Weekly Update: June 12 to 18

Weekly word count: 2300

I hit a real wall this week, personally and professionally.  After some careful introspection and consideration, I realized I had two problems.  First, I've been driving myself too hard and in too many directions, trying to get everything done without having to ask for help.  (I realized I forgot to promote last week's blog post, it just completely slipped my mind.)  But as I recently reminded a friend, "help" isn't a four letter word.  It's not a sign of weakness.  I've sat down and figured out my priorities to make sure I can still meet all my commitments, but where I can, I'll be asking for help.

Second issue, I've been trying to push myself to finish the first draft of Inquisition rather than getting caught in a constant cycle of rewriting.  I've been making notes in the manuscript as I go along about what I want to change so that I can do one big rewrite when I reach the end.  Or at least, that was the plan.

Stories always evolve for me.  I plot out where I want to go but in the process, I discover the details that make my characters into real people and add depth to my plot.  I've learned not to get too bogged down in pre-plotting because I will invariably find myself covering entirely new territory from what I expected.  I think this is good and necessary part of my writing process.  But it does mean I can get caught up in constant rewriting to make the beginning match the end.

However, in this case, I think I've gone too far.  I don't have the solid foundation I need to make the ending.  So I spent the last few days in the week mapping out my plot (My draft is about 3/4 done, so there aren't a lot of unknowns left).  Then I'm going to go back and rewrite the beginning to make everything consistent.  Then I'll write the final part of the book.

I definitely won't have it all done in the next three weeks, like I was hoping.  But I think I still have a good shot at having the draft done by August to send out to beta readers and start booking editing.  (And order my cover, my favourite part of finishing my first draft.)

As my little blue friend says: Just keep swimming.  (Or in this case, writing)