Tag: Writing Time

Productivity and Me During the Covid Era

African American student with beard and glasses in front of a bookcase with a computer on his desk stares out the window in a distracted fashion.
Source: https://www.apa.org/topics/covid-19/student-stress

I watched with amazement at the announcement video by Brandon Sanderson on how he managed to spend his time during the Covid 19 pandemic. I’ve included the video link at the end of this section in case you’re curious, but suffice to say, Sanderson’s Kickstarter project, announced in the video, has become the #1 Most Funded Kickstarter OF ALL TIME! Already a number 1 bestselling author, I believe that his success came from the fact that he already has a very large audience for his works, he was able to actually “show” the fruits/efforts of his work (something that is highly dubious on Kickstarter/social funding sites), and because of the “limited” nature of announcements (i.e., some things he would try to make available later, but not sure how/when that might look like) he was able to capitalize on that you need to “act now” if you want to be sure to “get it/get in,” although the more cynical among us would say he was able to capitalize on FOMO–Fear of Missing Out, but that’s always something in a capitalistic society (I once bought a mediocre PS1 game once because it released while I was in the hospital and I knew that, at the time, production runs on games were limited and you often couldn’t find a “new” release 3-6 months down the road; I wouldn’t have bought it–based on the reviews–had I not already been a couple of weeks/a month behind the release “window” of the game). My point is that Brandon Sanderson used his time well and is now being rewarded justly for his efforts.

Home Life Interferes with Work Life

I cannot say the same.

I am not one of the writers who can dream of a big (or small) house, with a room overlooking a lake (or a garden) with a white picket fence. For me, that type of dream wouldn’t work.

Why, you might ask?

Well, the “Covid Years” have helped me to see that I’m a person that likes discreet settings and that my “work/life” balance is strong when I’m able to separate my life and life activities into units. Work = work, home = home, and mixing the two is NOT desirable for me. That’s one of the reasons why my blogging has become so sporadic and my blog has become such a low priority on my activities: I used to do the blog while at work as a way to “ease” myself into the “workday.” I didn’t have to worry about time as I knew the majority of it would be spent working on grading, working on developing lesson plans, working on administration of the class/school (answering emails, etc.).

However, during the “Covid years,” trying to manage this while at hope has shifted my strategies and I’m having to try to work around making sure I get the mail before people get into my mailbox (or spending the time to put up a locking mailbox), trying to do errands on 1-2 days before working, where I could spread those errands out over the course of the work week (5 days) and get 2x as much done in a week, just over a slightly longer timeframe. I even used to get up at 7am — 7:30am, so that I could get to school (and the graduate “office”) at about 10am even when I didn’t have a class. I would then work until lunch time, go home (apartment) and eat lunch, and then return to the workroom at about 2pm and work until dinnertime. Sometimes, although not always (about 2-3 nights a week), I’d even come back and work in the evenings (from 7-9 or 8-10) before going back to the apartment to do it all again–you can ask one of my grad. student friends as she had to come back to the “office” one evening to unlock the door after I’d accidentally locked my keys in the “office.” (Thank you! 🙏).

This is so not my life now. I struggle to get my afternoon session in on MWF and my morning session is often “shot” because that’s when I tend to need to run the errands that I used to get done M-F. It is a struggle to spend 1 hr on the blog, knowing that I need to get ready and go out so that I can get back and try to do work. Also, because I can’t spread out the work, I end up trying to get everything done in 1-2 hours and invariably everything takes longer than that to do and I just end up with incomplete tasks and high levels of frustration.

Writing: Forget about it! I’ve not written anything major in a while although I’ve tried (I’ve really tried!). Unlike Sanderson, I can’t write when I’m stressed. Writing is one of the 1st things to go. I need both stability and routine (outside the home) in order to write effectively (or even to write at all)

Work Life Interferes with Home Life

And that’s just how home life interferes with my own work life. I can’t tell you how having to work while at home is disruptive to my home life. I can’t actually enjoy anything that I do (TV, video games, reading, etc.) because of all the things that I feel that I should be doing because of my “work life” is bleeding into my “home life.”

I’m never able to “shut off” anymore–because I work at home much more than I used to, I feel obligated to try to get a ton of stuff done on my days at home, but I’m never able to accomplish as much as I intend to/set out to, and then when I stop in the evening to “rest,” I still have all the many things that I wasn’t able to finish “nagging” at me even as I’m trying to rest, recover, and prepare for the work day (which usually involves a substantial commute and teaching). I feel like I’ve been “on” now for the past year really–and having the dissertation makes it just that much worse.

Instead of, say, doing grades/lesson plans/classroom admin stuff in the mornings/afternoons, and then working on my dissertation from say, 7-9pm as would have while at MTSU before Covid, I find that I’m exhausted by 7-9 from running around all morning doing errands, eating lunch, trying to work on grades, etc. during the afternoon and not getting everything finished and then being too tired to do anything except go to bed or play a game to get ready for the next day’s commute/teaching load.

Even the weekends, which used to be my saving grace, don’t seem to work for me anymore. I spend the time doing way more than I used to, especially in the mornings as I’m trying to do all the “dissertation” work during the mornings that should have been spread out over the week and I find myself just as dissatisfied and overburdened on the weekends as I do during the week.

Next Steps

They say, the first step to solving a problem is recognizing that you have one. I need to find “spaces” outside my home where I can get work done. I tried adding an extra “commute day” up to where I work, but every time I did, (on Wednesdays) there was some sort of “traffic” issue that either cost me time or was dangerous due to other drivers. I’m going to investigate my local library branches–downtown has the most space, but you have to pay for parking and at $1 to $1.50 per hour, that gets expensive quickly! The branches have free parking, but they are much, much smaller and (knowing the demographics as I do since I’ve worked in every branch), their populations are much less likely to have been vaccinated so, for me, I feel the risk of Covid exposure goes way up going that route. University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s (UTC’s) library would be an option, but because I’m no longer a student, again, I’d need to pay to park on a daily basis. I don’t really need wi-fi, as I already have the books and articles that I’m working with (& can print out what I need when I’m home), but I do need someplace that has a good (i.e. comfortable) table and chairs where I can spread out my materials and work–I used to have that in our graduate “office.” I may try to find a space on UTC’s campus that will allow me to do that, but again, parking will be the issue.

