Writing is, well, it’s “going,” Patsy.
Creative work can get like this sometimes, where you’re producing and crafting, day in and day out, forced to miss a session here or there because you’re non-writer life steps in, and at the end of a week you can look back and think, “I haven’t done a thing. Nothing. At. All.”
The feeling can be exacerbated as a writer when you’re not querying. The main goal of completing a project, for me at least, is to query an agent and hope they say yes. So every week that goes by that I’m still working on something and not querying, then it can feel wasted, like nothing’s been done. This is partly the reason I keep a workflow log over on my Twitter, showing when my day started, what I was doing at specific times, and when there’s breaks in the work to show when the twins wake up and need attention/playtime.
Overall, this can feel a little defeating, because you’re not submitting work then you’re not actually working. Well, to submit work you have to produce work that’s worth submitting. I know most of these projects are stuck but I want to get them right before I start sending them out.
PROJECT UPDATE: Below are all the writing projects, novels, that I’m working on. If done correctly, I should be able to finish them in the order listed. Most are almost done, really, abandoned somewhere in what Delilah S. Dawson would call “the soggy middle.”
Project: GREY: Currently in 2nd draft, red pen edits, about 50 pages from being done, and, honestly, I could do it all in less than a day if afforded the chance
DEED: 1st draft; 41,478 words; ~60A% done? Fell off the wagon on this one with a few untimely breaks (and a week long family vacation). Haven’t written in a few weeks but am going to as soon as GREY is all done, basically, riding that momentum.
BIANCA: 1st draft; 29,837 words; 80% done? I actually posted about this because Facebook memories popped up, reminding me that I had stopped working on it. Just write the lamest coffee shop description and I can probably knock out those final 11k words in a week or two.
NESS: 1st draft; 25,709 words; ~70% done? I stopped this one after my Nana Pat passed away due to COVID last Christmas. Structure of the entire story needs to be reworked now, so this might take some time.
I need to clear one project out of the way then get to the next one, all in a chain or order. The order stops when I get an agent, who’ll then tell me what to do next. That’s the dream. Being told what to write.
Thanks for reading,
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Contact: robertmichaelacosta@gmail.com
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