Wednesday 10th March 2021

I’ve started to think about projects going forwards.  I have a lot of ideas, and they still need a lot of refinement.

The first is to finish the edit of 4S.  This has to be a priority.

The next is developing new projects.  Ideas are not really a problem for me, and now I have a bit more of a revised process, I feel like I have a way forwards.

My outlines are going to be expanded.  I’ll still do all the work I did before but on top of this I’m going to write a few exploratory chapters.  Typically this is going to take me to the stage where my brain typically encounters the first hurdle as the act starts to change.  It seems to be about this point that problems start to rear their head.  It gives me chance to play with the voice and get a good sense of how a book works.

I suspect I could turn out one of these a week (providing I have the voice) so aside from editing, I want to start doing this from next week.

I also want to have a bit of fun with writing and have an idea for a new episodic story to exclusively post on the blog.  Much like how The Climb details my day to day writing, so this would be a first draft, rough and raw.  Each episode would be about 500-1000 words long.

Because of it’s nature this needs to be the type of story that works in small scenes as well as something I don’t want to ever commercially publish.  I suppose if it became successful I might rewrite it for a novel, but the idea is that this story is exclusively for the blog.

I’m thinking how I can do this.  I’m thinking of it as a prose equivalent of a webcomic, where new comic pages get published every week.

Because of its nature, I can’t really plan it.  That’s scary.  I need to be sure I don’t write myself into a corner either through plot or just meandering to the point I get bored.  For this reason, I know it’ll need a number of points of view.  The idea is that if I do write myself into a corner or get bored, I just change scene and write a new character.

There’s also the idea that things can be spun off from this.  I could do videos of reading episodes.  I could do breakdowns where I go back into a scene and show myself editing it or analyzing it somehow.

I might have to organise it in seasons, especially if I have certain aspects of commercial work that needs doing.

The key is that it’s very clear it’s a first draft, and not to hide away from the problems.  I’ve often wished I could see early drafts and see what they become.

Of course, there’s risk here.  There’s a temptation to lay all the flaws in my writing bare, and in doing so risk being labelled a poor writer.  But I think the people it would appeal to, together with the way it is framed and the quality of my first drafts means that whilst there will be plenty to criticise, it should be generally understood for what it is.  Plus, The Climb has made me good at writing pretty solid first drafts.

What will it be?  Who will the characters be?  I don’t know at this point.  I like the idea of always knowing the direction for a couple of weeks ahead so I can work towards something, but not having a fleshed out arc for the story.

I plan to use the rest of this week to start reorganising myself around these ideas, although I need to continue to progress 4S editing in the meantime.  I’m also aware I have a bunch of other projects that need doing that I need to reschedule.

And perhaps it’s all a bit too much.  I need to make sure I’m taking on stuff I can get done, rather than stuff I don’t want to do but feel I have to.

That’s what the rest of the week is for.  Working out what I can do, as well as what I want to do, and most importantly, what I need to do.

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