Ignoring The Doubts And Ploughing On – The Climb #836

Monday 8^th June 2021

After a weekend that, after one reason or another, I got no writing done, today, I managed to get a couple of thousand done.

I suppose I should feel pleased to have got that much done but after a good week last week, I kinda wanted to make up the shortfall, and break some records today. But real life got in the way.

I spent some time, putting a bit of effort into applying for a thing, which I expected an almost instant response from, and instead only got met with silence, so I’m a little pissed off at the lack of a response. I’m also pissed that the time it took could have been another session.

One of the things I’m happy about is that I have the next few chapters fleshed out. I say chapters, but this book has very much been scene focused. Ordinarily I would organise myself in Scrivener so that everything under the manuscript would be chapters, with multiple chapters being organised under that chapter. Instead, this time I just have a list of scenes. It’s a mess.

And because I’m missing a rigid chapter structure my technique of sitting down before writing a chapter and plotting it out isn’t working here. Instead, I have a plot, from which I’ve derived a bunch of scenes and that I’m working on based on memory. Oh well, they say each book is its own thing.

I’m also pretty sure that characters are deciding to go to place X in town Y in one scene and then place X is in town Z in another.

I’m also starting to worry about character agency. Are things moving along because the characters are driving them along or because they are happening to them?

I need to remind myself that this is a first draft and it’s meant to be a mess. I can fix anything in revisions.

The trick is to just keep pushing on with it, but I’m starting to feel some self-inflicted pressure. I want to get this draft done by the end of the month. Because it’s a soft deadline, I’ll no doubt run over and then be annoyed with myself. I wish I could be one of those writers who says they’re going to write for 6 weeks and finish within 6 weeks. Instead I give myself 12, aim for 6, and then get annoyed when it takes 8.

I’m also starting to wonder about what I do after the first draft. The sensible thing is to leave it for a number of weeks before revising. Ordinarily, I’d alternate between editing one and writing another, so the rough idea is to write another first draft of another book after this. The ideas are starting to form but I’m worried of getting distracted by the shiny new thing.

And of course, there’s all the real life stuff I need to do. How on earth did I feel on top of everything a couple of weeks ago. I blame reducing my caffeine intake. Where I used to work late in the evening, I’m now going to bed. I want to eliminate caffeine totally again, but that’s a rough process as I get terrible headaches as I come off it. So instead I’m stepping it down. Even with that I’m feeling more tired recently.

Obviously, I need to ignore all these little voices worrying about how I’m writing and that I’m not writing enough and just plough on with the first draft. With any luck come the end of June I’ll be in a position where the draft is either done or nearing completion.