal is to do dev edits pretty early this month and get them done, so I have at least a couple of weeks between one pass and the next. The only downside of that is I have to shift gears to go right into edits this month. I'm still bathing in the glow of the recently full moon, so it may be hard to choke off the desire to write and shift into the more analytical editing mode. Although I do need to write a scene or two, so perhaps I can focus on that.

The trouble is, I'm still not all that interested in the Druid Wars world. Last month, I attributed my hesitance to fear of having another book ready to query. After a good hard look at the book and the edits I need to make, I realized that a lot of my problem is excitement. I just don't have any for that world right now. So I'll have to make a choice. Continue with my timeline, which means I'm going to have to suck it up and do it anyway, or fall back on my new emerging idea of working on what I want to work on now while I can, since I don't have contractual obligations at this time.

Still, the editing portion of the month wasn't a total loss. I spent a day working on finishing edits to another SP adventure in the first season, so that's something. I just spent so much time working and reworking the outline for the adventure I was doing for Camp that that part of my brain was fried. Plus the aforementioned trouble with interest in what I was supposed to be editing.

The biggest thing I did last month that I didn't really plan for was short story submission. It started as kind of a procrastination technique, but it was also a nice changing of gears. Plus, I've dealt with so much rejection in the last year, I was hoping to get a short story accepted so I would have some success to speak of. Sadly, at this point, that's all been rejections, as well. Although one rejection was kind enough to invite me to submit something else during their submission period because they liked my writing, just not the story I submitted. That was very validating. I even poked at another short story to submit to them for a few days. Although the progress on that was so negligible, I didn't even record the word count on my spreadsheet. I'm sad to have missed that opportunity, but I decided, in the long run, my energies were better spent elsewhere. I just didn't have anything else for them.

Overall, I wrote 19k words in April and spent six hours editing various things. Mostly SP stories.

In May, I really have to do dev edits for Druid Wars. I'll give it a few days to see if I can get myself interested, maybe poke at other projects, but then I'll have to buckle down and force myself to do it. That's my main goal this month.

My other goal is to get back to work on MystWatch book three. Which is good. I'm feeling the pull of that story, the stirrings of inspiration to work on it. If I can throw another 15k words at it this month, I should be able to wrap it up with another 15k next month. If all goes well. If it doesn't, I can finish it up in July. But come August, I have got to put this world behind me and move on to the next big thing.

I've been feeling a bit unsettled the last month, since the two main projects I've actually worked on are projects that I will have to self-publish if I want to see them in print. Which isn't to say it's not good practice writing and editing or that someday I won't be glad to have these things. But I'm getting more and more impatient with myself. I turn 40 in less than three years, now. I can't help but feel like I'm running out of time.

Which is silly. It's not like I'm going to stop trying when I hit 40. I have an impressive body of work. I'm not limited to mainstream publishing, and everything is fodder down the line. I know I just have to keep at it. And I will. I just have to be okay with adjusting my expectations from time to time. That's why this blog is so necessary. I have to check in with myself every month, see how I'm doing and incorporate new information to my ever-evolving goals.

I'm right where I should be, doing the things I should be doing. It's all going to work out.

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.

March Update: Valuable Lessons

Despite a few days of complete inability to write more than a hundred words on anything, I am very, very impressed with my progress in February. It was touch-and-go toward the end. I had to write like mad for a few days, but I got very close to my 15k word goal on book three. And wrote another two thousand words on a completely unrelated project. Go me!

I also managed to get Druid Wars off to beta readers. One of them read it straight through in six hours and told me it was phenomenal. So that's heartening. It also means that I spent a lot of last month researching agents for this book. As always, cart before horse, but in some ways it's good. Future Sara, when she's ready to submit, will be glad that groundwork has been laid. I even have a crappy draft of a query. And an even crappier draft of a synopsis. But. Progress!

My plan right now is to split March into editing Druid Wars and writing more on book three. With my writing goal only being 15k words, I should be able to do both. That way, by the end of March, I'll be ready to go full speed into (hopefully) finishing up book three in April. I'd really, really like to finish book three done in April. May at the latest. I kind of want to finish it during a Camp Nano, though, since this series began in a Camp Nano. There's a certain amount of poetry there.

Either way, I can do an in-depth line edit of Druid Wars in May so that by the end of May, hopefully, I can start querying. If all goes well and according to plan (although when does it ever?). I've got 35 agents lined up that I'll submit to in batches of seven. I haven't decided if that's seven a week or just seven at a time, sending one back out for every rejection I get. Either way, it shouldn't take more than five or six months to get all that out and back, which leaves me at the end of this year ready to try publishers for Druid Wars. I'll cross my fingers that Apex and/or Angry Robot does open subs again, but if not, I will do Tor, Daw, Red Adept, and maybe even Ant Colony (a new, local KC press that liked tweets for Druid Wars awhile back).