In Closing

So, I really just want to say thank you for reading this–this is just my way to try to come to terms with how Covid has affected my work/life balance and to consider how I, as a writer, need to try to inhabit a particular writing personae. I have said that I’m the opposite from Stephen King in that I “build up” my stories from the ground up while his process is to throw “everything” in and then begin to strip away elements. I see I’m also opposite of Brandon Sanderson in that he reacts to trauma by delving in his fiction. I react to trauma by delving into “other worlds” to escape the trauma, but not the worlds I create, but that others create. If I want to create my own “other worlds,” I need stability and routine, but most especially, I need that “work/life” balance.

While I wonder what it means that two of the most successful writers in the genre have patterns opposite what I have (does that mean I’ll never be successful/achieve bestseller status?), I do know that if I don’t find a way to create stability and routine in my life, I’m never going to produce anything in order to find out.

I need to find a solution to the problem that Covid has presented–preferably, without catching Covid while doing it, it I really want to produce the works that I say that I do! 😎

Have a great week!

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (March 2022):

  • The Runner (Fantasy Story–4000 words)
    2022 Revision; Out to Market.
  • Unhallowed (Weird Western Story–4100 words)
    2022 Revision: Completed; Out to Market.
  • The Independent (Science Fiction Story–4800 words)
    2021 Revision: ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION (Mythic Magazine)

Author’s Note: The Runner

Tarahumara man with headband and pole, running on a brown dirt road with green trees in the background.
Image Source: https://ultrarunninghistory.com/tarahumara/

It’s been a while since I was able to update everyone on my writing journey. However, I am happy to announce that I finished another story this year! The story is titled, The Runner, and it was formerly known as “Project Runner.” I’ve added it to my list of projects finished at the bottom of my “Signature” line. It is currently under consideration to a market. While I will talk a little more about the inspiration, drafting, and deadline for this piece, I just want to say that I’m fairly proud of myself for meeting the deadline for this work under some fairly trying circumstances. Even if it doesn’t manage to do all that I hope that it can accomplish–i.e., the compromises that I had to make due to time– I still think that I like the piece and how it ultimately turned out.

Inspiration

This piece has a number of inspirations and no one inspiration was more important than another. They all sorta’ blended together to help me come up with the story. There are too many to mention here, but I did want to talk about a couple of the more interesting ones.

The first one is the idea of a “Spear-Bearer.” I’ve always been interested in the “bo staff” and I was intrigued with the way Brandon Sanderson essentially takes a master of the bo staff and turned Kaladin into a spear-bearer in his Way of Kings novel. I, too, wanted to have a hero who was a master of the staff and created a female character (islander) who was good at the staff. However, being an islander, she would most definitely use a spear and not a staff due to the fishing community that her people would have started as in their history on the island, so I made my hero a spear-bearer as well.

Another one is the idea of a “Runner.” I knew that this hero would run the length of the island. I was already creating a running character when I happened across the development of a video game that described a Mexican culture (Tarahumara) that actually has “runners” as their warriors. The video game, Mulaka, had a developer’s diary video on the Playstation channel that helped me figure out that my “runners” weren’t warriors, per se, but more like “police/ambassadors.” They kept the peace between the human tribes and the fractious non-human “gods and demons.”

Finally, the major inspiration for this story was a tourism video on Vimeo about the island of Bali. Bali is actually known as the “island of gods and demons” and as a history minor (and some one who knows quite a bit about the world’s mythologies, I’d not heard that and was super curious to find out more. After I read about Bali a little more (I’d known of it, but not in a major way–my parents were meticulous on social studies as were my elementary school’s textbooks–while I can’t tell you exactly where every country is, I can generally point out on a map the general location of most countries in the world). I remember thinking that about the phrase “gods and demons” and taking it into my “Dungeons and Dragons” experiences and wondered what if these “gods and demons” were actually just fantasy races that were thought to be “gods and demons” because of their influence on the island. This really kicked the formation of the story into high gear and it was my need for a way to have the humans come to understand that these other races weren’t really “gods and demons” that drove me to create my hero and the story itself. I don’t have access to the original video, but here is a representative video from YouTube that shows the beauty and majesty of the island.

Drafting the Story

So, this was one of the stories that I worked on over the summer with my new way of working/writing. I took the summer to do all of the “Pre-writing” for this story. I worked on my story outlines, I worked on my character sketches, I worked on writing down a “rough draft” in my notebook (hand-written). I then transferred that hand-written rough draft to my computer. And I wrote a “possible” first paragraph for the story.

I set it aside and then I did the same for several other stories this summer. I then saw a “submission call” in which a TV personality was teaming up with a magazine to do a competition for stories that dealt with several subjects, with “gods” being one of those subjects. I decided that this would be a perfect time to go ahead and complete this project and try for this particular competition.

The deadline was fairly tight (August 31), but I was helped by the shortness of the piece. I’d wanted to make it more elaborate, but I didn’t have the time, so I stuck with three sections, a beginning section that worked as exposition and inciting incident, a second section that worked as raising the stakes, and a third section that worked as climax and resolution. I didn’t really have problems drafting the story, except that I found that I needed to add a section “3.5” in order to get to the resolution and anti-climax. I’d envisioned a much grander (cinematic) fight scene, but I just didn’t have the time. Instead of “war” between the three factions (gods, demons, and humans), I had to settle for a fairly terse personal challenge between three representatives of the factions. Still, I think that it worked out well.

Deadline

The deadline for the story was submission no later than 11:59pm on August 31st. I’d written approximately 800 words or so before I saw the listing–most of the first section. I devoted several days throughout the middle of August working on section 2. It was here that I realized that I was going to have to scale down the story I had in my mind and eliminate a couple of the longer scenes (running from village to village) in order to meet the deadline.

I promised a draft to one of the Writing Center consultants who wanted to read the story and who offered to give me feedback. Since the 31st was on a Tuesday, I worked most of the weekend on Section 3 and finished it and sent it to her so that she could give me feedback. I integrated the feedback on Tuesday afternoon and sent it off. I probably won’t hear anything back until late Sept. (if I didn’t make the 1st round), or mid-October, if I did make it to the 2nd round (2nd round are the “winners”–3 stories, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place).

Overall

Overall, I have to say that even if the story isn’t chosen, I’m happy with it. It may get a 2022 “revision” (I plan to read over all my stories that haven’t sold and revise as necessary), but mostly I’m happy that I was able to write and finish the story in a reasonable amount of time (about two months, give or take a week or two) and get it off in time to meet the deadline. I’m working on “Project Wall” now, but that is going much slower because I’m devoting more writing time to the dissertation and teaching my classes. I’ve not yet figured out how to “re-intergrate” creative writing with dissertation writing. It seems to be either one or the other (The Runner was written during the time when my director was looking over my Introduction and while I was doing the edits for the intro). My mind seems to only want to focus on one project or the other, so maybe when I finish Chapter 1 of my dissertation, I can move to “Project Wall” and make progress on it as I did with The Runner.

