(I’ve posted this before but it bears repeating.)

On good days, everything goes right and I have the whole script executed from start to finish within four or five hours. On bad days I write the whole script in four or five hours, realise that it’s useless, tear it up and start again. I repeat this process four or five times until I’m reduced to a blubbering wreck that just slumps in the armchair and whimpers about how it has no talent whatsoever and will never write again. Next day I’ll get up, get the whole thing right the first time and spend the rest of the day walking round reading my favourite bits to my wife, children, or visiting tradesmen. (This is why you should never marry an artist or writer. They’re bad news to have around the house, believe me.) -Alan Moore

Over in my e-commerce blog, I’ve been talking about the damage going on vacation had on my customer relations and my feedback with my eBay business. But that wasn’t the only damage done by checking out of my life for a week and a half.

See, before we left for vacation, I was on Mistress Novel overload. I read many, many books on editing and fixing your writing. I read through the entire draft, making notes to myself on what to change. I did the editing of all editing on the first few chapters.

Even when I wasn’t actually working on the book (which was often in the rush to get all my work done before I left for vacation) I was thinking about the book constantly. This made edits and new scenes much easier because I had them all written out in my head before I ever actually got the chance to sit down and write them. Without an interruption, I would have finished my edits pretty quickly. I was living that novel every second.

Sadly, there was a good deal of interruption. The week before vacation was madness, trying to catch up with everything so we could leave and so I barely got to touch the book. I don’t want to make it sound like vacation is a bad thing. I had a wonderful time and I really needed some time off. But time-off meant time off from all of my work and that included my writing. I brought my novel along but I didn’t work on it much, mostly because I was afraid of losing or damaging my notes and draft by the pool which would have been a bad thing.

So after limited novel work the week before vacation, the last time I was able to seriously work on the book was close to 4 weeks ago. This is a huge problem. I went from living every second thinking about the novel non-stop to not having touched it. It feels like something a stranger wrote and I am in the “this is all crap, what idiot wrote this” stage of revision when I was feeling very good about the draft before vacation. I went to edit the novel yesterday and again today and it took me a full hour to edit a page each time. It’s like reading someone else’s work and it feels unfamiliar and awkward working on it. It also doesn’t help that I am still frantically trying to catch up and deal with the damage to the business that vacation caused.

Now, I know the fix for this is the just keep forcing myself to work on it until I pick up the thread again so that is what I have been doing, however slow the going is. But I when I think of that amazing mindset I was in about the book before vacation, I cannot help but think that the book would have been better off if I hadn’t gone on vacation and had finished it right then and there.

The lesson I am supposed to take away from this, I suspect, is that I should have still worked on vacation. But, damn it, I already had to check emails and do other work over vacation, what kind of break is it if I have to do all my work?

Frustrated at the moment. But got to keep slogging on as they say.

I totally originally wrote that title as “postal child” which you may find to be more appropriate.

So, as you know, back in November, I took on National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo as the cool people call it. I finished and won and all that good stuff.

Now it is March. March, you will be unsurprised to learn, is National Novel Editing Month which people call NaNoEdMo. Though much less formal than NaNoWriMo, the goal of NaNoEdMo is to do 50 hours of editing in the month of March.

I am not officially signed up to do NaNoEdMo but I am basically doing it all the same while I frantically rush to finish editing my novel (written during NaNoWriMo, so you see how this all comes together) so that I can give it to beta readers before the start of April.

Why do readers need it before the start of April, you ask?

Because April, my dear chums, is Script Frenzy, the bastard red-headed step child of NaNoWriMo. (I mean that affectionately, naturally.) That month long challenge is to write an 100 page script in a month. You probably think that the cool kids call this NaScriWriMo but you would be wrong. They call it Screnzy. I have no idea why.

For the love of God, Hillary, you ask at this point, why are you doing Script Frenzy? Don’t you have enough damn stuff to do? Several reasons. Firstly, I was recommended to be the ML (Municipal Liaison) for my area in NaNoWriMo this year. So before I decide if I should dive into that, I wanted to have the experience of organizing a smaller event so I decided to act as unofficial ML for my area for Script Frenzy this year. Now the “why” behind my rationale for taking on ML-ing for either event this is a much longer answer that we shall discuss at another time. But there is a very good reason for it, I promise.

But in addition to that, I also wanted to get a ton more new writing done this year so far be it for me to turn my nose up at any challenge that gets my butt in the seat and makes me write more. So as long as there is a support group and a goal to meet, you know I’m there. I love the creative spirit and group effort that NaNoWriMo is and getting to do it more than once a year is a bonus.

What will I be writing? Stay tuned for that info.

So while I NaNoEdMo my NaNoWriMo in preparation for Screnzy, I will descend ever father into madness. Join me, won’t you?

PS: While I’m still going to blog about Screnzy writing progress and behind the scenes kind of stuff, I moved all my How-To type Screnzy stuff to this new section of the site called Script Frenzy tips & resources.