Okay, I have a novel draft. So now what? (And thank you all for the congratulations – much appreciated!)
Revisions, obviously, but it needs to sit for a while first. I envision it like bread dough: all the ingredients have been kneaded together, and it needs to rise for a while before I rework it, add the cinnamon, form it into its final shape.
I’ve been neglecting Stringpage and my blogs and websites, so I need to put some time into those. Actually, I’ve been neglecting pretty much everything that isn’t novel-writing or procrastination from novel-writing (except work). I definitely need to put some time into the business and the rest of my life. It’s tax time, which means inventory and all that. This is a necessary time to put some time into that.
And making tangible things: I also haven’t been weaving or knitting or anything.
And nonfiction. I have a review and an essay due soon, and some other projects to work on, including one really big one that should have been done by now.
But what I really want to do, besides spend a day or two in bed with a novel that somebody else wrote, is work on short fiction. My fiction-writing time has gone into novel, novel, novel, and I want to do something else for a bit before I dive into rewriting.
Revise and submit:
Crossing the Water
The Regiomontanus Problem
Finish:
Oyster
Stars Like Clockwork Overhead
The Gray of Her Eyes
Untitled Christmas cookie story
Ponder:
Untitled urban fantasy short story
Book of Signs and Shadows (novel outline)
Untitled urban fantasy (novel outline)
I want to get the two finished stories polished and out in the next month, and have at least two of those in progress well underway.
It’s good to have a plan, right?
It’s good to have a plan, right?
It is. And even better when you can follow it.
Honestly, given all the different things you do, I’m amazed you ever sleep. Congrats again on the completion of the first draft.
Follow it? You mean I’m supposed actually DO all that stuff?
Oh.
Seriously, the diversity of things I do isn’t necessarily a good thing. I’d be better at any given one if I dropped the others and focused more. But I’m apparently just not cut out to be monotopical. Or to ever get caught up.
Sarah,
Congrats! You might consider stashing the draft away for a month or two (far enough away to avoid temptations to peek) while you chew on the rest of your todo list. When you come back to it you should be in a position to look at it objectively and revise away.
Thanks, -m
Micah. thanks for the suggestion. That is indeed the plan.
Monotopical. I will *steal* that word! –But what would be the antonym? Because that’s what I really need, the antonym. I was just lamenting my own lack of monotopicality yesterday. It would really cut down on the necessary volume of art supplies and tools.
As for not catching up–I alternate between despair and telling myself that it is good because having new ideas demonstrates that my brain is still working, and new ideas are definitely more interesting than vacuuming or old projects that have gone into hiding as a result of moving house, at which time the archaeological strata were disturbed.
Polytopical sounds good to me.
I have a huge collection of art supplies and tools, but after the most recent cleanup/organization fit, I not only found everything I needed in the first or second place I looked, I had table space to employ it. Hooray!
But I figured out what I need all those plastic bits for, the ones I finally threw away during the cleanup. Of course.