Doing All The Stuffs #AmWriting
Before I get into today’s post, I want to say thank to everyone. Life has slowly been making its way back to stability. All of your condolences have been heartwarming, and I appreciate it.
Now, onto writing related stuff.
Have you ever wanted to do so much that you find yourself uncertain where to start and therefore you finish nothing?
That’s me.
As I reviewed my Isto chapters to figure out how to revise for better tension, I decided to take out the arrival of some people at my main character’s location and replace it with a monster fight (unwritten, as of yet). Since my brain insists that I keep everything in line, I hopped into book 3 of my series to see what the damage would be. I’d added these to my plan, but now they’re not going to be there. I’m okay with them not being there, because I wasn’t sure what role they’d play in the greater story arc other than a mention of them in a 6K character origin story I wrote some time back.
That got me reading book 3’s chapters.
Good news: I still find the story interesting. Bad news: It left me wanting to write fresh story rather than edit existing chapters, because creation is so much more fun than correction (though my friend Dani would disagree). I added about 2K worth of words and tried to figure out how I wanted to lay out the chapters. I’d made a plan for this book, but things aren’t as short as I’d anticipated. What had been one little Post-It note on my plan (caught in illusion) has turned into three chapters. And on my plan, I’d had another character’s story further along at that point, which again throws off the flow.
As I chewed my lip debating if I wanted to start passing this hot mess off to my critique group, I decided that no, I wouldn’t. I’d go with something safer, something lighter, something that I’d hoped to finish this year.
So I dug Murder Most Fowl out of the holding bin.
Since I needed a refresher, I started rereading. I was up to 20K with a target of finishing around 25K, so completing 5K before my group gets to that point in the story should be doable. As I got toward the last two chapters, I realized why I had stalled out. Things get serious and it just became dramatic and unfun. So I cut the last 2K, and started that section over. I’m once again where I left off, but this time I’ve got ideas on how to move the story along.
Needless to say, I haven’t made much progress on Isto’s edits. *hangs head* But hopefully, by this time next week, I’ll have finished MMF and can complete my circle to find myself back in Isto territory.
Do you tend to work on multiple stories at once? Do you ever find yourself distracted by other stories, keeping you from what you should be doing?
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