The case of the vanishing writer

It’s not you, it’s me. I’ve been absent from here and most other social places for a while.

The good news is that I’ve been toiling away, writing my next book. I’ve finally found a real, focused writing process that feels like work (but in a good way).

The bad news is that my focus comes at the exclusion of almost everything else. Other than the family, and getting my butt to the gym, I’m a bit of a hermit.  There are countless coffee chats I’ve put off, events I’ve skipped, and a bunch of ‘should do’ tasks that are on the farthest back burner imaginable.

I’m getting close to the end of the first draft, so bear with me. Soon I shall emerge from my dimly lit den to sniff out socializing and camaraderie.

Piles of sand, not much castle

As I mentioned earlier, I am in the midst of writing my next book. It’s in the early stages of the first draft (not even a title yet) and each day is a bit of a slog. I’ve tried to make my peace with the first draft always being a bucket of hot garbage, but it can still be frustrating. One might say that labelling my work in progress “hot garbage” could contribute to morale problems.

So, I’m working to use an alternate metaphor for the first draft. I came across this Twitter quote from author Shannon Hale (@haleshannon), and it might fit the bill:

“When writing a first draft, I have to remind myself constantly that I’m only shoveling sand into a box so later I can build castles.”

This is a tad more flowery than I normally like, but I’ll give it a test drive. It doesn’t mean that the process of shovelling sand isn’t also frustrating. You know that the sand is just gonna pour out of the scoop into a heap, but you secretly long for it to magically coalesce into the structures floating around in your imagination. There’s no magic here, though. Just work.

It’s a lot like choosing to stumble into the woods without a compass or a plan. You push through scratching brambles and slip down muddy embankments without any sense of which direction you’re going in. Every step might be taking you far away from your destination. But once and a while, you crest a hill that rises above the tree cover and you see the landscape spilling out towards the end of your journey. The promise of finding the end of the story and being able to retell it is enough to send you back into the brush and weeds to keep plodding forward.

To all of my fellow writers near and far, plod on!

The plan for 2016

(To be completely accurate, it’s the plan for the rest of 2015 and 2016, but let’s not get too hung up on technicalities)

As is normal for anyone approaching the end of a calendar year, I’ve been thinking about the year that has passed and the new one ahead. After some high quality musing,  a few different ideas fell into place and I set about creating a writing schedule for the next year.

I was excited when I sat down to make the schedule. Mere moments later, I was overwhelmed and panicked. That’s right, I made up my own task list and promptly freked out at how much there was to do. Who needs external adversaries when your own brain is playing Moriarity to your low rent Holmes?

After a considerable amount of calming down and coffee drinking, the panic passed. There’s still a lot to do, and I’m not promising my internal deadlines are hard and fast, but I have a road map. Would you like to see it? Here are the highlights:

  • Finish the first draft of book #4 (underway now, aiming to be done by end of February. Gonna need a title too)
  • Revise WitchKids for an enhanced 3rd edition, with even less mistakes AND new content (ETA Mid-March)
  • Revise Kingmaker for an enhanced 2nd edition: less oopsies, new story bits (ETA End of March)
  • Revise The Patchwork Boy for enhanced 2nd Edition (ETA mid-April)
  • Edit and publish book #4 (ETA oh geez sometime in 2016. End of May?)
  • Book launch party for book #4 (after it’s done, okay?)
  • Forest City Comicon (November 5&6)

And that’s not everything I want to work on, either. Sheesh.