Goals and Plans – Page 20 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Living in a state of limbo

Graduation was today. I’ve got another year left, but a lot of my friends are moving on. I took my last exam of the semester on Monday, and my contract at the FLSR ends Saturday morning at 10 am.

And I have no idea where I’ll be living for the summer.

There’s a chance I might be going to New York for an internship with Brandon Sanderson’s agent. My friend Steve has been planning to move to New York in June, to try and break into writing for Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock, and I thought it would be really cool to live with him while working/interning/whatever in the publishing world there. I asked Brandon if he knew of any openings with editors/agents for a summer intern, and he got back to me with the news that his agent was looking to take one on.

Well, I got in touch with the guys over at JABberwocky literary agency at the beginning of the month, sent them a resume, had a phone interview, and…haven’t heard back yet. They told me they’d get back to me after the London book fair, which was this past weekend, so…I’m still waiting to find out what they say. I think the interview went okay, though I heard from Brandon that they’ve got a lot of other people itching to get this internship. College graduates. With degrees in editing and publishing.

So…I don’t know what’s going to happen. It would be WAY awesome to go to New York City this summer, and really awesome to be an intern in the publishing world. REALLY awesome. I’ve been following the publishing world, especially the sf&f corner of the publishing world, for a couple of years now. It would be great to get in there and see it up close, see how it works, see what kind of career opportunities exist there and meet the people who are involved in all that.

If it doesn’t work out, though, that’s still okay. I’ve got a backup plan. It’s not as awesome, but it still works. If I don’t go to New York, I’ll probably spend spring here in Provo, taking a break from classes and working odd jobs here and there (private English tutor–my boss at the FHSS Writing Lab can set me up with that–Arabic tutor, freelance editing, temp campus jobs during some of the conferences out here, etc). I’d also spend some serious time working on my writing, and attend some of the major local sf&f conventions, such as BYU Writers and Illustrators for Young Readers and CONduit. I might even be able to go home over summer term and attend Worldcon in Montreal.

I’ve got two finished rough drafts right now and two others that are only halfway finished. With a relatively free summer, I could almost certainly have three polished, finished drafts by the time school starts again. Perhaps I could even have them all finished before Worldcon 2009 in August, or finish all four of them before World Fantasy 2009 in October.

It would also be a good chance to see whether I can handle the writing lifestyle. I’ve been writing fairly steadily for the past two or three years, doing between 500 to 1,000 words a day, but it was never the primary thing I was doing. If I have the summer off from all my other obligations, I’ll be able to explore a little bit what it’s like to write full time. It doesn’t exactly translate into something nice and shiny on a resume (not like an internship, at least), but it would give me some valuable and useful personal experience.

Besides that, taking time off would help me to figure out what I want to do post-graduation. I’m aiming to be a professional writer, but I’ll probably graduate from BYU long before I sign my first book deal, so it’s good to have other directions to go. Trouble is, whenever I’m busy with school I never take the time to think existentially about what I’m doing and what I want to do. I’m so focused on the day to day aspect of things that I find it hard to make any long term plans.

Of course, either way is going to help me figure that out. Whether taking time off to work on my writing or working as an intern for a literary agency, I’m going to gain experience that will help me figure out what I want to do after graduation. So I can expect that to happen no matter where I go, I hope.

So…until I get an email / phone call from the guys at JABberwocky, things are up in the air. It’s a little bit nerve wracking, especially with all of the moving out / moving in going on around here. I know I won’t have any trouble getting a spring/summer contract here at BYU, but New York…I have no idea. I’ve got family up there that I can stay with for a few days until I get settled, and there’s the housing list for the New York stake, but man, it’s expensive over there.

I don’t know. Maybe I’ll end up staying here in Provo after all. We’ll see how it goes.

(Image courtesy David Iliff. Published under a CC attribution 3.0 unported license.)

This sucks and I’m a horrible writer

It’s getting really, really hard for me not to believe that statement, especially as I finish up with the middle part of this novel. I’m starting to realize that I made a whole bunch of mistakes pages and pages ago, and that the climaxes just aren’t working without everything set up right.

