I’m pleased to announce that writer and consultant Tamara Sellman will be guestblogging at Booklife next week. The week after, Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, authors of Writing the Other, will be guest blogging. Then, in the third week of March, I will finally get around to sharing my thoughts on the modern book tour.
So far 2010 has been a busy year for me, and although we’re only two months in it’s a good time to take stock and reevaluate where I am. In part this is because a lot of us make new goals in January, but often find that by February some of those goals have gone out the window.
So, writers out there, I ask you: What did you decide to accomplish this year, and where are you right now as opposed to where you thought you’d be? And is this good news or bad news or just the way things are?
For my part, I had my wife change the password to my facebook account so I wouldn’t waste any time online during a period of intense deadlines. I’ve also learned that, for now at least, it’s important for me to spend much less time in the electronic world in general.
Yay Nisi and Cynthia!
I learned last year that I need to see, in person, humans other than my husband at least once every three weeks.
I started out 2010 with the goal of doing what I did last year: writing every day, but writing even better. It started off well enough but came to an abrupt halt due to carpal tunnel. I'm used to writing every day, and I've not been able to manage more than a few paragraphs for the last few weeks. Everything's come to a screeching stop, and I've been given a rather stern reminder to take better care of my hands and myself. Slowly things are getting better, but it's not been pretty. The non-writing writer is a sad sack indeed… but I'm trying to use the time to think, plot, and plan, so that when I'm good to go again I have a clear design in mind. Ah, well. Live and learn, I suppose.
I had plans of having the first draft of my work-in-progress finished by March 1, revised twice and completed by year's end. Well… The draft is steaming along, and I can honestly say that I'm proud of it and that I think it's got a shot at being a good novel, but the writing is happening at its own pace. I could unquestionably have a "completed" first draft by now, but twice I've stopped when it wasn't going well and I was confused. Letting it rest for a few days or a couple weeks helped me see a major flaw in each case, the addressing of which took days, but which resulted in a stronger story. So, I'm learning/re-learning that (1) setting arbitrary deadlines may not be the best plan when one is not yet an experienced novelist, and (2) my pace is my pace, however much I might wish to write more quickly.