The Basement Office

Before I say anything else, once again the inestimable John Scalzi expresses some of what I feel in a much better way than I can do at this time about the general state of the world.

So what’s going on with me?

Well my vacation is done.  I am completely disappointed in the amount of writing and writing related tasks I actually accomplished.  In fact, I accomplished very little.

I’m somewhat ok with this, I needed the rest it seemed.

I’m having a little trouble getting back into the groove, but I have amazing support from wife, family and friends and things are starting to get back to normal.  Those of you monitoring my word count may notice that I am behind, I am working to catch up.

Let’s just say I got my mid-month slump out of the way early.

I spent last week reading up a storm and I’m keeping up with this.  The more I read, the more ideas I get.  This is a good thing.

During my vacation, while I was resting and generally enjoying the quiet time, I felt a little off.  Now that I’m back on a writing schedule, that feeling is shrinking.  I imagine it will be gone when I feel I have caught up.

Writers write.  If you want to be a writer, this has to become a mantra.  Wannabe writers wanna write, writers write.

I was chatting with my wife yesterday about writing relating things as she gave me her first impressions on my current project and I was rather amazed that I have the next 6-8 months pretty planned out.

At the end of August I will be in possession of my second completed novel (first draft of course) which I will let stew for a few months before reprising (it will DEFINITELY need a rewrite…remember, first drafts are supposed to suck).  September will be focused on short story craft and hard core editting Revenant in the hopes of being able to send it out this year at least once.   October will be focused on brainstorming a third project for NaNoWriMo in November.   December will be all about brainstorming a fourth novel, which I believe will be a sequel to Revenant and in January, while (hopefully) I can shop Revenant around, I will begin rewriting THIS current project up to submission standards.

It’s a tall order, I don’t know if I can do it.  I’m going to try.  It’s a lot of work, but it’s amazing that if I can get by the initial resistance to actually sitting down and writing (or revising, what have you) how satisfying this all feels.

Thinking about this I was pleased to see my feelings echoed in the “Daily Writing Tips” newsletter I subscribe to:

#1: Writing is a High-Resistance Activity

I’ve been writing for a living for three years (I’ve completed a novel in that time too), and I still find myself reluctant to get going when I sit down to write.

Writing isn’t easy. It takes mental energy – and often emotional energy, too. For most of us, the writing process is also a thinking process: for instance, if you’re putting together a “Hire Me” page for your blog, you’ll have to get completely clear about what exactly you offer, what you charge, and so on.

In between all this, I am going to keep up this blog.  I am going to try and expand my audience both for this site and my works (slowly) and I will continue to work on short stories, learn the writing craft and work on the serial (yes, yes, I hear you.  I’ll continue soon!)

Thanks again for your support and stick around to see how it goes!