Anyway, there’s a look at my process for this story! I hope that it might be helpful to other writers out there! Have a great day!

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (September 2021):

  • The Runner (Fantasy Story–4000 words)
    Completed: 2021; Out to Market.
  • Unhallowed (Weird Western Story–6600 words)
    2021 Revision: Completed; Out to Market.
  • The Independent (Science Fiction Story–4800 words)
    2021 Revision: Completed; Out to Market.
  • Starlight, Starbright (Science Fiction Story–3500 words)
    2021 Revision: Completed.
  • To Dance the Sea of Storms (Fantasy Story)
    Prewrite: Completed, Plan & Outline: Completed, Write a first draft: Completed, Revision: In Progress

Having Summer Fun: The Writing Way

Be a Summer Writing Ninja Earn Your Black Belt by Writing Throughout the Summer. Pow! I'm going to write my way to a black belt. Cartoon karate figure with pencil and post it notes around him.
Image Source: https://twowritingteachers.org/2017/05/05/keep-the-learning-going/

In America, summer doesn’t actually correspond to the dates indicated by the calendar, or at least, not the “official” dates. Rather, like a story, summer in America has a traditional beginning, middle, and end, and those dates are marked by holidays. Here in America, Memorial Day, the day when we celebrate the fallen military heroes and veterans who have served in the Armed Forces, is actually our start to summer. This is mandated by federal law as the last Monday of the Month of May and is often called, “the unofficial start to summer,” especially in order news media. Independence Day, on July 4th, basically acts as a mid-point to the summer season in America, while Labor Day, the day set aside to honor the contributions of workers and laborers in the US, acts as our ending date (as most schools, K-12 along with college are back in session either before, by, or right after this holiday).

I set all that up to let you know what I’m terming as “summer” for this blog. Summer, to me, has always been one of my favorite times of year. Yes, the insects are often ferocious and the summer heat and humidity are legendary here in the southern US, but it is a time where both my body and mind truly feel alive. I have, in the past, done a fair bit of writing in the summer (my first published short story and article were written in the Tennessee summer heat). So, whenever possible, I also try to figure out strategies of maximizing my summer writing output.

And I’m back at it again this summer!

Rough Draft (1993)–Rough Drafting by Hand in a Legal Pad

My first ever published short story begin its life in a yellow legal pad at the old, decommissioned library at U.T. Knoxville one winter day during the Spring semester way back in 1993. I was taking a creative writing class and we did multiple genres: poems, plays (scripting), short stories, etc. I needed to turn in a draft in about a couple of days, but couldn’t think of anything, so I went to the building, which I’d just found about 2-3 week prior and started drafting. Anime had just become a thing and I’d seen an Americanized episode of DragonQuest (animated show?) that had an incredible magic duel between two wizards/magic-using characters and I wanted to write something similar.

So, my first draft, written in my yellow legal pad and in red ink (an affectation I had at the time), was written in a night (approximately an hour or so), with very little description, and mostly dialogue. I was probably less than 250 words in total. A couple of days later (or maybe the next day, I can’t recall), I went to the “real” library (the current one with all the glass and right angles), and typed up my story. While I added a little, here and there, especially in dialogue and description, the story itself was essentially the same that I’d wrote in my legal pad–just typed up and expanded slightly. I’d estimate it was approximately 450-500 words in total.

I turned it in and it was workshopped, and low and behold, I got an A- on it! The professor’s main objection was the “neatly tied-up” ending, which she would have preferred to be a little more ambiguous to reflect real life. I was over the moon! However, with the demands of the class and other classes and other assignments, I didn’t really do anything with the story.

But I did get an A in the class!

Rough Draft (2021 Edition)–Rough Drafting By Hand in a Journal

Although this approached worked, I went away from it, moving more and more to writing on the computer. Sometimes I wouldn’t even do a rough draft, but just start on the draft. I was moving away from writing with a journal and rough drafting altogether, but I wasn’t really happy with the quality of my drafts. It wasn’t until I started rough drafting more that I began to see the quality go up and I began to publish more often.

And that brings me to Summer 2021. I’m actually back to writing in journals (I’ve been buying them for a couple of years now, but not really using them for creative writing, more as a more compact to take class notes rather than the unwieldy legal pads which don’t seem to have the same quality and sturdiness of the ones I was able to buy in the mid 90s-mid 2000s). Over this summer, however, I’ve written in them pretty consistently most of the year, even if my creative writing output is less than I’d like.

However, over this summer, I’m actively writing in them creatively by trying to break my stories into 3 discrete parts and then, writing each one of those parts down in the notebook. I’m just handwriting them with any old pen that I have handy (I prefer pencil, but pen shows up better when I photocopy the notes to put in the project’s folder). Then, over the weekend, I’m transferring the handwritten drafts to the computer (much like I did in the summer of 93). Like my first story, I have permission to lightly edit, add in material, and shape it, but I can’t go crazy, more like an “adjustment” than straight on “revising.” I’m allowing myself two (2) notebook pages of handwritten material (front and back of the page for around 250 or so handwritten words). When typing, I’m allowing myself even more room, but I’d like a rough draft of anywhere between 750-1000 words. Nothing major, just enough to flesh out plot and dialogue with a hint of characterization.

So far, I’ve completed 2 rough drafts of stories this way (well, 3 if you count To Sail the Sea of Storms which wasn’t written in exactly this fashion, but was close enough that it could count), so far. I hope to write many more before the Labor Day holiday.

It’s 8pm. Do You Know Where Your Stories Are?

My preferred writing time in the summers (especially this summer) is 8pm. In the winter, I’m usually playing video games at this time as it is already dark, and usually has been for at least an hour or so. However, in the summer it is still light as the sun’s light is visible until around 9pm until summer solstice and then it is still light up until 8pm where I live well past the Labor Day holiday.

While it’s a bummer to stop playing early, I generally feel the most productive creatively in that general time frame of right after dinner, but sometime before bedtime (when tiredness and general fatigue from the day set in). For the past two weeks, I’ve been fairly consistent about the 8pm time slot and making sure to grab my notebook and put down 1-2 handwritten pages from a story that I want to do at random.

