Mar 21 2009
Writing Status
I don’t know why, though I am sure a psychiatrist could lay it out for me, but I get more writing done when I report my status on my blog. Lord knows, I am reasonably sure that those of your reading don’t care about my current words count but it makes me feel weirdly accountable so I am going to keep doing it if its OK with you.
Unfortunately, though, while NaNoWriMo gave me a simple measure of how much I had completed, there is no good way to report editing other than from me to just say, “Finished Chapters x thru k today” or whatever so I think that is what I will do. I am really eager to stop mucking with it and just hand it over to my readers to start moving the thing towards a done state.
Yes I am a control freak and yes this is my baby but enough is enough. Let’s finish this thing.
Here is the wall I have hit with my book. This book is huge, the biggest thing that I have ever written. This is causing me massive problems because whenever I get interrupted and have to take a week or two off of writing, I totally forget where I am. It’s not just a matter of “Did I stop at Chapter 10 or 11?” It’s an issue where I don’t know which draft is newest or don’t remember whether I explained such and such. Exposition has been a huge problem because I end up explaining things multiple times or not at all because I forget if I already explained it.
I know what I need to do. I need to be able to sit down and work non-stop on the book for a good chunk of time and then I would be able to knock the whole thing off. Unfortunately, time is something I don’t really have an abundance of.
No one has just a solid amount of time to work on one thing (be it their book or whatever) in real life, however. Even professional writers have a million other things on their plate including raising their families and whatnot. If I am going to do this for real, I need to just figure out a way to keep track of all the balls I have in the air at the same time as doing everything else. I don’t see myself ever having the luxery of working on nothing but my book.
So I am creating a new spreadsheet. I am hoping that if I have a little chapter summary of each chapter and other info, it will be easier for me to pick the book up mid way rather than having to go back and re-map out. Anyone have a better idea, please feel free to share it.
I am going to work for a little right now on it using my new system. Let’s see how well it works!
Hillary is an award winning playwright, fiction and non-fiction author best known for her play, The Love of Three Oranges which has been performed around the world. A Script Frenzy and NaNoWriMo ML, she loves connecting with other writers no matter what their experience levels. For the business side of blogging, publishing and selling, visit Hillary at The Whine Seller. See a complete list of Hillary’s blogs and books here.
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