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Friday, January 3rd
Jan. 3rd, 2014 11:01 amThe Daily Report
Last night I ended up writing about 3,700 words of a thing before I went to bed. It's a new thing, it's not a complete thing in and of itself. I've posted it to my Patreon feed in the for sponsors only section, and will be including it in my next newsletter.
The question of how to bring this thing to completion (and if it's something that will work out/is worth pursuing) is one that's been on my mind last night and this morning, which has me in a reflective mood about my track record of finishing things that have a promising beginning. I have a lot of things that have a really good start and then fizzle out, and while some of the blame can be laid at the feet of my nomadic phase, I think a lot of it comes down to a basic repeated error I've been making, and that's trying to distribute creative tasks over time.
I'll write a few to several thousand words of something and think, "Wow, this is really good, but of course I can't write like this all the time." And then I think, "Well, if I could write this much all in one go, I can surely write a few hundred words a day."
And the problem with this is that switching gears takes time and effort. It often takes a few hundred words to get into my groove. When I'm writing a chapter of Tales of MU or a short story, the first few hundred words are the ones most likely to be re-written or left behind. While I dedicate four days to each MU chapter, I'm still doing the largest chunk of writing in a single day. Flow comes when you know what you're doing and you sit down and do it without interruption.
Most recently, this happened with The One Called Wander. I had the idea, I sat down and wrote a bunch of it, and then a while later I sat down and wrote a bunch more... and then I decided it was time to settle into the rhythm of writing incrementally, and it faltered. I assigned blame to the ongoing upheavals in my life making it harder to get a daily rhythm, but the fact is, it's harder to get a decent flow going writing a bite-sized chunk every day then it is spending a couple of hours one day writing a bigger thing.
Before that, it happened with my fantasy revolution/romance novella, By Half Measures. I wrote the bulk of it in a few sustained sittings and then tried to fill it in incrementally.
My professional villainy novella Gift of the Bad Guy is kind of the opposite case, in that rather than fighting to clamp down on the flow and spread it out over a long period of time, I just sat and wrote it.
Going farther back to when I started my career as a full time serialist and my attempt to fill my more abundant working time with four novellas? That was so disastrous, and most of my attempts to fix my work flow worked by breaking the creative work up into smaller and smaller chunks, with worse and worse results.
This revelation isn't leading to an immediate plan of action, but it is going to play into what I do with The One Called Wander and Star Harbor Nights in the dawning year. And of course how I proceed with the new thing, if it turns into an ongoing thing or larger thing.
The State of the Me
I was up a little bit later than I expected due to Sudden Onset Muse Syndrome (SOMS), as a consequence of which I got up a little bit later than planned/expected. The only real casualty here is my cat, who didn't get to watch the front porch being shoveled because his window blinds were tragically lowered.
Plans For Today
Today is day 1 of the MU writing cycle, which is conception. I already have a pretty clear idea of the next chapter. The bulk of what I'm going to do today in practical terms is geared towards perk fulfillment for the fundraiser.
Last night I ended up writing about 3,700 words of a thing before I went to bed. It's a new thing, it's not a complete thing in and of itself. I've posted it to my Patreon feed in the for sponsors only section, and will be including it in my next newsletter.
The question of how to bring this thing to completion (and if it's something that will work out/is worth pursuing) is one that's been on my mind last night and this morning, which has me in a reflective mood about my track record of finishing things that have a promising beginning. I have a lot of things that have a really good start and then fizzle out, and while some of the blame can be laid at the feet of my nomadic phase, I think a lot of it comes down to a basic repeated error I've been making, and that's trying to distribute creative tasks over time.
I'll write a few to several thousand words of something and think, "Wow, this is really good, but of course I can't write like this all the time." And then I think, "Well, if I could write this much all in one go, I can surely write a few hundred words a day."
And the problem with this is that switching gears takes time and effort. It often takes a few hundred words to get into my groove. When I'm writing a chapter of Tales of MU or a short story, the first few hundred words are the ones most likely to be re-written or left behind. While I dedicate four days to each MU chapter, I'm still doing the largest chunk of writing in a single day. Flow comes when you know what you're doing and you sit down and do it without interruption.
Most recently, this happened with The One Called Wander. I had the idea, I sat down and wrote a bunch of it, and then a while later I sat down and wrote a bunch more... and then I decided it was time to settle into the rhythm of writing incrementally, and it faltered. I assigned blame to the ongoing upheavals in my life making it harder to get a daily rhythm, but the fact is, it's harder to get a decent flow going writing a bite-sized chunk every day then it is spending a couple of hours one day writing a bigger thing.
Before that, it happened with my fantasy revolution/romance novella, By Half Measures. I wrote the bulk of it in a few sustained sittings and then tried to fill it in incrementally.
My professional villainy novella Gift of the Bad Guy is kind of the opposite case, in that rather than fighting to clamp down on the flow and spread it out over a long period of time, I just sat and wrote it.
Going farther back to when I started my career as a full time serialist and my attempt to fill my more abundant working time with four novellas? That was so disastrous, and most of my attempts to fix my work flow worked by breaking the creative work up into smaller and smaller chunks, with worse and worse results.
This revelation isn't leading to an immediate plan of action, but it is going to play into what I do with The One Called Wander and Star Harbor Nights in the dawning year. And of course how I proceed with the new thing, if it turns into an ongoing thing or larger thing.
The State of the Me
I was up a little bit later than I expected due to Sudden Onset Muse Syndrome (SOMS), as a consequence of which I got up a little bit later than planned/expected. The only real casualty here is my cat, who didn't get to watch the front porch being shoveled because his window blinds were tragically lowered.
Plans For Today
Today is day 1 of the MU writing cycle, which is conception. I already have a pretty clear idea of the next chapter. The bulk of what I'm going to do today in practical terms is geared towards perk fulfillment for the fundraiser.