Arrant Nonsense

2015 was a pathetic writing year for me, as far as output went. Novel edits ate my brain, my productivity screeched to a halt, and then my poor Muse shivered in a corner after it was over. And that's okay, but this year I wanted to get back on the horse and start actually scribbling new words.

Be careful what you wish for.

I've penned five flash pieces so far this year. One of them is edited and making submission rounds. The other four, I still haven't had time to look at (even though I desperately need to!) because...

I finally put an END at the bottom of the Big Bad John Space Werewolf story. I'm waiting to hear back from a beta right now, but I might just take one more look at it and then start shipping it out. It's been sitting long enough.

My WotF 24-hour story is shaping up well. It's with a few betas right now; there's one scene that really needs expanding because, well, I had 24 hours to write the thing and that scene got super skimmed. Any of my betas reading this will know exactly which scene I'm talking about when they get to it.

I'm attempting Codexian Idol again this year. I slipped my first 250 words in under the deadline, and those words amuse me. The story has a shape, and a couple of characters I think I will enjoy writing. We'll see how it shakes out. I adore the story I wrote for Codexian Idol last year (though it hasn't been accepted anywhere yet), and hopefully I can make lightning strike twice.

The problem with writing all this short stuff (which is what I'm actually good at) is that I need to write another novel. I have the shape of the sequel to Pack Dynamics (yes, that is a shameless Amazon link, buy my book), but I have no idea how to outline a novel and am kind of afraid to try. One of the instructors at the WotF workshop suggested outlining the first third of it, writing that, outlining the second third, etc. I wonder if I can nest seven-point plot structures. Or something. Aaaaaaaaaaaaah I have no idea what I'm doing. #notanaturalnovelist

Not only that, but I've got the Hitman in Hell novel poking my side and going "HEY WHAT ABOUT ME HUH HUH HUH???" And, yes, I want to write this one, desperately, I love the concept so very much--but I need to figure out a bunch of character motivations and the damned thing is most certainly not salable even to my wonderful and very patient publisher (I'm pretty sure, because, uh, well, don't ask me why I like playing with POV but I do... and you, dear reader, know as well as I do that a new author swapping first person POVs across four characters will not fly).

Not only that, but Nate and Iann, from my WotF V32 story (yes, that's another shameless Amazon link, go, preorder it, you know you want to), are crossing their arms at me and going "You know there's a novel here, right?" And, yes, there is, Nate has smited his inner demons, but they've got a new threat looming and OH GOD JUST SHOOT ME NOW.

All right, you know what, whining about it isn't doing me any good. I will crack my knuckles, email my one beta, and then start setting a timer for each of these damn tasks so I can get my head actually in the game.

Whereas I wanted to complete one short per month this year;

And whereas I have now completed four shorts on my year counting the collaborative Thing;

And whereas I also wanted to work on novels this year;

But whereas I have been frankly pants at that;

But whereas I am caught up to where I want to be vis a vis shorts to the end of April;

Therefore I shall work on the Hitman in Hell novel until May.

*firm nod*

This makes me feel like a fraud and a failure, but I'm looking at the thing and realizing that I simply do not have the time to do the idea the justice it deserves. Not only that, but it's going to be much longer than the guideline limit. My outline is completely inadequate, and I haven't properly explored in my head who these characters actually are and what makes them tick. When I'm ten thousand words into a project like this, that is a problem.

So. I will write this, because now that I'm partway into it, I desperately want to. It is a cool idea. It might even be a novel idea. But there are other things with deadlines I can actually hit that need my attention, so I need to scribble them first--and then give this the attention it needs without a deadline I can't hit hanging over my head and three other projects demanding my time.

And it's not like the story or the outline will disappear into the ether if I set them aside for a bit. I can still be noodling it even while I'm doing these other things.

So. My writing schedule looks like this, now:

Blurring the Line: up to 5000 words, horror, due Oct 31.

The Lost Worlds: up to 20000 words, steampunk post-apocalyptic horror, due, uh, well. It doesn't say. "Extended until filled." I'll probably do this last.

Temporally Out of Order: up to 6000 words, SFF, due end of November. Once they open and give us the guidelines, I'll do something with it. Maybe an Alex story, that would be hilarious.

Which state, in part: "Something to note: if you are half-finished with your story but October 1st of this year is coming up fast, you can submit the story in partial form. While we much prefer the finished version we understand busy schedules and if the idea is exciting enough and the portion we read well realized enough we just might accept it based on those strengths alone."

I think I'm going to try to bang out a first draft of this thing and see how that goes. I was pretty much going to abandon it, since the deadline is October 1 and that's coming up fast, and the wordcount is high...but if I can bang out 2000 words a day (which, if I'm actually working, I can do in four half-hour sessions), I'll have the first draft done in less than a week.

I'm now 3000 words in and pretty pleased with the thing. So I guess we'll see.