I would love to sit outside and draft as I would often sit out on the porch at that time period during my childhood, but the mosquitos are ferocious at that time of day and I’d spend more time dodging them than actually getting any writing done (they were pretty bad when I was a kid, but as a kid, you just shrug that off put up with the mosquito bites and the “itchies” they’d bring in order to play and have fun 🤩).

I’d love to get to a place where I could have a gazebo or screened patio/deck area to write in the fading summer light, but I guess that’s a dream for when I can support myself as a writer/when writing actually pays the bills. For this summer, sitting inside and actually writing is a blissful experience unto itself.

It’s 8pm. Do I know where my stories are? Yes, I do. They’re getting transferred out of my head and on to the paper, and I’m back to having fun in the summer sun!

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (June 2021):

  • Unhallowed (Weird Western Story)
    2021 Revision: Completed; Out to Market.
  • Starlight, Starbright (Science Fiction Story)
    2021 Revision: Completed.
  • The Independent (Science Fiction Story)
    2021 Revision: Completed; Out to Market.
  • To Dance the Sea of Storms (Fantasy Story)
    Prewrite: Completed, Plan & Outline: Completed, Write a first draft: Completed, Revision: In Progress.

Weekend Creative “Growth” Spurt

Images of two heads: 1) Green "head": Growth Mindset. I can try a different strategy. Is this really my best work? This may take some time and effort. 2) Red "head": Fixed Mindset. I can't do this. This work is good enough. This is too hard.
Image Source: https://www.literacyideas.com/latest/2020/12/9/growth-mindset-writing-activities

Much like growth spurts that we all have during childhood, over the weekend, I had a creative “growth” spurt where I was able to work on several projects AND formulate a couple of (personal) creative goals that I hope will help me as I continue to grow as a writer and author. Unfortunately, there was a cost involved with that, in that I didn’t get a chance to grade student papers over the weekend. While I’m not massively behind on grading, I had intended to “catch-up” over the weekend, but this didn’t happen. It seems that when school is in session, I need to go back to what worked before the pandemic: the week is for making sure school-related things get done, but the weekend needs to be for things that I need to do for myself. This might even be another creative goal that I might want to lock into my personal routine.

Starlight, Starbright

So, I’m not sure that I’ve talked about this story on the blog in the past–I think I have, but to sum up, it is a simple sci-fi story that I’ve worked on throughout the years and has gone through a couple of name changes. What I did over the weekend was finish the revision of the story. I’ve been working on the revision on and off though the semester, but I finally finished the revision. Using some of Scrivener’s new and advanced tools, I saw that about 95% of the story’s focus was description and about 5% was dialogue. Now, if you think about Marvel’s films (currently, the most successful storytelling out there), there ratio is closer to 30% description (in my opinion–and I define it as all the cool visuals in which characters aren’t actually talking) and about 70% dialogue. In other words, I’m asking readers (editors/readers) to interact with a story format that isn’t very reader friendly and focuses more on plot than characters. So, I’m lowering my sights for this story and looking for places to publish it even if they aren’t paying markets–something that I did when I was just starting out as I now look for paying markets almost exclusively.

Revision Plan

Which leads me into my first personal creative goal: Revision Plans. Now, there are some things that I know that might be able to do increase my chances of selling Starlight (shortening the title, for instance, like I just did here). Or maybe punching up the dialogue that I do have in the story until it shines. I don’t think I can add much dialogue–in an older version of the story I had a direct conflict with quite a bit of dialogue, but when I revised the story so that it made more sense and had a character that was less of a cipher, I didn’t need nearly as much banter between the protagonist and antagonist, and so I stripped it out. However, I can put these ideas down in a file and work on them during Christmas Break at the beginning of the year. I feel like what I have currently is a strong revision (story makes sense, there is some characterization, edits are done and there are no misspellings, grammar issues, or dropped words). So, for 2021, this is the revision that I’m submitting, but as I see possible improvements that I can make, I’ll drop them in a file and revisit the story every year, revising it to make it better and better, until hopefully, it sells. So, I’m resolved not to touch Starlight again until 2022 in terms of revising–just submit it for the rest of the year and see what happens. I intend to do that with all the stories that I write using the Writing Process model (see below).

Unhallowed

When I wrote Unhallowed, I included the main plot of the story, and a “sub-plot” that showed the main character’s (Arizona’s) backstory. On the feedback of one editor, I stripped it out for later submissions as the editor felt that the backstory slowed the pacing of the story down. However, even though I didn’t have time to work on it this week, for my 2021 revision, I plan on putting the backstory back in. The way that I wrote the ending obliquely references how the world came into being and not having it there, I think, handicaps the story and doesn’t give it the gravity it needs to really land that impact. Now, I’ll probably have to do some serious pruning (of both the backstory and main plot). I think it is about 6,500 words with the backstory and the market that I want to send it to next has a maximum of 5,000 words, so I’m going to need to lose approximately 1,500 words. I also need to do a better job of establishing the “space” of the story as a different editor liked the story, but felt that he got “lost” in the story and couldn’t quite tell where the main character was in relation to the world in the beginning of the story.

Project Wall

On this one, I did some prewriting. As usual, I already have the “plot” or events of the story mapped out as this is what usually comes to me first. However, the character (outside of the name) wasn’t really a character still, but rather a cipher (placeholder). Over the weekend, the main character and protagonist, Jharra, came together for me and I found a “handle” on her character and wrote a character sketch for her. Jharra’s external problem is that she must save her brother in a futuristic world. Jharra’s internal problem is two-fold: 1) she doesn’t want to be alone (from her backstory) and 2) she has anger issues. Those two internal problems will make it hard for her to resolve her external problem. I’m cautiously optimistic for this particular story.

Project Children

I think I’ve mentioned this project before–I may have even mentioned the title or called it something else entirely, but I can’t remember and I don’t have the time to go searching through past blogs to see if this is the case. I’ve written a 1st draft, but wasn’t happy with it at all. I’ve gone through “prewriting” again to try to come up with a strong revision and I think I have after last weekend. I planned and outlined it last weekend and need to just draft it. I also need to do a character sketch for the “new” main character that I’ve developed.

To Dance the Sea of Storms

Like Project Children above, I’ve finished the first draft of the story, but felt that it was missing something. I went back and wrote out a new outline that added new material while incorporating the old draft (with planned changes). So, I feel confident that I’ll be able to write a strong revision for this story (by focusing more on establishing the world more in the first part of the story).

Writing Process

Which brings me to my final point for the post and my last creative goal that I discovered. Visualization of the Writing Process.

