About a month ago, I decided to make some changes to my writing process. I’d noticed that a lot of time was passing between book releases, and that even though I was writing almost every day, there wasn’t much to show for it.
My old process tended to go in one of two ways:
ONE
“I have the coolest idea for a story! Ima drop everything and write it now!”
Writes the first chapter.
“Okay, it’s not quite as cool as I’d imagined, but I can work with this.”
Writes another chapter or two.
“Hmm, this story is starting to have issues. Maybe it’s not as cool as I thought it was.”
Gets writer’s block for a couple of days. Struggles to do anything productive.
“Dammit, why isn’t this story coming together? I should be doing 2k words a day, but I can barely manage 500. If this story is really that bad, then maybe it’s not the project I should be focusing on right now. Maybe I shouldn’t even be writing it at all.”
Gets discouraged and takes off a couple of days.
“I have the coolest idea for a totally different story! Ima drop everything and write it now!”
TWO
“It’s been forever since I actually finished anything, so I am going to stick with this project until it is DONE.”
Writes productively for a week or two.
“Yes! The story is coming together just like I knew it would!”
Reaches a difficult scene.
“Why am I not as productive as I was last week? I can do better than this! Words, dammit! Words!”
Struggles to finish the difficult scene. Loses all momentum and enthusiasm.
“Okay, that was pretty tough, but at least it’s finished. I am really, really, really excited about this random shiny story idea that came to me yesterday, but I have to stick with my current work in progress until it is DONE.”
Procrastinates for hours every day. Watches in dismay as productivity falls.
“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME??”
Tries for weeks to regain enthusiasm for the project. Invariably fails.
“Maybe I should work on something else.”
It went on like this for the better part of a year, which is why I haven’t published anything for the last six months (until Friends in Command, that is). And honestly, it’s not a lot of fun. When you feel like you should be more productive but don’t seem to really be getting anywhere, it’s very easy to lose touch with the passion that made you want to be a writer in the first place.
So back in May, while hiking in the mountains, I thought about it for a while and asked myself: what is the 20% of what I do that produces 80% of the results?
The answer, interestingly enough, wasn’t “butt in chair, hands on keyboard.” I’d been doing that for months, and all I had was a dozen unfinished projects to show for it. For me at least, merely showing up to work is not enough to produce results.
In 2014, one of my resolutions was to publish a new release every six weeks. I didn’t keep that resolution perfectly, but I did keep a regular release schedule right up to the holiday season. At that point, I ran into some troubles with Friends in Command and pushed the publication date back (which in retrospect was definitely the right thing to do). I abandoned my release schedule (which was not the right thing to do) and fell into the traps I mentioned above.
When I write without a goal beyond a daily word count, I tend to spin my wheels. In contrast, when I write with a set of goals for a project timeline, such as deadlines for finishing the first draft, sending it out to first readers, making revisions, and preparing the finished project for publication, I tend to get stuff done.
So I streamlined my writing process by giving myself more structure: a WIP log with writing deadlines and publishing schedules. And this is how it works now:
ONE
“I’m really excited about my next project! I’ve been thinking about it for weeks, ever since I put it on the schedule, and now I can finally work on it! Yay!”
Writes for a week. Gets the coolest idea for a totally different story.
“I have the coolest idea for a totally different story! Ima put it in the WIP log and schedule it for… let’s see… two months from now. That should give me something to write while I’m getting project X ready for publication.”
Continues to work on current WIP.
TWO
“It’s time to finally finish this thing so that I can publish it six months from now.”
Writes productively for a week or two. Reaches a difficult scene.
“This story is not coming together, and my deadline is coming up. I don’t know if I’ll reach my deadline. I’d better swap places with this and project Y in the publishing schedule to make sure I have something to publish.”
Keeps writing anyway. Begins to lose momentum and enthusiasm.
“Well, I’m not going to finish this project by my deadline. However, I have enough time that I can take another shot at it six weeks from now, after finishing project Z. I’ll write what I can by the deadline, then box it up so that I can approach it with fresh eyes when the time comes.
Writes until the deadline and sets unfinished project aside. Starts next project with renewed enthusiasm.
In June, I spent most of my time working on Captives in Obscurity (Sons of the Starfarers: Book V). I hoped to finish the project by the first week in July, but I hit a really difficult scene about midway through. Instead of forcing myself to stick with it, though, I pushed on until the deadline and left it unfinished so that I could pick up the next WIP on the schedule.
I think that was the right thing to do, because changing it up has helped to keep things fresh, both for Captives in Obscurity and my current WIP, Heart of the Nebula. Instead of bringing heaps of baggage to the next project, I’m starting clean, and things are going quite well. With luck, Heart of the Nebula should be up for pre-order in September and published over Thanksgiving week. As for Captives, I’ll come back to it in September with fresh eyes, which will not only help me to fix what was broken, but finish the first draft in a few weeks, rather than taking months to agonize over it.
So that’s what I’ve been up to. Hopefully it will lead to lots and lots of books in the coming months and years!
So I’m at Cape Cod right now, vacationing with family for the next full week. Since my parents are moving from Massachusetts from Iowa, this will probably be the last time that we come up here, at least for a very long while. I’m doing my best to enjoy it, which means that I’m not doing much writing at all.
