Did I rest or did I just take time off from writing? Is it the same thing? That is what I am wondering at this very moment. The last week or so I’ve written very little, as often happens over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. I wrote a grand total of 264 words while on vacation and I’m not sure how I feel about it, which is in and of itself a success I think. Normally I’d be mad at myself and while I am annoyed that I’m now behind schedule, it was probably for the best. I know how close I’ve been skating to burnout, dipping in and out of it. It’s a dangerous game I play.
Progress
Even with the time off for Thanksgiving and spending time with family I wrote 26k words, which is nothing to sneeze at but is a fair bit lower than I wanted averaging only 882 words per day across the month. However, I did well every other week averaging somewhere between 7-10k a week. I’m hopful that I can ramp back up to that pace and maybe exceed it so that even if I lose ground over Christmas I’ll still hit at least 30k, hopefully more.
I have really hit my stride with this project, but I will struggle to get back into it after my little break. Stopping and restarting can be a real problem, but I’m hopeful that I can pick up with enough force to get my momentum going again.
This manuscript has cut itself into three parts kind of on its own and I’m around the 40k word mark which means I am a little bit into part two and tension is beginning to ratchet up. The characters are just starting to put things together as more and more questions arise.
What I’m learning
This month has been a little bit different. I’ve been studying a bit of Alchemy and Metaphysics, Pyramids, and Antideluvian society. Strange things have started to fall into place with this manuscript as research has sought me out rather than the other way around. I came up with so many of the ideas from my own thoughts and understanding of metaphysical concepts that I was surprised to find much of it aligned with texts and historical/mythological stories.
I will probably continue to research further into this and learn more as I work on this story. One of the most interesting things I’ve learned thus far is that Sir Isaac Newton was an Alchemist.
I do wonder if part of the reason I came up with these particular ideas that spoke to the larger historical narrative was because I have read a significant amount of philosophy. Reading a little bit of different philosophies and reading ‘the great books’ gave me the framework to create fantasy and science fiction that is steeped in the historical, metaphysical, and philosophical orthodoxy (or in some cases, unorthodoxy).
Leisure
I went on many walks on the beach over my vacation. It is amazing how a little change of scenery can turn exercise into leisure. It is much the same, but in an opposing fashion, to how it feels to go from writing for pleasure to writing as if it were a career. There is still joy in it, but the framing is different. I will try and remember this as I work my way back into my story, which as I write this I am becoming more and more inclined to jump back into.
Looking Forward
I’d been hoping I could finish Cut Throat by Christmas, but the time I took off for Thanksgiving and the time I will no doubt lose over Christmas, doesn’t seem likely. I will be ecstatic if I can get between 40-50k words in December. Which would mean I will likely finish the manuscript around the second or third week of January. As always, time is my nemesis, but I am tired and there are only so many hours in a day.
Cut Throat is pretty much my only project until then. I have some super secret art stuff that I’m working on and some other writing adjacent work, but I’ll be mainly working on Cut Throat. Once it’s finished and my writing group has thoroughly critiqued it, I will do my major revision. Then I will send it to at least one of the writing group members for a quick pass and another quick revision. Then it’s off to beta readers and final revisions before submitting it, hopefully in mid-April at the latest. Somewhere in there I will work on another project, let’s call it Project B and I’m hoping that one will only take me a month or two to draft. Keeping it inside of a month would be swell, but as anyone who has read more than one of these updates can attest, I don’t always get what I want.
Until next time.
Naomi
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