Whoa, it’s June. How the frell did that happen so fast?
I’ve spent all month working on Sweetheartcatalyst. I now have an agglomeration of wordage that I’m calling “Chapter 1″. It’s been very slow going, like wading through molasses. I realized that part of the reason for this is… um… apparently, I’m actually writing a crime novel. Something I have zero experience with, LOL. (OK, I still consider the story to be science fiction, but… it’s actually both.) My lack of knowledge and experience causes a phenomenon where sometimes it seems like, every damn sentence I write, I become stymied with “Wait.. would the cops really do that? Before or after? How many times? Who would do it? How long would it take?” This then necessitates sitting & racking my brain, or a trip down Research Rabbit Hole Lane, or even getting frustrated and knocking off for the day in disgust at my inability to write more than 12 words per 24 hours. However, it *is* getting better, because I’ve been researching my @$$ off. I created my “story bible”, which helped a lot. And my fuzzy grip on How Things Work is becoming sharper.
Meanwhile, I’ve gotten an @$$load of incredibly helpful feedback on “The Collapsing Hills”. Of course my impulse is now to immediately jump back into editing that story and sending it out somewhere. If I do that, though, it could easily take me another month. (Yes indeed. I’m just that slow.) Then when I’m done I’ll have to spend more time getting my head back into the novel. I read somewhere that when you are deep into a task and your brain is focused, and then somebody interrupts you and breaks your concentration, it can take 20 minutes to get your head back to where it was before the interruption. I don’t want to do that to myself by constantly switching writing projects every month. My attention span is ADD enough as it is. Therefore I’m going to hold off on editing, and keep plugging away on this novel for another month or two, at least.
One more thing: Inspired by this episode of K.M. Weiland’s Wordplay podcast, I started keeping a writing journal. She has a lovely pic on her web site of a handwritten journal; I just have a text file, because writing longhand makes my paw hurt. But anyway, every time I sit down to write, I make a new journal entry with the date, what I’m working on, & what I’m hoping to get done. I try to keep it fairly short, log book style. So far it’s been really helpful to focus my thoughts on the work ahead, as well as being able to look back and see my progress.
