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.

I started writing this story at 1pm. I put an END at the bottom of it at 3:15pm. 1127 words, which is way more than the 750-word limit for the competition I wrote it for, but. I have a new Thing which I can now tinker into something awesome. I may hacksaw it for the competition and expand it for subbing. We'll see what I think once I've let it percolate for a little while.

I came up with the concept last night from one of the prompts for the competition, noodled it into a coherent story this morning, and then scribbled it this afternoon in a series of word wars. And I'm pretty pleased with it, overall. I think we'll code-name this one "lone wolf."