2011 seems to be going well so far, writing-wise. I had January and February off from my choir (rehearsals begin again in March), so I planned deliberately to focus on writing, especially in February.
In preparation, in mid-December I read through an abandoned novel for the first time since August, with the plan of turning it into a short piece of 15-20,000 words. I cut out large chunks of subplot, saving them in separate files. I won’t tell how much I cut, because, ouch! Then I let it lie while holiday obligations took over, until near the end of January, when I opened the file again.
At this point, the file was around 12,000 words of disjointed scenes. I spent the next three weeks both adding words and cutting words; it took me a while to decide if some of the original scenes were needed or not, so it was like a photo slowly coming into focus. I also altered the plot in several ways to work better at the shorter lengt. Eventually, I had a decent draft that was story-shaped and about 17,000 words, so I sent it out to some readers. It will need a lot more work, though.
In the meantime, as I’ve mentioned, I sold a Spice Brief on proposal. I’ve started writing that now, and hope to finish well before my September deadline; the story is set during World War One.
Finally in February, I came up with a new idea for a fantasy/romance novel and drafted a very rough synopsis which included the basics of the worldbuilding. The project currently exists more in my head than on paper, but I’m pretty excited about it.
Not a bad month’s work.