I know, cognitively, that it’s mostly just psychological and that this book probably isn’t as bad as I think it is, but I’m finding it hard to convince myself of that. I got to the climax of part II yesterday, and it was…not what I’d had in my head. That’s probably what’s frustrating me the most. If I can’t write down the story as I have it in my head, what does that mean? It either means I’m a terrible writer, or that I didn’t get the setup right (or both…gah!).

So…where do I go from here? Throwing out the entire story isn’t an option–I’m not going to allow myself to do that. I could, however, put it on the back burner for a while, let it simmer…or I could do or die and finish the 1.0 draft, no matter how crappy it turns out. I suppose that would accomplish something for my self esteem, but is that the way to best serve the story?

Fortunately, this past week we talked about revision in English 318. Listening to my recording of the class gave me a few ideas. I could make a list of known problems, with their fixes, and continue as if I’d already made them. I think I did that a few times with The Phoenix of Nova Terra, but I don’t know how I feel about that now. I could probably make it work…

The main issue is that I feel very, very distant from this book. A month ago, I was immersed in the thing, writing over a thousand words each day, just chugging it out. Now, for various reasons, other things have come up and drawn away my attention, so I don’t feel that I’m really in this world anymore. I feel like I’m more of an outsider, writing for the sake of writing rather than trying to tell this story the way it wants to be told. I can’t really remember what I wrote a hundred pages ago, despite that big sheet of butcher paper up in my closet.

Another thing that complicates all of this is that I’m really, really excited about the other novel, Genesis Earth. I’ve gotten back comments from most of my alpha readers, and I’m all but chomping at the bit to start working on it again. If I had nothing else going on, no pressing obligations or assignments, with the enthusiasm I have for this project I could probably finish the second draft in a week, and the third draft the week after that.

So…what’s next?

Well, I think I’m going to start the revision on Genesis Earth today or tomorrow. When I was this enthused about revising Pheonix, I decided to wait and finish Genesis Earth instead, and the enthusiasm for that project died down surprisingly fast. Better to start now than wait until I’ve got the free time but struggle with motivation.

In the meantime, I’m going to finish the current chapter of Bringing Estella Home and let it rest for a bit. I’ll probably reread what I’ve got from the beginning, make a few revision notes, perhaps an outline of sorts–try to figure out what’s wrong, what I need to change to make it work. I’ll restrain myself from actually making those revisions (though I did that, mid-draft, for Genesis Earth, and it turned out alright…sort of), but once I feel I’m sufficiently “into” the story again, I’ll get back to work and finish the 1.0 draft. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do all that before the end of May.

The trouble here is that I’ll probably end up writing the first draft of this novel and revising the other one at the same time…something I tried last September and failed miserably. However, by the time all of this is finished, inshallah school will be over and I won’t have to worry about it. Things are looking really good for me to get an internship in NYC, which makes me think I should drop my Spring classes and just take it easy for a month before I start (as for housing, that’s a whole other conundrum…).

Gah! Writing is complicated. Is this something I want to do for the rest of my life? Something I can do? I don’t know. I really don’t know. I just have to keep on writing through this depressing pessimism and trust that it will pass.

As a side note, I took the title of this post from a Writing Excuses episode some time ago; here is the link to that episode, in case you want to hear it.

Slugging it out and summer plans

Ok, last week I wrote almost nothing on this blog, and last night I wrote a quick post before going to bed that didn’t really explain much. I just got done reading one of Dave Farland’s kick-in-the-pants series of email newsletters and it said, basically, to post every day if you have a blog (unless it cuts into your writing time). Sounds like a good plan: more, shorter posts instead of fewer, longer posts. Here goes.

Last week was pretty crazy. I got everything done by the time it needed to be done…barely…but it was so disorganized and upside down that it really grated on me. It was one of those weeks where, when Saturday rolls around, you look at the calendar and think “where did all that time go?”

I tried to write every day, in the morning, but it didn’t work out. At all. I allowed myself to get distracted, and by the time I was ready to sit down and write, it was time to go to class. After a couple of days of that, I just stopped getting up altogether.