Image Source: https://www.scribbr.com/academic-writing/writing-process/

By using this image to visual the steps of the writing process and marking off the items of where I am in the process for a given project, I’ve really inspired myself to keep going. For most of the semester, I’ve been mired in the belief that I wasn’t making any real headway on my various projects and that I was just “spinning” my wheels on multiple projects. However, by taking the time to note where I’ve outlined, where I’ve done prewriting in the form of character sketches, notes, or brainstorming, by taking the time to highlight that I’ve worked on (and finished) a draft (good or bad), I see that most of my projects are either in the revision or first draft stage. I’m doing the work–now, I just need to take the time to see the work through to completion.

This was strangely cathartic to me! It isn’t that I’m starting and stopping projects–it is just that I’m not getting the revisions done, so that I can move on to the editing stage (or the first drafts done to move on to the revision stage). In other words, visualization of the writing process is allowing me to see where I am in terms of the projects and why my plans aren’t working–and why it always seems like I’m abandoning one project for another. Like Starlight, I need to do a revision, make it as best as I can, and then edit and submit it, and then if I think of better ideas and plans later on, create a file and move to yearly revisions (instead of the nearly continuous revisions that are currently happening).

This was VERY MUCH of a revelation to me and one that (while I knew it intuitively), really helped when I printed out the “chart” and started mapping my own stages on top of it. Now, to be clear, I knew about the “writing process” already (since high school as a matter of fact), but what really makes this useful is to note on the chart itself what I’ve completed and where I am in the process. It really is a GREAT help (to me) to see where I am on this chart for any given project. I think this will make it more likely that I’ll complete more projects as I can now see that I’m much further along on many of them than I actually thought I was. I highly recommend this strategy to other writers out there!

Well, that’s all I have time for today! Have a great week!

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (April 2021):

  • Unhallowed (Weird Western Story)
    2021 Revision: In Progress
  • Starlight, Starbright (Science Fiction Story)
    2021 Revision: Completed; Waiting to Send to Market.
  • The Independent (Science Fiction Story)
    Out to Market
  • To Dance the Sea of Storms (Fantasy Story)
    Prewrite: Completed, Plan & Outline: Completed, Write a first draft: Completed, Revision: In Progress

Project Seas = To Dance the Sea of Storms (Short-Story)

Sailing ship on an ocean with a golden sun and sky and light gray clouds in the sky.
Image Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/548454060847640099/

I apologize for last week. I keep telling myself that I’ll work on 2-3 blog posts over the weekend, but it just never seems to work out. Last Saturday, I went have my taxes done, and I wasn’t able to get the blog posts again for a second week, so I decided to just do shorter blog posts so that even if I can’t do it the blog daily, I can at least get 2-3 blog posts per week. Today I’m going to start that with a shorter post on managing to finish a new short story.

2 Few Days

So, after finding out that I’ve only had two (2) writing this year, I was very disappointed in myself as a writer. I’ve had many other things to do, but only working on a project for 2 days was something that I have to better with. I’m slowly working my way toward a possible schedule for my class in terms of grading, but I think I over-extended myself on the amount of school projects that I’ve taken on this semester. However, there’s no use complaining–I just need to try to balance my writing, school, and life as best I can in order to accomplish what I can.

So, long story short, I set up a 250 word session goal for Scrivener and worked toward the ending of the first draft of the project. I wrote 272 words in 2 days, but because I was already close to the end of the story, I managed to finish the draft in those two days.

It took me a total of 9 Writing Days to finish the story: 5 days in December, 2 in January, and 2 in February. It is approximately 2,300 words. I feel that it needs a little more, though.

To Dance the Sea of Storms

I’ve had a version of this title for most of the time that I’ve been working on it. I think I’ve said before, but in case I haven’t, most of my stories are generated from ideas that come to me first from titles. I generally think of the title first and then the plot, characters, and setting all come from the title. Rarely, it doesn’t work this way, but for this story, it did.

I will save a “deep-dive” on the plot and story and initial idea for the “Author’s Note” when I send the story off for the first time, but I’ll give a little information about it here. It is a fantasy story inspired by a line of dialogue in a fairly well known story by Stephen Crane called, “The Open Boat.” My story involves sailing and high seas adventure in fantasy world. Think of it as Master and Commander: Far Side of the World in a fantasy world.

So What’s Next?

I’m going to work on another project (planning it out and writing an outline). When I finish that one (hopefully, in a reasonable amount of time), I will come back to To Dance the Sea of Storms and work on the 2nd draft. In the interim, I’ll do a character sketch of the main character, Brynn and jot down notes for how the larger world works. I already have an idea for a new “beginning” scene that should show Brynn’s character to the reader without doing as much telling as I am in this first draft. Considering that this is the middle of February, I don’t think I’ll get back to working on the revision to this story for at least a month. However, as I’m comfortable with doing one new short story per semester, I think I’m still on pace to have the story ready for submission by late April/early May.

I enjoyed writing the story, but I just wish that I could have finished it in December or early January (by spending more time on it more consistently). I most definitely plan to do that during the revision phase.

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (February 2021):

  • Unhallowed (Weird Western Story)
    Out to Market
  • Starlight, Starbright (Science Fiction Story)
    In for Revision & Editing
  • The Independent (Science Fiction Story)
    Out to Market
  • To Dance the Sea of Storms (Fantasy Story)
    Prewrite: Completed, Plan & Outline: Completed, Write a first draft: Completed, Revision: Not Yet Started

The Travails of Being a Writer

A slide with the text: "Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard." William Zinsser, On Writing Well"
Image Source: https://www.slideshare.net/GlennLeibowitz/the-secret-of-good-writing-is-to-strip/3-Writing_is_hard_workA_clear

Travail = n. Painful, laborious effort.

Writing is hard. There’s no two ways about that. Writing is not easy, no matter how Hollywood tries to glamorize it. Even in these blogs, I find myself struggling to find topics, struggling to write those topics down, struggling to keep grammatical errors from cropping up in my writing, something that seems to be harder and harder every day, and struggling to keep p with a 5 day a week blog–you’d think it wouldn’t be so difficult for a blog, but blog or creative writing or writing for school, it is still hard.

However, there are a couple of circumstances where it is very hard and I’d thought I’d talk about those today.

Knowing Which Market to Send a Story

So, this one is one of those problems that happens if you are a creative writer who sends out stories. I know several creative writers who don’t send out stories, but get friends and family to read them, but don’t take that next step. However, for those of us who do, it is very hard sometimes to know where to send your story. There are only a limited number of places that you send a story (for maximum money/exposure), so you want to make sure you’re sending it to the best places possible. However, when two markets have an upcoming deadline, how do you choose between between the two?

