The Status of Kellie's Writing

My, where to begin? Ah, yes.

< Cheesy Announcer > When last we left our Struggling Author, she had just won a great victory in finishing the [pause for dramatic effect] Human Dignity revisions! [musical riff of some sort] Now, our Daring Writer must face another harrowing battle in [pause for dramatic effect] Human Dignity revisions! [more dramatic music] But there's more! She also must juggle a new novel, several short stories and novelettes loosely related to this new novel, and a fourty-hour work week! [Dun-dun-duuuunnnnnnn] Will our Super Novelist survive? Tune in to this weekend's episode of [cue the echo-effect] Adventures in Kellie's Mind! < / Cheesy Announcer >

I finished the big, huge revisions to HD back in May (maybe even April? can't remember), and then I didn't write until July basically. When I did start writing again, I played around with a couple of short story/novelette ideas that turned out to be a millenia in the future after the events of The Masque. That came to about 120 pages of writing--all for fun, basically. Or maybe not. The Masque's universe is growing and developing and making room for sequels and prequels and a series of short stories that could actually become another novel, etc. In fact, I'm working on story as a gift to Mark for our second anniversary next month. Without intending it to, this story wormed its way into this universe quite nicely. So who knows where this could lead? The other big thing I accomplished this summer was to swing back and forth about the amount of research I needed to do before I got back into writing The Masque. Lots of seesawing. A few nights ago, I finally got sick of the waffling and just decided to start writing the draft again. I had put together a better concept of plot and characters over the summer as well, so I did a lot of background work that doesn't feel like writing but is necessary to the writing.

And, as I mentioned above, I am also trying to get back into Human Dignity revisions. Nothing nearly as extensive as what I finished a few months ago, praise Heaven. But enough to make me scratch my head and wonder just what the heck I can do to fix something that I wrote two years ago and looks it. (I'm eager to write a draft in only a few months sometime soon so I can see the novelty of a book that's written in basically all the same style and at the same level. Writing a book over--egad--four years makes for some frightening variability in the reading experience, for the Intrepid Revisor at least. I'm trying to stick a fork in this sucker so I can have even more mental energy for my other projects. HD needs to be only in the "seeking representation and/or publication" mode and that mode only by the end of the year.

But the biggest issue right now is how to be a writer and survive in a 9-5 job that, naturally, takes a big chunk of time away from my writing. And the very nature of my muse and my big breakthroughs in my identity this summer is causing problems here. For example, I'm already trying to juggle writing a draft of The Masque with finishing up HD for good AND playing around with shorter ideas in The Masque's universe. Add to that the joys of two other projects yelling to get attention and things get hairy. Also add to that the perils of breaking down a block in a particular story in the middle of a workday or workweek when I can't spend four hours writing in celebration of breaking said block, and Issues arise. It's all a work in progress, though, and I'm determined not to let months pass in which I don't write, as was the case when I worked at IBM.

And that's the deal with my writing at the moment. I think I managed to get everything in there. Feel free to comment if you want even more gorey details. :)