Well, this has been a strange day writing-wise. I cut over 2,000 words out of the WiP and put almost 1900 new ones in. It’s taken three days to get the story straightened out and I’m far behind pure word count goals (currently at 21,800, when I was reaching for 50,000 by this week.) I have managed to add more than 9,300 words since the beginning of the Clarion West Write-a-thon (I had about 12,000 words at the start of the Write-a-thon period), but on a normal writing schedule, it should have been 10K per week and it hasn’t been, because I’ve been fighting with structure problems and legacy–this story has been on my back burner for six years. It’s frustrating and yet it’s also a Good Thing. The piece in on-spec with the hope that my agent can sell it. At this rate I won’t be able to complete a first draft of this project before I have to get started on the first draft of the ninth Greywalker novel (September First or bust!), but I might make a decent go of a partial and then I’ll have to hope someone is interested in seeing more. Right now that’s the best I can do.
I’ve never managed to write more than one novel-length manuscript in a year. I’ve done as much as one plus the equivalent of a half of another, but short stories and novellas aren’t quite the same in terms of writing and development as a novel. It’s not just a matter of sitting and typing in any case, but the work is different and demands a different kind of approach. In this case, it’s actually the same approach, but to… well to a whole new world.
Writing with new characters, different POV, and very different emphasis and goals from the Greywalker books for a sustained period has a constant exercise in finding my weaknesses and crutches and trying to keep on running forward anyhow. It’s harder than I’d ever imagined.
I’ll get it done somehow. I have to. This is what I do–it’s my job as well as my delight. But sometimes I do have to remind myself that this is something I want to do.