I wanted to get through the last two chapters of Bringing Estella Home by yesterday, but that TOTALLY didn’t happen. I’m still in the middle of chapter 9, not even to the major climactic battle that ends the second part. Bah. As a result, I’m starting to have doubts that I’m going to actually finish this novel by April.

HOWEVER, on a more positive (and a completely different note), I actually have an idea of what I’m going to do this summer. I don’t know when or how exactly it hit me, but I have something of an idea, and it’s starting to really grow on me.

Here’s the plan: I spend the spring term here in Provo, retaking a handful of freshman level classes in order to boost my GPA (I got a C- in beginning piano, and a B- in Geo 120…yeah, those could be raised a little). That’ll give me plenty of time to work on my writing and the opportunity to attend a couple of interesting looking writing conferences out here in Utah, such as BYU Writers for Young Readers and CONduit.

After the spring, I’ll head back East (haha! ‘back East’! I’ve been transformed into a Utahan!), spend a couple of days at home, take a train down to New York City and live for a month or two with my old roommate Steve Dethloff, who’s moving to NYC after he graduates. I’ll try to get a job, possibly doing something writing/editing related, or maybe make some contacts in the publishing world. Or not. We’ll see how it goes. But either way, I’ll have enough time to work on my writing.

Also, if I’m back East in August, I’ll be in a good position to attend Worldcon 2009 in Montreal. I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to go, but it’s only 4-5 hours from my home. I could borrow my parents’ car and drive up. Then, later in August, we’re going to have our family vacation out on Cape Cod, so if I’m back East for summer, I’d definitely be in a good position for that.

Wherever I go, I’ll try to find work, but even if I don’t, I still have enough money left over from the Pell grant that these plans are still viable. I’m certain I can find work down here in Provo, but I’m not that certain about New York. Still, if I’m down there for only a month or two, it shouldn’t be too hard. If I sublet out from Steve, rent should only be about $250-$300 per month.

Trouble is, there isn’t any awesome trip to the Middle East involved in these plans. :'( That’s sad. But still, if I want to focus on my writing to get ready for World Fantasy and (potentially) Worldcon, it’s probably a better idea to stay in the country. Going abroad would mean making a lot of difficult cultural and linguistic adjustments, and I’m worried that that would make it difficult to write. I know that last time I went to Jordan, I didn’t hardly write at all (except in my blog, of course).

So, until I come up with a better plan, that’s what it looks like I’m doing for now. We’ll see if things change. And as for my novel, this week I’m totally going to do better. I got up at 7am this morning and got in a good hour of writing before school. Momentum is definitely building up again.

Experiment, take two

Ok…the experiment I wrote about last week…yeah, it failed. Miserably. Got almost no writing done, and I wasn’t able to get up early hardly ever.

However, I’m going to try it again. Part of the problem was that I always ended up staying up late, past 1am, even when I intended to get up early, and that just killed me. Also, whenever I did get up early, I always allowed myself to get distracted by other important things, such as email, homework, etc. The predictable result? No productivity.

There were other problems too, however. It’s the middle of the semester, so the weeks are starting to race by like so much rushing water. I’m not the only one who feels like the last week was sucked out of my life without my realizing it. Also, before I started the week, I lost a lot of writing momentum by missing a few of my daily wordcount goals. I would write 2,000 to 3,000 words one day, the next day, nothing. Lost momentum can be really crippling.

When you write late at night, you tend to go through this routine of distracting yourself, checking your email, playing a game here and there, chatting with friends, etc, before you finally settle down to start writing. This is my current routine. I need to get to the point where I’m able to sit down, open the document, and get started. Or, if I can’t get to that point, I at least want to minimize the distraction time.

So, this week, I’m trying it again. I’ll try to get up early, 6am if I can, and get in at least a half hour of writing each day. We’ll see how it goes.

Almost at part 3

Wow, writing this novel is going a lot faster than I had thought. At the same time, though, I sometimes worry that I’m not going fast enough.

