I am armed with spreadsheets and a crazy idea.
I got a lot of great suggestions yesterday. It seems to really just boil down to consistency, right? Imposed deadlines, word minimums, things like that. Well, I thought about all of that, and Galen’s project, and other things like 365 projects, or Thing-a-Week, or in Matt’s case, Mucho Mango Mayo, in which he podcast a new piece of original fiction every single day during the month of May. You know what I’ve never done? A project like that.
So in addition to working on the novel, I’m going to do a Story-a-Week project. I’ve actually managed to write a couple of short stories in a week, one of which will be coming out in Daily SF some time soon, so it seems possible to produce something worth editing in that time.
While I’d love to say I’m going to do a story a week for the entire year (52 stories, errr…I can take 2013 off, right?) I suspect that’s not reasonable. So I’m going to start with just January–four stories by the end of the month, one of which is going to be my Fireside story (which will, of course, get lots of extra love and attention. The other three just get drafts). We’ll see if I make it that far.
I’m hoping that this will get my brain back into the habit of creating freely and regularly, and give me something to revise and ultimately increase my body of work.
I won’t even tell you what my word count goals are for the novel. You’d think I’m seriously nuts. But right now I’m feeling optimistic. I had a good writing day yesterday, and would like to have another one today, and tomorrow, and the day after that.
It was pointed out to me yesterday that while I’m calling myself lazy, I did omit the fact that I was doing a lot last year, it just mostly wasn’t writing. Fair point.
Thanks for your suggestions and words of encouragement, both left in the comments and sent by email. You guys are the best.
Now I’d better get to work. :)