December: What bringeth ye

 

It’s been 4 days since NaNoWriMo but a week since I wrote anything. How well did I do? I failed again. I reached 25 000 words and completed the word count with a sentence that changed the entire premise of the story. Suddenly a character sneaked in and bam, they became the center around which everything else revolved. I did not even see it coming!

So what does that mean? Do I discard what I’ve written, crawl into the fetal position and mourn over my inability to write 50 000 words in a month…again? Well that stage is already past, I’m at the “What’s next!” stage of what I like to call the “Failure to Sit Down and Write Syndrome”, symptoms include procrastination, walks to the kitchen to make coffee, excessive bathroom breaks from multiple cups of coffee, an idea that seems more fun to write etc etc. You get the gist of what I’m saying.

I will say though, that life does get in the way. When you spend 9 hours at work, 2 hours in traffic going to and from work and other activities at night that keep you away from a computer, it’s going to be very difficult to write 2000 words a day. It’s not an excuse, its a reality. I mean, at a write-in, I was able to pump out almost 8000 words in one sitting.

So it boils down to Time Management I guess or something along those lines. But anyway, I’m waffling here, this is not what I came here to write about. I think I just need to write, and think and drum my fingers across these keys and enjoy the pleasure of putting letter to word to sentence to blog post. It feels goooooooood.

So what lies ahead in the future for this young scribe:

1) NaNoWriMo Novel #1

Do you remember  that novel I was raving about two years ago? It was all I could talk about, Steampunk amazingness that would blow everyone’s mind when they read it? Yeah, haven’t touched it in a year. It’s terrible. I read it the other day and I need to finish it. It’s in the pipelines

2) NaNoWriMo Novel #2

Do you remember that novel I was raving about a month ago? It was all I could talk ab…oh wait I’ve written all of this before. Dejavu. Oh, wait, no it’s repeating the same mistake again (lol tautology anyone?) Yeah so that’s in the pipelines too.

3) Auburn

It’s been a long time since I began this short story which evolved into a collaborative effort between myself and Tyrosha over at Life in Light of Eternity. We started off well and I slacked off (trend?) and now we are writing the final draft…oh I’m writing the final draft of our novella (he’s written his part already). So what we have done is write two dimensions of the same world, one in which the character makes “bad” decisions and one in which he makes “right” and each post we alternate universes, carrying on from where the last one left off and moving forward from there. It’s great fun. Once we post this final episode in our 8 Post saga, we will move that as First Draft before working out fully the final work. Then we will be thinking Publishers.

4) Keith.

Tyron is also working on a story (see it here) and I’m looking to collaborate with him on it too. This time, rather than write alternate universes etc, the idea is for us to use the same “universe” where events in mine or his affect the story. If a building collapses in my story, in his story a character might here the collapse or even be in the collapse or be the cause…Crime fighters on the streets of Jozi? Sign me up.

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I guess the question that should be on your lips and is at the fore of my own aspiration is, how will I manage to do all of that with life as hectic as I’ve explained it to be. Well I’d like to thank Any.do and GTasks for arranging my life and putting priority into my schedule. Time Management is the key to it all. Dedicated-sit-down-and-write-discipline-because-you’ve-sorted-everything-else-out kind of time management and I will say its working. Auburn is already in the pipelines and should be published by tomorrow so keep a look at for that. If not, hammer on my door and demand I get to work or I should quit my aspiration to become a write. It’s that serious.

Now that you are aware of where I am on this journey, if you have any words of encouragement, post them at me, drill them at me, attach them to flamethrowers and roast them on me (figuratively of course – well probably) . I would appreciate it. Any tips, advice on how to keep the pen flowing, send them through.

Also, on the way thanks to a friend I met at a NaNoWriMo write-in, she is looking to start a forum for writers where we will be coming together to meet, write and feed off one another. Once that’s up and running I’ll most definitely post it here and let you know how you can join the fun!

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