That'll take me through about this time next year, which is when I'll be working to get MystWatch ready to put out into the world myself. I am pretty sure which cover artist I'm going to use. I still haven't found an editor, but I still have time. I won't worry about that this year. It's cart before horse, as I so often do.

I have to remind myself that this month, all I need to do is write 15k words on book three and edit Druid Wars book one. That's all I have to focus on. Because if those two things do not get done, the rest of my five-year plan can't happen.

Although I will say that I sat down and calculated that if I were to write at least 5k words a month the rest of the year, book three would be done by the end of this year anyway. I'd like to write it faster than that, obviously, but that was a nice realization. It will get done this year. I can write that much on anything in a month. Even bad ones.

And I'm bound to have at least some good ones if history is any indication.

Although as I showed last month, a few bad days or even a bad week doesn't equal a bad month. I had only written about eight thousand words on book three when I got stuck. I hated everything I'd ever written. I couldn't even power through. That only resulted in a hundred words or so each day and me hating writing even more. Thankfully, my zombie apocalypse choose-your-own-adventure sparked my interested, so I worked on that for a couple days, which seemed to have recharged me.

I learned two pretty valuable lessons this month.

First, sometimes I just have to change projects. If I hadn't worked on Druid Wars and Suddenly, Zombies! I might not have found the creative energy to write as much on book three as I did. Other projects can recharge my creative batteries, so I should never feel bad about working on something else, even at the risk of not reaching a monthly project goal.

And second, I am not the type of writer who is going to write every day. I know that so many "real" writers tell you to sit down and knock your words out every day, like you go to work every day. And I can do that sometimes. NaNo, namely. But then I have to take a month or two off. On months that I take a few days off between big spurts of writing, I am able to more consistently write. Even September last year, by far my best non-NaNo month ever, I took a few days off here and there, and nearly a week at the end.

Sure, I could probably start publishing sooner, and make more money once I do, if I were to push myself to write more than 20k words a month. But honestly? I think I'd burn out so much faster if I didn't give myself time to breathe. Pushing harder on creative endeavors doesn't actually equate to more product. Besides, 20k a month for ten months a year equals 200k words. I'd say that's two books and some shorts, wouldn't you?

Right now, my goal is to get 15k words a month somewhat consistently. I can work my way up from there once I start actually publishing. It's going to vary month to month, especially if I get a lot of freelance work. Or we travel. Or I'm depressed (although I've managed my depression a lot better lately...that's no guarantee for future success). Or if I'm having a stellar month. Or a NaNo month. Or a massive rewriting of an old draft month (see Online Dating for Demons when that comes up later this year). I think, though, that taking all that into account, I could probably average 15k words a month.

Anyway. As always, TL;DR: my goal this month is to write another 15k words on book three (putting me at 80k words total) and to incorporate beta reader feedback into book one of Druid Wars. I may poke at my zombie book, too, if I get to feeling bored or tired. I may even write a Cafe story. The prompt interests me.

And my achievements last month were: getting Druid Wars off to beta readers, putting together an agent list and drafting a query for it, writing 14k words on book three, and poking at my choose-your-own-adventure novel.

I also put together a 10-year plan for my publishing career. It's equal parts terrifying and do-able. That's why I put so much stress on myself to meet my goals last month. I want to stay on pace so this amazing plan can actually work. It may not. I even toyed with the idea of pushing it all back a year to give myself some breathing room. I still might, but for now, I'm keeping it as-is. My long-term plans are always flexible.

I also found my quarter-hourglass I bought for NaNo a few years ago. Well, I found it awhile back, but I actually used it to push myself to write the last few days of February. There was a night my friends convinced me to commit to writing for 15 minutes before gaming the other day. I did about 20 minutes, writing 750 words. Not too shabby for a short little spurt! After trying this out with my quarter-hourglass a few nights, I discovered that if I think about what comes next in a scene and know where I'm going before starting a timer, I can write about two thousand words over three fifteen-minute sprints. It just takes some focus, a glass of whiskey, some bumping tunes, and my quarter-hourglass a few times. Seems to be a recipe to push through the "I don't wanna's" and get the words written.

We'll see how that works this month and if it continues to work for Camp NaNo next month. Even if I just do one sprint a day, that's progress. Good progress. So yeah. Days I need to write and can't seem to focus, that's what I'll do.

But I'll also give myself breaks some days, too. Breaks so I don't break. Breaks so it stays fun.

Because Jack reminded me that I don't have any contractual obligations at this point, so writing can still just be fun. It should be fun. These may be the precious few years it's still fun. I need to fully embrace that. I lose sight of that a lot of the time, but when I let go and stop pushing, writing is still magic for me.