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Tuesday, September 27th.
Sep. 27th, 2011 10:58 amNews For Today
Okay, so I've been dealing with the present a lot lately... which has been a productive exercise, but has me making news posts that are all either schedule or fundraiser-related. Not terribly interesting. Let's talk about the future, specifically the next three months.
October's going to be my first full month on the new schedule, and I'm going into it with a lot of confidence. My goal for the month, as I've said, is 12 updates to the Tales of MU site: 8 chapters, 3 Other Tales, and what will be the second chapter of Kin & Distant Relations.
My goal for November is to bring back Fantasy In Miniature. I'm using a similar calendar-based approach here; the flash site will be updated every even numbered day. I had good results for a while with writing a week's worth of material in advance, but writing five days' worth of material every seven days wasn't something I could do all the time. Writing five days' every ten days is probably a bit more manageable. To find out for sure, I'm actually going to be writing November's material in October. As with Tales of MU, I'm not going to be pushing myself to see what I can do under extreme pressure so much as trying to figure out what I can do when I sort of relax into it.
My goal for December is to have another novella out, which will either be Dangerous Instrumentality (AKA, the wizard story), Working Class Villain (the follow-up to The Gift of the Bad Guy), or Riddletongue (which is the working title for my fantasy novel)... the newsletter going out on Friday's has an excerpt from WCV in it, and I'm going to solicit feedback from the newsletter readers about which story grabs them most, because they're all about equally grabby to me. Whichever one I choose after hearing reader input, I'm going to start working on in an organized fashion immediately... it's not that I plan on writing a novella in December, it's that I plan to finish it then.
Each month's goal is meant to be something sustainable. I'm going to keep up the same goal on Tales of MU, I'm going to keep writing a raft of flash stories every month, I'm going to try to average a new novella every three months... that timeframe will be more subject to fluctuate than the other ones, but I'm going to set benchmarks for myself every time I undertake a new one.
Now, this might seem like I'm piling a lot of stuff on top of a schedule that works in order to find its breaking point, which is a mistake I've made a lot in the past. But I'm actually basing it on the past few weeks... aside from publishing a short story that I wrote previously, the only "public" work I've been doing this month is Tales of MU but in the space between writing the chapters, but the hours between MU-related bursts of productivity haven't been idle. They haven't exactly been focused yet, but they haven't been idle.
I'm also approaching the new goals/benchmarks as things to be determined rather than things to be carved in stone. If it turns out that 12 flash stories a month or 10 is a more reasonable expectation, that's what I'll do. If it turns out that 2 or 3 novellas a year is more realistic than 4, that's what I'll do.
Now, the astute reader will notice that Star Harbor Nights doesn't appear anywhere in these goals. I haven't dropped it from my plans. I'm actually going to try writing it for the next three months at the same time that I'm working on these other things. If that goes according to plan, I'll be announcing its schedule in December when I list my goals for the next three months.
It's not that I lack for either time or inspiration. I just haven't properly understood how to channel these two resources efficiently before.
State of the Me
Okay. Slept okay, feeling okay. Emotionally and physically okay. Financially... people have asked, since I've been banging the fundraiser drum... I'm at "uncomfortable" rather than "precarious". Reaching the nagbox goal of $1,000 (a little over $300 away) would make me solid. Even an influx of ~$100 before the end of the month would really help.
Plans For Today
I've got ~900 words of a chapter already in progress, so I'm going to jump to day 3 and flesh it out so tomorrow I can finish it.
Okay, so I've been dealing with the present a lot lately... which has been a productive exercise, but has me making news posts that are all either schedule or fundraiser-related. Not terribly interesting. Let's talk about the future, specifically the next three months.
October's going to be my first full month on the new schedule, and I'm going into it with a lot of confidence. My goal for the month, as I've said, is 12 updates to the Tales of MU site: 8 chapters, 3 Other Tales, and what will be the second chapter of Kin & Distant Relations.
My goal for November is to bring back Fantasy In Miniature. I'm using a similar calendar-based approach here; the flash site will be updated every even numbered day. I had good results for a while with writing a week's worth of material in advance, but writing five days' worth of material every seven days wasn't something I could do all the time. Writing five days' every ten days is probably a bit more manageable. To find out for sure, I'm actually going to be writing November's material in October. As with Tales of MU, I'm not going to be pushing myself to see what I can do under extreme pressure so much as trying to figure out what I can do when I sort of relax into it.
My goal for December is to have another novella out, which will either be Dangerous Instrumentality (AKA, the wizard story), Working Class Villain (the follow-up to The Gift of the Bad Guy), or Riddletongue (which is the working title for my fantasy novel)... the newsletter going out on Friday's has an excerpt from WCV in it, and I'm going to solicit feedback from the newsletter readers about which story grabs them most, because they're all about equally grabby to me. Whichever one I choose after hearing reader input, I'm going to start working on in an organized fashion immediately... it's not that I plan on writing a novella in December, it's that I plan to finish it then.
Each month's goal is meant to be something sustainable. I'm going to keep up the same goal on Tales of MU, I'm going to keep writing a raft of flash stories every month, I'm going to try to average a new novella every three months... that timeframe will be more subject to fluctuate than the other ones, but I'm going to set benchmarks for myself every time I undertake a new one.
Now, this might seem like I'm piling a lot of stuff on top of a schedule that works in order to find its breaking point, which is a mistake I've made a lot in the past. But I'm actually basing it on the past few weeks... aside from publishing a short story that I wrote previously, the only "public" work I've been doing this month is Tales of MU but in the space between writing the chapters, but the hours between MU-related bursts of productivity haven't been idle. They haven't exactly been focused yet, but they haven't been idle.
I'm also approaching the new goals/benchmarks as things to be determined rather than things to be carved in stone. If it turns out that 12 flash stories a month or 10 is a more reasonable expectation, that's what I'll do. If it turns out that 2 or 3 novellas a year is more realistic than 4, that's what I'll do.
Now, the astute reader will notice that Star Harbor Nights doesn't appear anywhere in these goals. I haven't dropped it from my plans. I'm actually going to try writing it for the next three months at the same time that I'm working on these other things. If that goes according to plan, I'll be announcing its schedule in December when I list my goals for the next three months.
It's not that I lack for either time or inspiration. I just haven't properly understood how to channel these two resources efficiently before.
State of the Me
Okay. Slept okay, feeling okay. Emotionally and physically okay. Financially... people have asked, since I've been banging the fundraiser drum... I'm at "uncomfortable" rather than "precarious". Reaching the nagbox goal of $1,000 (a little over $300 away) would make me solid. Even an influx of ~$100 before the end of the month would really help.
Plans For Today
I've got ~900 words of a chapter already in progress, so I'm going to jump to day 3 and flesh it out so tomorrow I can finish it.
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