Slowing Down – The Climb #958

Thursday 7th October 2021

Things have slowed down today considerably. I don’t think it’s a product of being burnt out but rather of having run out of things ready to write.

The process of writing is a complicated one and there’s more to it than simply putting words on the page. There’s all the admin that comes with the profession. Emailing agents, editors and whoever else; organising your work schedule and trying to ensure things don’t get missed. Then there’s the planning stage. Even writers who dive in without an outline need to spend time thinking.

So it’s not unreasonable to say that as a writer, only a third of your time is spent on writing, it’s just that it goes in phases. And you might be thinking about one story while writing another.

And I’ve got to the end of a big writing phase.

I’m still tidying up the last bits of The Accursed with a couple of flashback scenes, but essentially the story is written. It’ll sit for a couple of months before an edit and then being sent off to my agent.

Likewise, a novella I’ve worked on has got done and now needs an edit. That one isn’t so large so I don’t feel it needs the space to sit. I’ve also got another project to edit.

The issue I’m having is that the writing is going so well, I really want to take advantage of it. So I’m digging around trying to find any writing projects I have ready that need a first draft boshed out.

But perhaps I’m better editing a few projects and starting to put the next story together.

Usually by the time I come to the end of a first draft I’m more than ready for a break. I want to play World of Warcraft for weeks solid and just consume media. But I don’t feel like that this time. I still have gas in the tank.

Because of this, I’m probably going to put a bit of time into some training courses and business books I’ve picked up over the pandemic and go through them taking notes. It’ll mean a bit of a forced break from the writing, although there’ll be bit here and there. I certainly won’t be breaking any word counts though.

I’ve really enjoyed having different projects on the go, and feel my productivity has benefited from it. I’m conscious that it’s said it’s better to focus on one thing but I’d like to look at that research as that’s not been my experience. Swapping between different types of project has kept me feeling fresh. What was once a huge backlog of projects is now witling down.

So I’ll edit rather than write a novella, while doing some training, while plotting a new novel and maybe writing a short story and script. We’ll see but variety seems to be working for me now, and if it ain’t broke I don’t want to try changing it.