Writerbrain, I really don’t need *another* novel idea right now. Sigh.
I’m easing my way back into writing. Messing about with character outline and the like for Reqiuem. Thinking about actually starting to write, and finding that the brain isn’t quite wanting to go there yet. It’ll happen. Hopefully soon.
While I’m sure you appreciate me giving you a break, throwing an entire new novel idea at me is perhaps not the best way to show that appreciation.
Gah.
I’m taking some time off from the crazed sprint towards that vanishing point.
Which also means that I’m officially abandoning Nanowrimo this year. It’s just too close on the heels of working on the edits of Shaede, and I don’t have the mental energy to tackle a fresh book right now. The body is making all kinds of protests that I’ve been doing too much lately as well, and rather than fall into a full-on lupus flare, I’m taking a step back.
In one of the universe’s great moments of synchroncity, I read a post by Elizabeth Bear last week about her own struggles with writing method and speed. I greatly admire her, and it seemed like really good timing for her to post something like this.
The plan right now is to not really have a plan. Before the end of the year, I’d like to have everything ready to start submitting Shaede to agents again (this means getting a good query written as well as going through and doing minor edits based on feedback from my betas). I’d like to at the very least have a rough outline of Requiem finished as well.
Amusingly, once I made the decision to stop with Nano, my brain started working on Reqiuem again. Just getting to know the characters and world. I’m not going to push myself into headlong writing right now. If the need to write comes, then so be it. But even when I’m not actively typing, I’m still working – I need to remind myself of that. It’s not all about the hours at the keyboard – there’s a lot more that goes into writing than that.
So, posting may slow down (or increase, depending on where my head goes!).
Right now, I feel like hell physically. But my mind is blessedly free of brainfog and I can think. And I can write.
I woke up this morning itching to write in a way that I haven’t for a long, long time. In a moment of synchronicity, one of my beta readers sent me some feedback about Shaede overnight – just the kind of feedback I need to rework this into something better.
And so I embark upon another draft of Shaede. Hopefully this won’t take me overlong to go through – the bones are there, it’s just time to make them look pretty.
Time for some stats! Borrowing a page from Cherie Priest in the way she formats her daily work here.
Today’s progress:
Project: Shaede draft four
New words: 3,136
Total word count: 3,136
Goal: 100,000 words (or thereabouts)
Observations: Gah, I had a lot of writing tics in just the first chapter. And a lot of useless rambling. I’d forgotten how much I love the setting of The Crossing, though.
Things accomplished in real life: I stayed alive. Didn’t move much from the couch or the laptop, thanks to the fibro flare from hell. Painkillers are keeping the worst of the pain damped down, though.
Total words for 2008: 270,080
Hey, writerbrain and men in the basement, it’s not that I don’t appreciate you working. I do, especially when you’re tying together bits and piece of Thought and Memory. Even when they mean that I’m going to have to go back and rewrite a few sections.
I do, however, mind being woken up at 7am on a Sunday morning with these relevations.
There may be just a little bit of annoyance at the fact that you also seem to be working on a sequel to Thought and Memory, despite the fact that I already have several other books lined up to work on. I guess that might be changing, huh?
It looks like spending most of the day yesterday messing about with the website and watching season one of Arrested Development is good for the writerbrain. Go figure.
I’ve been on holiday. A real holiday, if you don’t count that pesky house moving stunt and assorted Yule and New Year’s festivities.
By holiday, I mean that I haven’t written a single thing.
It was strangely liberating at first. I had all this time to watch television, to read, to organise the new house. I didn’t get to waste time online, for we were without an internet connection (see pesky house moving).
As the days ticked by, I felt as though I was missing something. A limb, perhaps. I didn’t feel like myself. In my normal, plodding Taurean way, it took me a while to figure out what was missing. The writing.
It never fails to astound me how blind I can be to the things that are right in front of me.
Getting back into it is daunting. I have a third draft of Thought and Memory half completed. I also have a new novel developing in the back of my mind. And because that isn’t enough, I also have a yen to work on some short fiction. I have a bunch of stuff that should be trunked, but I want to see if there is anything that can be salvaged.
Two weeks of holiday is clearly enough time for me to recharge the writer batteries and really want to get back to it.
I confess, I keep on forgetting to post over here, and keep on posting over at my livejournal instead. My excuse is that I have a handy-dandy little program that makes it easy to post to LJ. I need to spend some time hunting out an easier way to post to WordPress.
I also need to upgrade to the newer version of WordPress. And I’m itching to do a makeover of the look of the WordPress journal. So many of the templates out there just look the same as everything else.
No writing today, mainly due to the fact that I’m in flare. Life has been full of stress of late (namely the stress of selling and buying a house, and a death in the family) and it’s taking its inevitable toll right now. I’m hoping that a few days of resting will help things, since I’ll need energy next week for packing and moving. I’m unsure as to whether I’ll be getting any writing done for the next few weeks.
The good thing is that I’ve been itching to write all day, even though I haven’t had the energy or focus. I’m not good at giving myself holidays, when it comes down to it. Not that I’ll be lolling about eating bon-bons, mind, even if I’m not writing. We have a house full of stuff to move and then organise, a funeral, a wedding and then the usual holiday stuff. It’s a busy month indeed.
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