Crossroads
Yesterday I made an important writing-related decision, somewhat sad, somewhat relieving.
As many of you know, I began 2013 with the goal of writing 250,000 words. These words were to be divided among various projects, especially stuff that had been simmering for a while that just needed written already.
So far I've written 142,000 words between two projects: Oathborn and The Superhero Thing, and the proverbial ink was not yet dry on the latter before I turned to laura_josephsen and started pestering her about picking up on our Restoration efforts again, as per the next step in my game plan. That game plan was to revise Books 3 and 4 and have a shiny new draft of Book 5 done by year's end.
With respect to my 250K, there were three problems with this changing of gears.
(1) Getting in the right headspace. I've been living and breathing Superhero since February. Restoration is a familiar world, but one I've not revisited in some time and the two worlds are SO different. I couldn't just turn around and start writing toward the one the very next day after I wrote "the end" on the other. I need a short breather to recover and immerse myself back into the world and the mood of Restoration.
(2) An editing-shaped conundrum. So for those of you who are new, here's the deal with Restoration. (For those of you who know all this already, humor me).
In our young, green, extra-insane days, Laura and I had planned 12 books in the Restoration series. One for each speaker. Not a terrible idea, if the stories were worthy, but also a lot of work, and the more our writing careers have branched out, the more this series is running the risk of getting away from us. As of the end of 2011 we had four books written.
Sometime in the middle of last year, I was lunching with a co-worker and talking about the status of the series (she's a fan) and in the middle of it I got the idea to truncate our planned number of books. Honestly, the dumb idea to write 12 was mine to begin with (which made it extra comical to see how much I fluffed my own feathers over this ingenious idea). Writing fewer books would save time and make for stronger reads anyway. Go team!
However, as a result of this decision, new stories needed to be woven into the stuff we already had on paper, and Books 3 and 4 were going to need loads of material cut and new material added. Which brings us back up to now. (Deciding to shorten the series was all the more work we accomplished on Restoration last year... heh).
Right now, moving forward with Restoration means refitting Books 3 and 4 with additional story, which is sort of like writing a new book, but also there's a lot of editing involved. It's kind of a hybrid situation. Either way, if there's any kind of editing it's difficult to get a good count on the new words. So measuring my word count progress would be doable, but tedious.
(3) Coauthoring. Laura and I write together. I can't just dive into writing Restoration unless she's somewhat on board. We have to find a pace that works for both of us. And in addition to all the stuff that Laura has going on right now, my suggestion to try and get all the way through Book 5 in the next four months almost broke her (sorry about that, Laura!)
So... in conclusion, I am letting go of the dream. I could still make it if I treated my upcoming beach vacation as a writing retreat and worked my butt off writing while I'm there but I really, really, really don't want to do that...
The revised goal is to get Books 3 and 4 refitted by the end of the year and to do that job well. Additionally, I'm going to devote some freed-up energies to getting more reading done, which I have trouble with if I'm in the middle of an MS. (The "you should be writing, not reading!!!" guilt).
I know I've got lots of victories here-- I wrote something besides the Shakespeare Thing (Oathborn), which helped break away from the holding pattern I'd developed AND I finally got the Superhero thing out of my daydreams and into something we can work with. And we are going to get going again on Restoration. The spirit of the 250K goal was to Get Stuff Done, not just to write words for the sake of a word count.
But even so, I'm still frustrated. Just once I wish I could set one of these lofty goals and actually reach it...
Oh well. At least I get to use the "Hardison Dies in Plan M" tag, which is always fun. :-)
As many of you know, I began 2013 with the goal of writing 250,000 words. These words were to be divided among various projects, especially stuff that had been simmering for a while that just needed written already.
So far I've written 142,000 words between two projects: Oathborn and The Superhero Thing, and the proverbial ink was not yet dry on the latter before I turned to laura_josephsen and started pestering her about picking up on our Restoration efforts again, as per the next step in my game plan. That game plan was to revise Books 3 and 4 and have a shiny new draft of Book 5 done by year's end.
With respect to my 250K, there were three problems with this changing of gears.
(1) Getting in the right headspace. I've been living and breathing Superhero since February. Restoration is a familiar world, but one I've not revisited in some time and the two worlds are SO different. I couldn't just turn around and start writing toward the one the very next day after I wrote "the end" on the other. I need a short breather to recover and immerse myself back into the world and the mood of Restoration.
(2) An editing-shaped conundrum. So for those of you who are new, here's the deal with Restoration. (For those of you who know all this already, humor me).
In our young, green, extra-insane days, Laura and I had planned 12 books in the Restoration series. One for each speaker. Not a terrible idea, if the stories were worthy, but also a lot of work, and the more our writing careers have branched out, the more this series is running the risk of getting away from us. As of the end of 2011 we had four books written.
Sometime in the middle of last year, I was lunching with a co-worker and talking about the status of the series (she's a fan) and in the middle of it I got the idea to truncate our planned number of books. Honestly, the dumb idea to write 12 was mine to begin with (which made it extra comical to see how much I fluffed my own feathers over this ingenious idea). Writing fewer books would save time and make for stronger reads anyway. Go team!
However, as a result of this decision, new stories needed to be woven into the stuff we already had on paper, and Books 3 and 4 were going to need loads of material cut and new material added. Which brings us back up to now. (Deciding to shorten the series was all the more work we accomplished on Restoration last year... heh).
Right now, moving forward with Restoration means refitting Books 3 and 4 with additional story, which is sort of like writing a new book, but also there's a lot of editing involved. It's kind of a hybrid situation. Either way, if there's any kind of editing it's difficult to get a good count on the new words. So measuring my word count progress would be doable, but tedious.
(3) Coauthoring. Laura and I write together. I can't just dive into writing Restoration unless she's somewhat on board. We have to find a pace that works for both of us. And in addition to all the stuff that Laura has going on right now, my suggestion to try and get all the way through Book 5 in the next four months almost broke her (sorry about that, Laura!)
So... in conclusion, I am letting go of the dream. I could still make it if I treated my upcoming beach vacation as a writing retreat and worked my butt off writing while I'm there but I really, really, really don't want to do that...
The revised goal is to get Books 3 and 4 refitted by the end of the year and to do that job well. Additionally, I'm going to devote some freed-up energies to getting more reading done, which I have trouble with if I'm in the middle of an MS. (The "you should be writing, not reading!!!" guilt).
I know I've got lots of victories here-- I wrote something besides the Shakespeare Thing (Oathborn), which helped break away from the holding pattern I'd developed AND I finally got the Superhero thing out of my daydreams and into something we can work with. And we are going to get going again on Restoration. The spirit of the 250K goal was to Get Stuff Done, not just to write words for the sake of a word count.
But even so, I'm still frustrated. Just once I wish I could set one of these lofty goals and actually reach it...
Oh well. At least I get to use the "Hardison Dies in Plan M" tag, which is always fun. :-)