I broke the 50k mark this week, and I haven’t even gotten to any of the major climaxes yet. This thing could easily go to 90k words before the end. With only 6 1/2 weeks left in the semester, can I finish it in time?

At the same time, I have NO IDEA what I’m doing this summer. Really. I have a lot of possibilities, but no concrete plans. With the semester coming to a close in a little more than a month and my housing contract with the FLSR coming to an end, that is a little bit unnerving.

Whatever I do, I want to devote some serious time to revising and rewriting these novels, getting them polished. Finding a spring/summer contact isn’t that hard in Provo; the question is whether I can find a job. I also want to go to the Middle East for a while, and if I go home to Massachusetts in August (which I would like to do) another possibility is Worldcon 2009 up in Montreal.

As far as how Bringing Estella Home is coming, it’s coming along very well. I have all of the key climaxes mapped out in my head, and the one that ends part 2 and begins part 3 is only two chapters from where I am now. I don’t normally keep a detailed outline of the whole novel, but I can usually see at least one chapter ahead. Kind of like the faith-promoting story of how a train conductor only has to see as far as his headlights, except that with novel writing, getting derailed is a very real possibility. I know I’ve crashed and burned in my novel attempts before. Fortunately, this one seems to be right on track.

This semester hasn’t been too hard, but last week was somewhat harder than usual. However, it seems like things are starting to calm down into another lull (knock on wood), so I think I can shoot a little higher as to where I want to be at the end of this week (in terms of my novel). I’ve found that I can do about one viewpoint scene per day, one chapter per week. This week, I’m going to shoot for two chapters by Monday. It seems a bit tough, but since I’ve already written the first scene in chapter 9, I think I can do it.

Also, as an experiment, I’m going to try to wake up early and get in a solid hour of writing before I start my day. I found a random website the other day (lost the link, sorry) that showed the routines of several famous, successful writers. Almost all of them woke up early in the morning and did most of their work before noon. Right now, I write almost everything between eleven at night and three in the morning, so I’d like to see if I can change that. I may fail miserably, but what the heck. Now is the time in my life to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

I swear I’m not morbid

Wow, I had a interesting experience writing today. I only got about 650 words in, but I spent almost half an hour just walking around and thinking about it.

The basic premise of Bringing Estella Home (I should probably think of a better title…) is that the young protagonist was forcibly and unexpectedly separated from his older brother and sister when a barbarian war fleet invaded their solar system, and he’s trying to find and rescue them. The barbarians capture and enslave both the brother and the sister–they send the brother into a very brutal brainwashing program to turn him into one of their empath soldiers, and they turn the sister into a concubine to the head of the fleet.

Well, in the scene I wrote today, the Hameji put Ben (the captured brother) through a mock execution, after putting him through weeks of physical and psychological torture. The idea is to break him down completely so that they can remake him from the bottom up. The execution involves putting him in an airlock and “spacing” him.

For some reason, this scene had a really huge impact on me. It was…very brutal. Very moving, though I’m not sure if it’s moving in the way that I want it. It wasn’t senseless–it happens for a reason, to set things up for when he meets back up with his brother–but man, it was very brutal and disturbing.

Now…I swear I’m not a morbid person! No, really! My first novel was a happy, adventuresome, optimistic space opera, and I’m sure it won’t be the last one! And really, I don’t have any pent up anger or goth tendencies or anything–it’s just, this is what I thought should happen in the story right now. And…wow. It was a lot more powerful than I’d thought.

This has made me realize that I’m going to need to bring in a humorous character to periodically give relief to all this tension. I’ve got the novel figured out in my head in a rough three act format. If all goes well, I should be finishing with act 1 before the end of next week. At the beginning of act 2, James is going to meet up with a very interesting and quirky band of mercenaries, and that will (inshallah) be a good opportunity to bring in some comic relief. Not too much, of course–just enough to help the reader get through the really serious, really disturbing parts.

