One Step Forward, But Standing Still

Today I finished the editing for my next critique group submission.  I wanted to get it done yesterday, but it seems I have become better at procrastination than I originally thought.  So, I decided to be happy with finishing today, as well as getting this blog post done.

Anyway, the point of the matter is that I finished the next two chapters, and I was happy that I finished it so early in the week, even if it was a day later than I was actually hoping for.  I was ahead of the game.

Unfortunately then I made the mistake of looking at my Dangerous Waters manuscript.  That's the one I'm trying to get through right now.  That's the one I want to have polished and ready by the end of April.  That's the one I want to query and get published.  It's the one I've put the most work into.

Sadly, it's also the one that still needs the most work.

A couple of weeks ago I went through the chapters I had left to edit and picked through the ones that (obviously) needed rewrites, and the ones I could try and edit.  I also figured out how many chapters I would have to add in order to fix the many mistakes I made while writing the novel.  (While it wasn't one of my nano novels, I still wrote it fairly quickly, and as it was one of my early novels, I didn't have the plot nailed down nearly as much as I thought when I started writing it).

Thirteen.  That's the number of chapters that need to be rewritten or added altogether.  I only had about twenty left to edit, so that's a fair amount.

This leaves me with a bit of a problem.  All of that work certainly doesn't make me want to actually do the editing.  It probably would have been better if I hadn't gone through and figured out what needed to be done.  Yet I can't regret it because I've always been a planner.  I actually spend more time planning them than I do writing them.  So not knowing how much I was going to have to change was bothering me enough that I felt I had to do it, and I did.

Being at a stand still with Dangerous Waters, however, means more than that one novel never being finished.  In fact, not finishing that novel means that all the other projects I have on the go (refer to the Progress Report section) are also not getting worked on or completed.

Sometimes I tend to get myself in over my head.  For example, during nano I decided to write 200,000 words.  But about five days in I changed that to 300,000 words.  Most of the month I was overwhelmed and thought I wouldn't finish.  I did.  Just barely, but I did.  Now I have all of this work, and I'm feeling overwhelmed, but for some reason I'm not really moving forward.  I can get done what I need to get done for my critique group, but other than that, I'm not making any progress.

It doesn't matter that I really want to finish this novel.  That I want to have it, done and complete, in my hands, and ready to send out to agents and publishers.  I want to feel like I've accomplished something.

I guess I'll just have to suck it up and get down to it.  Starting tomorrow (and everyday for at least a little while until Monday) I'm going to continue editing Dangerous Waters.  I have a goal to finish the next three chapters by the end of Sunday.  (In case you were wondering, the next three chapters are ALL rewrites, so it's going to be harder than it sounds.)

Don't worry, I'll let you know how it goes in my next post, also scheduled Sunday.  Till then, happy editing!

The Epic Year of Querying

As some of you may have noticed, I didn't post last week.  I was planning on it, I truly was, but I was also at my grandmother's house, which doesn't have wireless internet.  So, instead, I decided to skip the week and take a Christmas vacation.

This year I'm going to be doing a few things different on my blog.  First of all, if you will kindly look to the sidebar, you will see a box entitled 'The Epic Year of Querying'.  This is where I will keep all of you updated on the progress of my writing/editing/querying.  I will update it every week along with my blog post.

Also, this year I will be doing my best to put my blog more in the eye of the writing public.  This means that you could see things such as guest blogs, character interviews, reviews on books, and participation in blog scavenger hunts.  I'm very excited for the first of these which should be happening in the next week or two.

This will be the year that I put myself out there.  That I look at my blogging as another step in my writing goals, rather than something I'm doing because it looked like fun.  Where I start to truly take myself seriously as a writer.  Where I don't give up on a writing project because I'm starting to feel like it needs far too much work.

It has been over a year now since I came to the realization that I am, in fact, a writer.  Since the beginning of nano 2010 I have written 9 novels.  5 of those have been pushed aside as not worth the time to edit, but the rest I'm going to do something with.  It may take a lot of editing.  It may make me want to rip the hair out of my head, but I am going to get them published!

I have two close friends also taking part in the Epic Year of Querying with me:

Eric Satchwill
B.A. Matthews

I'm excited to see how each of us do in this challenge.

I would also like to invite anyone else who wants to join in the adventure to do so.  Comment here and leave me your blog address.  I'll make sure to add you to the total counts!!

2012 is going to be an awesome year (right up to when the world ends, of course...) I can't wait to see what it will bring!

A Quickie

I just realized that I have yet to post a blog today, and as I am currently being challenged to post a blog a day, I decided to do the very thing that I told myself I would not do when I took the challenge.  I decided to write a short blog detailing my progress.  Because, you see, while I may be ahead according to NaNoWriMo standards, my own personal goal tells me I still have words to write tonight.  Words that I am currently taking time away from in order to write this short blog.  So here is where I stand:

268, 880/300k

I'm almost there.  And when I hit 300k, I am going to order a nano messenger bag.  Which is the treat I promised myself for hitting my goal

Anyway, that's all I've got for you.  I promise I will have an actual topic tomorrow, but right now, I need write!!