I have a market who has a deadline of today. I’ve no idea when they will open again, should I miss the deadline. However, I have another market that has no deadline and I can send it to them anytime. One is more prestigious in terms of name recognition, but both offer quite a bit of money and are qualifying journals for SFWA (Science Fiction Writer’s Association), something that I’m still working towards. So, today, after class, I need to decide where and when I’m going to send the story. I have until midnight tonight decide.

Writing for School

So, for these past 5 weeks (approximately), I’ve been working on writing for school, but not for my dissertation, etc. I’ve spent the time designing, creating and uploading for my literature class. We are 3 weeks into the “school” year and I’ve yet to do anything thing to move myself forward. The same is true for my creative writing. Once “summer” ended, it became all about the class and making sure that all the elements of the class were covered and completed.

On Monday, I had a holiday, so I planned to do quite a bit, but ended up grading and doing a little work there on the class again to try to stay current. This is where most of my time goes and I feel that I’m just treading water. I really do need to get it in gear, but it is very difficult when there’s so much to do just to stay current.

Well, that’s all I have time for at the moment–I have class later today. Hopefully, I can get back on track, sooner rather later. Have a great day!

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (8/2020):

  • “Project Wall” (Science Fiction Story)
    Drafting: 2nd Draft
  • Unhallowed (Weird Western Story)
    Revising: 2nd Draft (Working Draft)
  • KnightWatch Graphic Novel (Fantasy Graphic Novel)
    Drafting: 1st Draft (Issue 1)

Why Deadlines Are Rough (Creative Writers Edition)

Man pointing to his forehead in a "thinking" position with the words in white lettering: You Can't Miss The Deadline If You Make The Deadline
Image Source: https://memegenerator.net/instance/78055825/man-thinking-meme-you-cant-miss-the-deadline-if-you-make-the-deadline

Deadlines can be both a blessing and a curse. Deadlines are when things are required to be due. For me, I generally do well with deadlines and can appropriately apportion my time to work on said project and have it finished by the deadline. The blessing part is that there is a “fixed” end date. There’s none of this faffing about with a project that just goes on and on indeterminately–once the deadline is fixed, you have a goal to work towards in order to hit that target date. However, all is not “peachy” and rosy with deadlines. If I personally get behind, whether it is my fault or not, usually the quality of the work suffers in order to hit the deadline. And sometimes, world events also conspire to keep you from hitting your deadlines. A small digression here, but rush-hour traffic all across the world would probably be less aggressive and road-rage inducing if we had flexible hours for most jobs–where you could come in up to 15 minutes early/late for your job, but as long as you worked the correct number of hours, you wouldn’t be penalized for it. A little flexibility in deadlines would go a long way to mitigating life’s propensity to throw roadblocks in the way.

A Tale of Two Projects

Why this long rumination on deadlines? Well, I have two projects that I’m working on and one has a deadline and the other doesn’t. I’d planned to work on the 2nd draft of Unhallowed this month. Then I saw a market that wanted you to use a starter sentence about the “Simmons Public Library,” a fictional library (to my knowledge) and they’d like to see it by August 1st (next week). So, over the month, I’ve dutifully bounced between both projects–with a stopover at Project Wall, which only has 1 of its 3 sections done.

Essentially, in trying to work on 3 projects–the one for this market and two for myself, I’m probably not going to finish the one by its deadline of August 1, which means I’ll have to strip sections out–don’t want to be accused of plagiarism as many people will probably be using that same starter sentence. It also means that I probably won’t get my own projects in order by the beginning of next month–meaning that my nice new system is already going down the drain.

This is where deadlines become a curse for me as it means that I split my time between projects rather than focusing on 1 project and getting it done the best that I can and then moving on, As the deadline seemed more important, I spent a lot of time on this story rather than the story I really wanted to be focusing on–Unhallowed.

Sunk Cost Fallacy

And this may be the true downside of deadlines–when used as motivation for writing projects. I’ve already sunk so much time into my revision for the August 1st deadline that I don’t want to abandon it even though I only have a week left and I know I won’t be able to marshal the story that’s in my mind onto the page in a week’s time.

Do I accept a (sizable) dip in quality to get the story out on time or do I go back to working on Unhallowed, knowing that the time invested in the other story is just lost and I’ll have to spend extra time later removing the “story prompt” sentences and ideas?

The Writer and the Finite Time Conundrum

As a student and graduate teaching assistant, I know my time is finite. I know there’s only going to be a limited number of hours in a day and some of that is going to have be devoted to answering student emails, working on grading, working on assignments, working hybrid instruction methods due to Covid, working my own research and writing for school.

Creative writing, while getting a boon this summer, still is finite. And I still struggle with the trying to get all the ideas that I have out there. And it is frustrating to try for a deadline and to realize with a week left, that there’s not enough time and that I should I have just stuck with my original plan.

Deadlines are like Reading Fees

I’ll close this (fairly long) rumination with an epiphany that I’ve just had: deadlines are just like reading fees. Early in my college career, I had a professor who helped inspire my love of creative writing. Her advice was to not do any of the contests that charged reading fees. Now, in the early 90s, reading fees were still considered gauche, and very few places used them, although they were becoming more common. Nowadays, it is rare (and remarkable) when there’s a contest that doesn’t charge a reading fee. Her point was that, as students, your money was finite resource. It was a “better play” to use your money to improve yourself as a writer by buying books on the craft, or attending conferences, or that type of thing, rather than using your money to enter competitions (even if there was a substantial prize offered).

I think you see where I’m going with this: my time is also a finite resource. While it seems “easy” to revise a story for a “deadline,” there’s actually just as much work involved as if I was writing a whole new story. I need to be more cognizant of deadlines in terms of my own projects and my own finite time. I recognize now that, like the lure of a huge cash prize for “winning the contest,” themed deadlines offer the lure of getting publication (and money) if you could just successfully execute the theme by the appointed time. And just like contests, I need to be ultra selective for the deadlines I take on if I don’t want to be disappointed by not finishing the story (or other stories that I might be working on) on time.

Lesson learned! I’ll let you know next week on my formal Writing Log post just what writing projects (if any) I managed to salvage this month.

Have a good weekend!