And I know where I want this novel to end. I don’t know how, but I know the main character’s root motivations and how that inner conflict needs to be resolved. I actually have it all coming down to a single line of dialogue given from the head mercenary, Danica, to James at the very end of the story. The denouement shouldn’t take up more than a chapter and an epilogue, which of course I haven’t figured out yet, but the key to everything, the thing compelling me at this point to write this story, is to get the main character (James) to get to that one line of dialogue and come to this realization about himself.

Of course, I won’t tell you what that is, since that would be giving away spoilers. 🙂 But if you want to be an alpha reader, let me know. The goal is to have this sucker finished before the end of April. Tough goal, especially now that so many storylines are exploding all over the place, but I think I can do it.

Change of plans

So, it’s been two weeks since the end of Thanksgiving break, and things have changed quite a bit. I’ve been struggling quite a bit with my story. I could hardly get past the first chapter of the second section of the novel, and I’m at a critical point where I have to start introducing key characters and setting things up that will be important later. The complicated thing is…well, I don’t know where I want to take things at this point.

My conceptualization of this novel basically began winter of last year when I thought to myself, “what if I set the pioneer exodus in space?” It didn’t really take off, though, until the summer, when I started building a really cool universe in my head and came up with an interesting main character. From there, a whole bunch of loosely related ideas started to coalesce and I thought I had something.

Unfortunately, now that I’m in the middle of it, I’m starting to realize that my characters aren’t what I envisioned them to be, the conflict as I’ve set it up isn’t what I’d started out with, and that main idea that sparked this thing–the pioneer trek in space idea–it’s been flooded out by so many other cool ideas that I don’t know where to take it. In this next section, as I’ve envisioned it, I need to set up the religion and the space pioneers, but I haven’t thought it through enough to really understand what’s going on. Plus, I feel like my main character…isn’t all that interesting.

I’ve found, these past two weeks, that it’s been very hard to write this story when I have other issues and obligations on my mind. A lot harder than Phoenix. With that story, at least I always felt like I knew what the next step was. Here…I know what the next step should be, according to my plan, but it just…doesn’t feel right.

A lot of it is related to worldbuilding. I haven’t thought out certain things in this world enough, mainly because there are just so many ideas to consider. The part that I’ve worked on the least has, ironically, been the idea that sparked the whole thing: the Mormon pioneer trek in space. I have no idea what to do with that, or who the main characters are, or what the religion should be, other than a thinly veiled version of Mormonism.

So, either I’ve planned things out too much, to the point where I’m trying to control things at the exclusion of just letting the story come out naturally and honestly, or I haven’t thought things through enough, so that now that I’m at this point, I don’t know what I should do next. It’s pretty tough.

If I had nothing else that I were doing right now–no other daily tasks or obligations, other than personal chores–I could write my way through this. But now, as I think about it…it’s just too much for me right now.

With Phoenix, I at least had enough of a seed that I could keep the momentum, even when my classes were very hard. This semester, all of my classes have been ridiculously easy, and yet I still haven’t been able to keep a steady momentum in writing this novel. Momentum ebbed and flowed with Phoenix, but at least I always had some kind of momentum. With Hero, if I’m not dedicating lots and lots of time to the story, making it my primary priority, I lose all momentum and go days without writing.

So, upon realizing this fact earlier this week, I decided to take something of a drastic step. I’m going to put Hero in Exile on the back burner for a while, and bring back Genesis Earth to finish it over the break.

Genesis Earth has been on the back burner since July or August, but I’m excited about it and feel that it’s worth bringing back. Plus, it’s a lot shorter than Hero, and in some ways quite a bit simpler. I don’t have a dozen completely different ideas swirling around chaotically inside my head concerning this story–all of my ideas are straightforward. What’s more, I’m excited about it again. When I pick it up after exams, it will be fresh.

As far as Hero in Exile, I haven’t given up on it…well, not entirely. I may end up deciding to drop it, but I’m sure I’ll be recycling ideas. As of now, however, I still think I can pull it off. I just need to let things settle, figure out some things about the world of this universe, and rewrite the first 50,000 words to draw out the main character a lot better. Since that’s work that I can’t finish over this winter break, or even by the end of January, I’m going to lay it aside and focus on other things.

