I’m coming late to this party because I actually thought the last weekend of October was next weekend, so I’m playing catch up. But at least our clocks changed today so technically I’ve had an extra hour of weekend 🙂 Here are the stats for October…
Last report WC for Scardust:Â 63, 338
Current report WC for Scardust:Â Â 67, 574
After receiving feedback from my agent, I dived into revisions and spruced up the manuscript which resulted in an additional 4k words. The ms is now back with my agent and the nail biting for her final comments begins anew. At least this one is almost there, after two years of writing and rewriting, it feels like I’ve finally got a decent book here.
Situation with I Heart Robot:Â Since I’m using track changes, the word count is a bit wonky, but suffice it to say, I had what should be my final round of edits with the ms and managed to get through 320 pages of revisions on that this month as well!
Short story debacle:Â I wrote 2.5k words. Hated it. Scrapped it. Started again and wrote 2.6k words. I haven’t managed to finish this story yet though…
Writing Issues This Month:
Stress. Given that I was in the editing/revision cave, which is my favourite place to be, it shouldn’t have felt this stressful, however, the perfectionist in me was really working me over with I Heart Robot as I went through word for word wondering if the text was as good as it could be. I’m still not sure… I was also similarly stressed about Scardust. That my agent loved the story assuaged some of my concerns, but this book is extremely dear to me and contains a lot of dark themes I really hope I’ve done justice to, so revisions there were also about wanting to get every detail right and worrying I wasn’t doing enough.
Four things I learned this month in writing:
1. In the words of Elsa… this is becoming increasingly difficult for me. I thought it would get easier the more books I wrote, but letting go of that final draft and signing off on production doesn’t get any easier. If anything, it’s getting harder because I want the book to be ‘perfect’ even though I know that’s just not possible. So yeah, I guess I’m still learning how to just let it go.
2. I struggle to work on more than one ms at a time. I was fully entrenched in one when I got the edits back on another and I had to finish the one before I could even look at the other. This is also why the short story was severely neglected. When I’m immersed in one story world, I simply cannot jump ship and dive into another. It doesn’t work for me. It’s all or nothing.
3. Having author friends are wonderful. I got to spend a too-short morning chatting to a real life author friend of mine and it was incredibly cathartic being able to share my concerns and authorial idiosyncrasies with someone who totally got me.
4. Hm – once again I’m struggling to find a fourth thing that really stands out for me this month so here’s a fun gif of Matt Bomer as Neal Caffrey because I will never get tired of watching that man flip his hat…
What distracted me this month while writing:
The day jobs – yes, plural. And also searching for more full-time day jobness. Gah, this whole being a responsible adult thing is annoying. Additional distraction came from the stress I was under while actually trying to write – yeah, vicious circle there. I also finally sought medical help for an ongoing problem I’ve been having with my arms – thanks to a history of carpal tunnel syndrome and climbing. Thankfully, despite my nightmares about cortisone and surgery and things, it seems it’s nothing that can’t be fixed with some physio so that’s one concern mostly laid to rest.
Goal for next month:Â Write the short story I should’ve already written for an anthology – oh yeah, I said that last month! This is really critical now. My deadline is Friday. It has got to get done. Finish up beta reading and outline a Shiny New Idea, which will take me way out of my comfort zone…
Last 200 words:Â Here’s a teaser image for I Heart Robot. I present to you my android Quinn:
And that’s it for October. How did you do?