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (7/2020):

  • “Project Wall” (Science Fiction Story)
    Drafting: First Draft
  • Unhallowed (Weird Western Story)
    Drafting: 2nd Draft (Working Draft)
    
  • Childe Roland Graphic Novel 
    Up Next: Rough Draft (Story)
    
  • I, Mage (Urban Fantasy Story)
    Drafting: 1st Revision

Writing Log: July 2020 (7/2020)

A Bullet Journal that shows a bar graph and a smaller set of boxes that indicate days/acts written with the boxes colored in when done.
Image Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/365776800984668476/

Wrap-up for June 2020 (6/2020)

Before I move into new projects for July 2020, I wanted to take a moment to wrap-up what I’ve done for June 2020 to both tell you, the reader, what I’ve accomplished on a monthly basis, but also to hold myself accountable for the goals that I’ve set for myself during this time-period with the hope of becoming more professional over time and finishing more (and longer) projects as time goes on.

The Independent: Finished my revision of the project for a goal of submitting it to a market by June 30th. I originally revised it with help from the MTSU University Writing Center, but then I saw a short segment by Neil Degrasse Tyson in which he explained what a “flatlander” in two dimensions might interpret someone like us who live in three dimensions if they tried to interact with them. I tried to do the same, but with time. We live in space (three dimensional space-height, width, depth), but there is also a time component that we aren’t privy to (except to note its passing). I tried to take that idea a little further–what if there was a race who lived in a “curled” up region that we can’t interact with because it is mostly a region of time–what would that look like, how would that act, etc.? The I tried to have my “space truckers interact with this “dimension” in the story briefly. I think it came off moderately well. I don’t feel that I necessarily hit it out of the park, but I don’t feel that it is particularly bad or without merit. I feel that if I had more time, I might have been able to handle it better, but the story (from seed to this revision) is already 3+ years in the making, so I really need to get it out there. Maybe feedback (if I get any) will help me push the story into a stronger position if it doesn’t sell.

Project Arizona: Although I started on this one late (well into the month of June), I still have almost finished the 1st Draft of the story. This is where the power of working on the story consistently has helped. This is the story I will be working on for July.

Project Wall: This is the one next story will be working on. While I won’t draft it until next month, I will be working on character sketches, world history, politics, and other “Bible” documents for it all through July.

Prospectus (School): Finished my prospectus (hurray!). Even though I need to get “official” approval from my graduate director and my graduate committee, I’m going to start putting together a tentative dissertation outline and begin preliminary work on the dissertation with the books that I have available to me. I probably won’t get to work on it “formally”/”officially” until September at the earliest, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t still put together a draft so that it isn’t a burdensome to do in the Fall and Spring of next year.

What’s on tap for July 2020?

Well, there are several goals that I’m hoping to do, however I only want to talk about a couple of them in-depth here:

  • Work on 2nd Draft (and officially unveil the title) for Project Arizona. I don’t think I will dive right into a 2nd draft of this story immediately as I think I will do another project in the interim. Hopefully, though by the 2nd week of July I will be ready to start drafting a second draft. I actually like the way much of the 1st draft turned out, so I will try to begin turning those places where I’m “telling” the story into places where I’m “showing” the story (dramatizing). It will be a beginning to end look at the draft, where I rewrite as necessary. I also have a title in mind for the story and I intend to start using it once I unveil it officially.
  • Plan Project Wall: Now that I have a “rough draft” down on paper, I’m going to do what Hollywood would call “pre-production.” I’m going to try to nail down the elements of the story that may not necessarily appear in the story, but are crucial to the reason the story exists. Basically, answering a lot of What, Why, Where, When, and How questions that I still have about the story. It also has a title, but I’ll wait to unveil it.
  • Lastly, I really want to get back into the “graphic novel”/comic book writer mode. That’s a place where I feel I can grow. Eagle-eyed blog readers will notice that the “Ship of Shadows” line under What I’m Working On” hasn’t changed in a while. Now, whether the graphic novel actually is me working on that or another project altogether, I want to put together a script that I can try to market by the end of the year at the latest, so I’m planning on working on it starting this month.

Well, that’s it for now. I hope that this month will be a productive one as last month was. Have a great weekend, and if you’re in the U.S., have a safe and fun July 4th Holiday weekend!

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

Currently Working On (6/2020):

  • The Independent  (Sci-Fi Short-Story)–
    Finished: Revision 1

Rating: 5 out of 5.
  • “Project Arizona” (Weird Western Story)
    Drafting: First Draft

Rating: 4 out of 5.
  • Ship of Shadows Graphic Novel 
    Finished: Script, Issue #1
    Next: Script, Issue #2

Rating: 1 out of 5.
  • “Project Wall” (Science Fiction Story)
    Finished: Rough Draft

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Writing Log: May 15, 2020

A hand holding a pen and writing in blue ink in a journal.
Image Source: https://www.grandforksherald.com/lifestyle/2199089-share-your-story-logging-exercise-food-and-life-journals

So, I’m still in the process of figuring out what I want for these “logs” in terms of content. Ideally, I’d like them to appear about 1 every four weeks (about a month apart) to give you (and myself) a monthly look at what I’ve been able to accomplish in terms of the major areas in my life that I feel are important: Reading, Writing, and Video Games. However, as you can see, I’m missing a fourth category. I could do media such as TV/Movies, but I already discuss them at length with mini-reviews and rewatch posts. I guess the point is that, for the time-being, these will probably be every three weeks until I can find a strong “fourth” category that would make a good “log” topic in order to appear on Fridays. And now without further ado, on to the writing:

Creative: “Project Arizona”

This is the project that I’ve been working on so far this month. I’ve finished the rough draft of the story. I’m working on the first draft now. I’ve decided to try to work in “stages” with this story. Basically, I’m trying to build my story from ideas into execution into a “story” in stages (drafts). We’ll see how well it works. So far, I’ve liked the fact that the story seems to be coming together fairly well. I’m consistently writing it out in long hand in my “notebook.” I’ve been less successful in transferring what I’ve written into my notebook on to the computer where the “magic” happens. I think I’m trying to “dramatize” what I’m writing too soon, and that I’m trying to put in character moments when I should be focused (in this draft) of just establishing and interesting and believable plot that makes sense and doesn’t have any “huh?” moments for the reader.

Creative: The Independent

I’ve been working on editing this story. I’ve managed, with the help of the MTSU Writing Center to edit the story. Max, the husband of my mentor professor, is also a short-story writer and has worked at the Writing Center this semester. We’ve gone through about two-thirds of the story. One of the things that I’ve realized by doing this is that I’m rushing through the editing process. Like writing, good editing takes time, so I’m slowing down and trying to spend a month on editing, just as I would on writing. Another thing that I’ve learned is that I’m getting stronger at characterization, but at the expense of world-building. The plot is there, the characters are (getting) there, but the world is suffering because I’m putting a lot of my focus on what’s happening and the character–and that’s something that I’m going to want to address going forward.

