Back again

Luckily, nobody noticed. On the internet, nobody can hear you scream. So I took a year out. There were a couple of reasons, and the whole time I was doing it, all I could think of is that I was giving myself yet another excuse not to write. It was hard. I still don’t know whether it was the right thing to do, but it’s done now.

I had finished my first book. After five drafts, it was as complete as it was going to get without me tweaking it to death. The next step was to get a book cover and get it up. I worked with one person, and then another, trying to come of up with a cover that made the right promises to the reader.

Actually, no, I didn’t. Let me take a step back. I do the language of graphics like King Kong does flower arranging. It’s possible, but you probably didn’t want to see the results. Not pretty. I was trying to find a way to show what the story was about, and I couldn’t do it. I had two tries. Both sets of people - friends who were great at art and drawing - who made covers for me were amazing. And then… real life happened. It’s a thing. The covers weren’t quite finished.

I realised that I needed to find a way to contract out creating my cover. I found out about a person who did developmental editing. A developmental editor? I didn’t even know they existed. It was yet another of the lessons I’d picked up over the last few of those lost months. What about book formatting? I could learn, sure. I need to learn. That isn’t a thing in doubt.

To cut this short, I needed a better job to pay for the incidentals that self-publishing a book (or even multiple books) entail. There wasn’t a sensible way for me to go forward. And that was when I made the conscious and extremely frustrating decision to give it up for a year and concentrate on getting a pay rise, no matter how. So - things happened. I pretty much went all out and somehow it paid off. I have a new role and I don’t need to rob from Peter to pay Paul as the saying goes.

Winter of my discontent

And now, this new year, I get to pick up where I left off. A little wiser, but without the writing habit that I built up over time. I get to do it all over again. This time, I have a plan (no, I am not a cylon). I aim to shoot for actually publishing two books a year this year and next. Then I will aim for putting out four books a year for the next four years. And after that, six books a year for the next six years. For me, who hasn’t even properly managed to get even one book out to the public, that’s a bit of an insane unhinged ambitious aim.

Even I have to back up and pause. I haven’t completed one, and I’m going to do two a year? Oh, and I’m not allowed to count the thing I already did. They’re already done.

The good news (I don’t have any way of scribing this to acceptably convey the amount of sarcasm) is that there are any number of unfinished stories that need to get got. I chose to do a follow-up to my existing story, in the equally implausible hope that people will want to buy and read the first story. If it takes off, then hoorah and all that jazz. If not, so be it. I will have completed the journey of my heroine.

For my second story, I chose something in a different genre that I started some time ago. Yes, I will cringe when I go back to read it and remember the ebb, flow, sentence structure and way of thinking that created it. Kinda looking forward to that bit of stress. I really am. I mean - to be able to pick up one of my older scribblings, wrangle the rest of the story out of the murky firmament that sits somewhere on the shores of purgatory, damnation and what-the-hell-was-I-thinking, and slap a coat of spit on it, only to slap it on its flank and send it onward is going to be… well, I was about to say the word fun. Now I begin to think about it, maybe it should be a phrase that describes being drowning by kissing the sea gods so well that your toes curl, and your hair spontaneously changes colour. Or color.

In any case, I thought the story was somewhere near three-fifths done. I haven’t gone back yet to be able to see it with older eyes, to review the skeleton of a plot that I pray hope think I must have done. Of course, I did. Definitely. This was obviously the right time to check, and the story is currently at 20 000 words. After tapping furiously on my calculator and trying to remember which one carries where, I think I need to do another 16 000.

Oh. Gee. That puts the story at something around 33 and a third thousand words, and that’s a perfect number for…  aww, dang. That’s like wonderfully straight in-between a short story and a novelette. A whutnow!? I mean, that’s like at that stage when you had a growth spurt over the summer, and all of a sudden the boys were looking at you and you start to bump into everything, which makes it even worse, because all the boys keep putting their eyes all over you and they’re stupid.

This is not a good size for a book. Even an ebook. I mean, heck.

So also, the plot I have is now going to be revised. It’s one story. There isn’t going to be a part two, or any other part, section or addendum, sequel, prequel. No more “-uels” on this thing.

Once again, I am filled with joy.

Right, let’s get to that planning then. I've scheduled doing all of it to be done and dusted in January.

That’s right, I’m baaaaack!

Almost bursting

This post has been a little while in coming. When I first wrote it, the starting sentence was “It’s been a little while since since I've written anything on here.” That’s how long it’s been, way back in the tail end of December.

I generally hate looking back. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of personal or ‘professional’ progression in 6 months, a year, two years. However - and this is a biggie for me - I want to look back in six months time and see that I've finished a second book, and I want to count the number of short stories and know that there was real movement from point A to point here-I-am.

*opens the curtain*

It’s been a little while since since I've written anything on here.

There have been some good reasons for not having done so, but none of them are the main reason… one acceptable reason is that I spent so long in editing mode, and then in ‘putter along’ mode that it feels like a bit of a revival to get back into actual writing mode. This is the part where the fingers hit the keyboard, and something gets put down. It may not be the best (it really isn’t right now), but it’s something. I need something. I need to have the passage of these days count for something when I look back and only see the failures. It may not be a supreme amount of words (it isn’t that either), but I did some words yesterday, and I’m in the middle of doing some today, and I’m going to do some tomorrow. I can’t go further than that because consistency is still a problem. What I’ve decided is that yesterday and today is not a pattern. Tomorrow is an acceptable thing that I can commit to, and after that, we shall see. I know pretty much kinda what I’m going to write, even if it isn’t bursting into my brain like a full-blown thing.

That’s cool though, it’s enough for me to get to another stage, which is the first tiny beginnings of a habit. Three days does not make a writing chain. Three days makes a barely-statistical bump in the Quest For A Good Habit. But it’s a start. Sometimes that’s exactly what it’s all about. Starting something and working on it. Sometimes it’s keeping going and doing your best, because when all’s said and done, that’s all you can do. There’ll be hard days and bad days, weird days and frustrating days, and days where you seriously wonder why you’re doing this writing stuff in the first place. It’s days like that when you just have to remember that at one time, this was fun. The part you’re on, or the thing you’re working on may not be fun at the moment. So what? The fun will come back. You will at some point finish and put it away, or polish it and review and work on it, and something will happen. You’ll find you like what you have. The more you work on creating your habit, the more you do this writing regularly thing, the better you’ll get at it. Like anything else.

And like most things, if you keep working on it, you will get better. Fraction by impossibly small fraction, you will get better. I don’t just say it, I believe it. I have to. Otherwise, why else would I want to keep doing this all the time, and for all the time I have?

Go write some stuff. It’s fun. Then do it again. And again.