The goal is to finish the rough draft of Genesis Earth before the next semester begins. I think I can do it. Where I left off, the story was about half finished, maybe a little less. I highly doubt this novel will go over 60,000 words. With 18 free days after I finish these finals, that averages to 2,000 words a day. I can do this.

The best part is that if I do this, I’ll be able to focus all my energies on the Phoenix of Nova Terra rewrite in the winter! Now that I’ve spent some time away from that story, I’m starting to feel more and more confident about it. I honestly believe that it has the potential to be publishable, and not only publishable but desireable to someone out in the world of science fiction publishing. I’m excited. I think, with a little work, I could walk up to an agent or editor at World Fantasy 2009 and talk enthusiastically about it.

So, if I finish the rough draft of Genesis before winter 2009, polish Phoenix before summer, and polish Genesis while I’m interning somewhere for spring term, I could take a couple of months off to focus on all the problems with Hero and still have 3 novels finished in time for World Fantasy 2009. One of them won’t be as polished as I’d liked, but I could perhaps do that in the fall.

These past two days, I wrote up a 2.5k synopsis for Hero in Exile in my project notes. It basically details where I see the story going from here. I may end up not following it–I certainly didn’t follow the synopsis I’d written for the first section, except in a very broad sense. However, this is good because it preserves my thoughts on the story as they exist at this time. When I pick it up again, I can use the notes to jog my memory.

So, as of now, Hero in Exile is on the backburner. Even if I never pick it up again, I know that I’ve learned quite a lot just by pushing myself to get this far. On to Genesis Earth!

playing catchup

Holy cow! I feel like I haven’t been blogging or writing hardly at all in the past week. Last year, I was so enthusiastic about the writing–and I still am, it’s just that school has freaking blindsided me. I had a 10 page history paper to write for today, and it threw off my schedule big time.

Fortunately, Thanksgiving break is almost upon us, and that means FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yes, you’d better believe it! I’ll be here in Utah for the break, probably having Thanksgiving dinner with my sisters and their husbands’ families. In the meantime, though…FREEDOM!!!!!!! Ah, how sweet! I am so looking forward to it!

So, to help me catch up with the writing, here’s what I plan to do, starting tomorrow. Every day, I’ll wake up early (I hate sleeping in anyways) and start off the day with some writing.

If I can get in just 500 words each morning, that will be awesome. I always put off writing until the end of the day, after I’m already tired from running around juggling fifty different things at once. By that time, I don’t want to write–I want to veg out on a computer game. As a result, it’s been hard to keep a schedule–something I absolutely must do if I’m going to be anything more than a hobby writer.

If I start each day with writing, that will help me in a couple of ways. Not only will I tackle the day’s wordcount before I’m too tired to do anything except rot in my unproductive disgustingness, but I’ll be thinking about the story a lot more throughout the day. That will help me to keep the story moving.

Right now, I feel like I’m still in the first third of the story, not even halfway through with the thing. I really, really want to finish this before the end of January–if I don’t do that, it’s going to be really difficult to have three polished novels by World Fantasy 2009. So, that means that before the end of the month, I need to get Tristen off of the planet and into the Mormons-in-space society that I have envisioned.

Except, I really don’t have it envisioned yet–nothing concrete, anyways. Augh! So much to do!

So this whole break, I’m going to try and hit 4,000 words every day. If I can’t do that, at least I can do 2,000. And before school starts again, I want Tristen to be off of this planet and into the next section of the book.

Oh, and I’m going to blog more. There’s so much that I want to discuss here that I just haven’t been able to post for lack of time (as well as general disorganization and disgusting unproductiveness). So, more updates during the break.

I’m playing catchup. Let’s hope that the vacation is awesomely productive as well as refreshingly liberating.

Breaking 1,000

I broke 1,000 words today! Yay! That’s my daily wordcount goal from here on out, so it was good to reach it.