Academic: Prospectus “Outline”

One of the things that I was supposed to produce this semester was the prospectus that I would “defend.” Basically, the prospectus is a tentative outline of what you propose to write your dissertation about. It used to be very informal, and as long as your director signed off on it, you could begin writing your dissertation. However, a couple of semester ago, they put in a new rule at my school that the dissertation committee had to sign off on it and that you had to “defend” it in public (like a dissertation). So, in essence, the prospectus has become a “mock” dissertation — same basic accouterments (full committee, defense of it, etc.) of a dissertation, but not nearly as long or detailed.

Well, Covid-19 put this on hold, so my director suggested working on the prospectus in the summer and defending it in early Fall. So, I slowed down on trying to get one written. However, over the past few weeks I was able to get an outline down that I really liked. My mentor this semester, Dr. Meyers, helped me integrate the idea of “empathy” into the outline as well, and this is what I’m currently working towards now. I have a written a (very) crappy introduction that I intend to redo.. I think I’m going to start working first on the video game section as the two major video game projects this week discussed ways in which they were bringing in filmic techniques to gaming, which is a central thesis as to why I’m discussing them in relation to Afrofuturism.

Writing Time: Waking Up to Write

As I mentioned above, I’ve found great success over the past three weeks with writing consistently. I tend to wake up early, but my body doesn’t actually want to get up (not a coffee drinker–so even though I’m awake, I’m not really awake, if that makes sense–so now, I’ve taken to grabbing the notebook and either drafting the next section of the story or jotting down dreams/story “seeds”/character ideas that I’ve thought of over night. This has helped me really me move along on “Project Arizona.” I’ve been less successful, as I’ve noted, actually getting what’s in the notebook translated to the computer. The ideas just seem to flow easier and better writing in the notebook than on the computer. However, I really need to do this daily. I caught an interview with Stephen King on NPR and he writes for four (4) hours daily. In essence, King has made writing his “part-time” job (20 hours a week in America is considered part-time while 40 hours is considered a full time job). And I have to say, as much as I might fault some of his works individually, he is still one of the most consistent and successful authors out there (mainly because he puts in the work). Outside of these blog posts, I struggle with putting in more than an hour (1) daily at the keyboard daily. So while I’m finding a fair amount of success writing daily in my notebook, I still need to work on finding “keyboard” time as well (as NO ONE is going to pay for handwritten copy, no matter how good it is).

Well, that’s all I have time for today–hopefully, I will find that 4th category so that I can give you a proper update in about a month or so. Next week should be the return of the Reading Log, so until next moth, Happy Writing!

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

  • The Independent  (Sci-Fi Short-Story)–
    Editing Draft
  • Ship of Shadows Graphic Novel 
    Finished: Script, Issue #1
    Next: Script, Issue #2
  • “Project Arizona” (Weird Western Story)
    Finished: Rough Draft (Idea phase)
    Next: First Draft (Plot phase)

Blogging My Way to a Novel

A book cover showing a writer using a pen in a notebook/journal. The book's title is How Blogging can help you Write Your Novel.
Image Search: https://www.eadeverell.com/blogging-can-help-write-novel/

One of the things that I noticed when I was looking over the stats for my blog posts is the amount of words that I’ve been averaging. I’m actually down overall in terms of words from the past couple of years because I’m not publishing posts as regularly even though the actual word count for the posts has gone way up.

However, when I looked at the word count for the year, I was astounded. Taking the overall yearly word count just for the blog into account, I’ve written enough words to have written a novel every year since 2016!

Yup, you read that right–just doing what I’ve been doing for the blog would have been enough for a novel for the past four years!

60,000 Words (2016)

So, NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) which happens in November has a goal of 50,000 words. In theory, while there is no set amount of words for a novel, 60,000 words has generally become the accepted length in practice–although some would argue that NaNoWriMo’s 50,000 word length could also be considered novel length.

Looking at the blog’s stats–I reached 60,000 words (and change) in 2016. I was fairly committed to blogging–but I didn’t do it every day. If you were to use the calendar function on an old 2016 post, you would see that there were long gaps in posting, although I did post routinely at 5-6 days out of the month (yes, I think there may be some 3-4 days in their, but I generally average 5-6, maybe more). As you can see, while not consistent, I at least wrote something on monthly basis, even if it wasn’t a lot (or daily).

Had I done the exact same with my creative writing as I did with my blog posts, I would have had enough for a (depending on the font choice) 200 – 225 page manuscript and would have completed my first novel.

117,000 Words (2018)

My high water mark (so far) for the blog came in 2018, where somewhere around April/May, I hit my stride and blogged pretty much consistently for rest of the year. I blogged much like I’m trying to get back to now and what works best for me: Mondays-Fridays, 5 days a week. I actually usually do one or two blog posts on the weekend (maybe 3, but usually not more than 3) and then fill out the rest of the week with blog posts either written on that day (or at most, a day earlier).

I managed 117,000 words (and change) that year. Enough for 2 full novels or 1 door-stopper epic fantasy novel. This is the stat that really floored me and set me thinking about my writing, my writing process, and that helped to inspire this post. Just think of all that could have been accomplished had I taken the time to do with my creative writing that I managed with my blog.

Lessons Learned

I’ve learned two lessons from looking at my stats for the blog over the previous years of blogging:

  1. I need to be more consistent in my writing process if I want success. Even if I can’t find the “time,” I need to always be moving forward and to make sure I find time to write at least 5-6 days monthly. If I can also find a way to write daily (Monday-Friday) along with my blog, great–and that will put me in better stead–but at the bare minimum, I must be more consistent about writing.
  2. I should try to use the format of my blog to help me draft my longer works. This format works well for me–Introduction, 2-3 headings, and a paragraph or two for each heading. This is how I’m hoping to help myself become a better and more productive writer without “breaking my process.” That’s the key and I’m hoping that because I like this format–it will work for me.

Well, that’s all I have for today–nothing earth-shattering. Just a realization that I have the capabilities within me to make my dreams come true–if I can just find the consistency (and willpower) to get it done. And of course, not let it interfere with my dissertation for school.

Sidney

Please consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:

  • The Independent  (Sci-Fi Short-Story)–
    Editing Draft
  • Ship of Shadows Graphic Novel 
    Finished: Script, Issue #1
    Next: Script, Issue #2
  • “Project Arizona” (Weird Western Story)
    Finished: Rough Draft
    Next: First Draft

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