What the heck, we'll keep the alliteration going...
I've mentioned before how I have been working on a set of three books that I started writing late in 2008 for my two daughters. Well, I never quite finished the third book. Back in 2010, I wrote the 50k word first draft and then set it aside (I do this with all the longer stuff I write). The plan was to take another look at it after a few months and then finish up the series.
In October of 2011 I started reading through the series again, making updates and generally "adding the awesome" to the books. Then I got to book three right when I accepted a new job at another company and also right when Nanowrimo started.
So book three went into the "someday" pile and I got busy with everything else in life.
But my younger daughter hounds me about the book. She promotes the series to her teachers and random strangers.
This is hard for me on several levels (I'm very shy, for example). But I want to finish this series and get to work on the story I wrote for Nanowrimo 2012 (The Bardo Rider) which I'm very excited about.
So I pulled out book three yet again and realized I have a lot more work ahead of me than I thought initially. I knew the very end was not finished, and sure, some of the middle sections had some minor typos, but I thought I could finish this off in a day or three. A week at the most.
Nope. Turns out I have two missing chapters and a missing ending. I'll be working on this for a while, I fear.
So today I got a good start. I've re-read the whole book, fixed a ton of typos (why on earth was I capitalizing the seasons? They enjoyed Summer vacation?) and I think I have a plan for the first missing chapter. Heck, I even found and fixed a plot hole that I missed the last time through.
I'm going to have to try to do this piecemeal. I cannot just sit down at a computer for 8 hours a day until it's finished. I've got work to do at work, and I can never do any real writing at home these days. So I'll have to take the baby steps as they come and push that rock, every so slowly, up that hill.
Something else has served to inspire my motivation. A couple of writers I met via Twitter have both recently mentioned some exciting things they're working on.
Raymond Masters is actually using Kickstarter to help fund his series: http://fb.me/1QwAsoBmE
And Jason Letts is relaunching his Suspense trilogy.
These two always manage to motivate me to keep at the writing.
Wish me luck!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I definitely wish you luck! Or maybe I should wish you motivation. :) The aspiring writer within me understands what you're talking about, and I confess that motivation (or lack of) is my biggest problem. (And time!)
ReplyDeleteI love that your daughter is such a big fan. Kids are fantastic for that.
Also need to compliment your photography. Your shots are so beautifully composed, a real delight for the eyes.
Thank you so much for the kind words.
ReplyDeleteI've found that motivation and momentum are often linked. One very common and popular approach for writers is to commit to writing a certain amount (time or words/pages) every morning. Making that the first commitment of the day seems to help many authors.
If/when I get a bit of momentum going with my writing, I can usually keep feeding that momentum which leads to further motivation. It's great when that happens, but getting the cycle started is the hard part!
I hope you do get to more authoring, as you certainly have a voice and a passion!