Also, the story is coming along nicely. I can see how my original idea for the scene that was giving me trouble just wasn’t fleshed out enough. If I’d have gone with it, there would have been less conflict, less development of some key characters (some of whom die soon in the next chapter! bwahahaha!) and some worldbuilding.

That’s about all for now. I have a lot more I could blog about…Prop 8, Mongol hordes, history class, schoolwork, craziness…but it’s late and I need to got to bed. Gnight.

Okay, a new direction

I owe a lot to Aneeka. She is the one who motivated me to write The Phoenix of Nova Terra back in 2007 when I didn’t really think I could finish a novel before the end of the school year. Like I said in the last post, I’ve hit something of a wall in my writing life recently, and a couple of days ago she was the one who pointed it out to me. The conversation went something like this:

Empress: lol – okay, okay!
how are your stories going?
me: very slowly
frustrating
mostly just because of personal disorganization
Empress: yeah, that can happen. tired of school? or just a lot of things you want to do?
me: school is pretty easy right now
it’s just hard to get back into writing regularly
I dunno
I’m trying to juggle two projects
Empress: maybe that’s the problem?
it’s hard focusing on two stories at once
(says the girl that does it all the time – the irony!)
but it really is hard to get all focused on two projects at once
me: it probably is
Empress: I flit between projects because I’m not that into them and write because I’ve been inspired (and tend to be inspired on different stories all the time)
when I get into a project though, then it’s best that I leave the rest behind and just focus on that one
get out all that I have and see how far I can go before I get distracted again
me: yeah
I’m trying to be 100% into two projects at the same time
trouble is, I can’t keep the momentum going on both
Empress: yeah. looks like you’re human, after all 😉
me: dangit!
Empress: you should choose one to focus on and then, if inspiration hits for the other one, focus on that one for a bit before turning back to the main project
me: grr
Empress: think of it this way. You could struggle for 6 months trying to work on two projects and arrive halfway done with both
OR you could focus on one project for 6 months, finish it, and then have plenty of energy to finish the next one
me: that’s true I guess
Empress: it’s better than wearing yourself out
then you’ll be left with no project finished
and just a heap of frustrated dreams
me: I guess that’s right
question is, do I revise my old novel or do I go ahead with the new one?
I’m more excited about the new one, but I want to get the old one finished
Empress: how long would the old one take to get finished?
wait…and you’re having problems with them right now, right?
you know, I would think it’s easier to edit two stories then to write two stories at once. maybe you could finish up the new story and then edit both of them at the same time?
me: that’s an idea
Empress: and NaNoWriMo is coming up. you could finish up the first draft by next month and whallah! only have 2 stories to edit 😀
me: ugggggggggggh
I coooooooooould
that’s intense, though
Empress: well, doing two projects at once is intense as well
why not just switch it around and do this kind of intensity instead? 😉

So, after mulling it over for a couple of days, I’ve decided to do things a little differently.

Instead of trying to do two major projects at once, I’m going to put the revision of Phoenix on hold for now and focus all my energy on Hero in Exile. For November, instead of doing nanowrimo, I’ll try to get 50,000 words deep into this novel instead. After that, if I do roughly 1,000 words a day, I should be in good shape to finish it before the end of January. I don’t anticipate this novel going over 120,000 words, and if it tries to, I’ll do my best to reign it in.

So that’s my goal: Finish Hero in Exile before the end of January. Oh, and write 50,000 words in November.

I’ve noticed that I tend to either be too focused or too distracted. Trying to balance two projects at the same time has taught me that…well, I can’t do it very well. But I do know that once I have one project that I can focus on, I can focus on it until it gets done. That’s what I’m going to do now.

In the meantime, I was chatting with Drek from the writing group, and found out that he could program a way cool widget for my sidebar! It’s going to be a pair of speedometers that show my daily wordcount and my wordcount over the course of the last seven days. Oh, and if I’m nice, he might program a widget that displays my writing projects as status bars! I’m way excited!

Drek recently designed a website for nanowrimo this year. The idea is that every minute, it displays a new word from his novel. Something like that. It’ll be really interesting to see what happens once november starts up.

I can definitely say that the goatee gives Drek programming +2.