Things are finally settling down. I’m almost able to tell you my news on a project, my mum is recovering well in hospital despite some post-operative complications, and after six weeks of high anxiety and tired brain – I’m writing again.
My in-laws brought us a potted plant to kill, and after five days I can report it’s still alive!
We also found out yesterday we’ll be moving house in August due to OH’s work. I’ll just add that to my list.
It’s turning out to be a hell of a busy year.
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While I wasn’t writing, I kept myself studying — listening to podcasts, reading transcripts and taking notes on writing from blog posts. I read through some of my incomplete novels drafts and took some time to plot out a new idea.
Yesterday, I wrote over 2,000 words, and today I’ve managed a further 200 so far (in my lunch break). I’m working on The Felled Gods, the story which has sat in my WIP sidebar for the past 8-9 months. So far, I’ve been going through the already-written scenes fleshing out the ideas I’d added later and replacing any [insert scene here] with at least 200 words of actual scene.
I’ve just about reached the end of my planned and written content; thus the next deadline is to complete this manuscript.
I know myself — I am one of those writers who likes to re-write the story as I edit, and tweak before I finish, “to save time later”, and thus haven’t always finished stories.
To combat this tendency, I didn’t read any completed scenes in this read-through and I’m not aiming for my usual 80,000 word total. I’m just going to write the next bit of story, then the next, and tie it all up soon. Trying to push a first draft to 100k doesn’t work for me, and aiming for closer to 70k tends to take off some of the pressure to describe or over-explain things.
In the re-draft, I can pick some details to expand on. For now, I just need to finish my atheist’s story, and work out how she will choose between the gods.