Writing status update (#34)

It’s been about a month and a half since my last update, and while I’ve had a couple of productive weeks in that time, the vast majority of my creative effort and attention has been demanded by classwork, even more than I’d expected. I had hoped to … but I should go through the goals I set in mid-August point by point, instead of repeating myself first

Continue regular work on Shine Cycle development (the prerequisite for any substantial progress at all).

I didn’t manage regular progress at all; having the time for any development at all felt like a major victory.

Create super-sequence outlines (explanation) for three of the “Alternate Universes” sub-series.

I did this for two.

Answer at least two of the “Wrede questions” that I postponed when I went through the list a few years ago.

Success: I got through two, but only two.

Write loglines for at least two of the planned stories that don’t have them yet.

I didn’t do this for even one. But this is partly because no logline-creation task came up in my task tracker. (They are in the same “slot” in the rotation as the Wrede questions.)

Do “snowflake step 2” for at least one planned novel.

Close: The one task of this type that came up was for Space and Time, which I expect to split and so want to plan for in multiple parts; I set up (and scheduled for what will probably be years from now) the tasks for doing that.

Write at least two character histories and at least one character biography.

I wrote one character history and one biography, though I have also sketched out a second history that is waiting for me to sit down with the timeline spreadsheet.

Finish the Alliance précis I’ve been postponing for a couple of years now

I finally finished it. You’ll see it in this space later this month.

Post at least one Shine Cycle-related post before the next status update.

I’d hoped to manage this, but I should have posted this update weeks ago anyway.

Write at least a hundred words of “actual prose.”

As usual, I didn’t manage this.

Now, for the next several weeks.

I expect I’ll want to combine my monthly status report with my year-end retrospective (which will, as usual, come at the end of the liturgical year, the week before Advent), so these goals are for a period of about a month and a half. But I also expect classwork to continue to demand my time and attention, and I should spend more time in advance on seasonal blog posts, so I can’t set my sights too high.

Continue regular work on Shine Cycle development (the prerequisite for any substantial progress at all).
Create super-sequence outlines for three of the “Alternate Universes” sub-series.
Answer at least two of the “Wrede questions” that I postponed when I went through the list a few years ago.
Write loglines for at least one of the planned stories that doesn’t have them yet.
Do “snowflake step 2” for at least one planned novel.
Write at least two character histories and at least one character biography.
Post at least two Shine Cycle-related post before the next status update.
Write at least a hundred words of “actual prose.”

As always, we’ll see how reality matches up to those goals.

Filed under: Status updates