#WritingWednesday – General updates on the state of #Doing
No word count this week as I attempt, yet again, to resurrect the weekly #WritingWednesday segment.
It’s been a very busy few weeks. If you’ll recall my July 23, post I announced a project to write 1,000 words a day for 100 days and bang out Hunter. At the time I was full of energy, having just finished the second part of the CPA exam a few days earlier, and after almost five full months of living Accounting first and creative second, I was more than ready to let the creative sit front and center.
It’s possible that my reach, exceeded my grasp.
Before I go on, please indulge me as I list out the various creative projects I have going on at the moment -
Slipspace: Harbinger podcast production (Casting and narration)
Preparing a Slipspace Harbinger print run
Drafting Hunter
Re-outlining Prospect with Veronica Giguere
Cybrosis related project that I’m not ready to detail quite yet
Website related project that I’m not ready to detail quite yet
Preparing to start edits and re-writes for Slipspace: Shadowplay
Continued brainstorming for a fourth Slipspace project
Beta reading one manuscript
Soon to be beta reading a second manuscript…I think.
In fairness not all of these tasks fall exclusively on me. Many of the Harbinger print run needs can and will be done by others, thus freeing my time up to write, brainstorm, produce, and edit. But the CPA exam looms on the horizon once more as I’m now two weeks out from the start of the review courses for part 3. And while 1,000 words a day didn’t seem like that much at the time I made this pledge, (After all that’s a slower daily pace than the dictates of NaNo) I quickly found that the words for Hunter are not coming as easily as I might have thought and finding those 1,000 words every day often take a couple of hours.
A couple of hours that I want to spend recording, editing, and doing other things on this list.
Let me be clear. This is not an issue of “Writers Block” it’s more of an issue of world building, brainstorming, and trying to put the pieces of a story together. I had similiar issues with the early drafts of Cybrosis. By the same token, this is NOT a “I have writers block and can’t write” post. I’m writing. But as I write, I need to acknowledge my own inherent limitations.
So… I’m scaling back the writing quota back to align to the Magic Spreadsheet’s quota. Currently thats 550 words and soon I suspect it’ll be 600. I’m ending the “Lowell” experiment, but I’m not declaring it a failure. I’m also not declaring it a victory. It’s just not the right time for this right now.
Writing on Hunter continues. I’m currently 15,000+ words in and, for the most part, I’m liking where it’s going. The outline still needs some work, but it’s strong enough that I can write on, and worry about fixing holes later and/or see if the story itself presents some options to fill in the gaps.
Last week, I finished the last upgrade to the recording booth in the form of new, bright, consistent and (most importantly) silent lighting. A good portion of last weekend was spent finding levels and re-establishing baselines and this week, tonight and tomorrow especially, will see a bit of time spent in the studio recording narration and some voice actor work on Harbinger and was able to finish laying down the raw narration for the first chapter earlier this evening.
So, things are moving, albeit slowly. But this process reminds me of a freight train. It’s slow to get going, but once it gets up to speed, it’s going to take a lot of effort to stop it’s momentum.
As my friend, Tee Morris always says, Enjoy the Ride!
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