Since the Move

It's been a while since I've updated my projects list to the right, and I think it'll be a good idea to go into a little more detail here. 

First off, I'm still working on DH01's Developmental Edit/Rewrite. This is going pretty well. I've been using the original draft as a guideline and filling in the stuff that I left out in that first draft. This story is turning out substantially different from the original draft, while maintaining the same plot arcs as that first iteration. For what it's worth, I plan on leaving the copies I have on Wattpad up there unless I get to the point of officially publishing the series. At that time, I'll decide if I want to leave the roughs up. Either way, I plan on giving the books new covers if they get that far.

I'm also continuing to work on the phase outline for the rewrite of The Prophet of Venjhelin 1 that I started a couple months ago. Right now, I've got over 200 phases on it and the ideas are flowing well. Originally, I intended to rewrite this as I am DH01, but that didn't want to go, so I tried the phase outline to see if I could get things moving, and it's worked quite well. My goal on this outline is to get 10 phases a day, though I haven't been as consistent with the daily aspect as I hoped. It's still progressing well, and I'm really enjoying fleshing out the characters and plot.

Most recently, I've started a phase outline of a story I completed in rough draft and have tried rewriting a few times since: Married to the Moons 1. Like with my usual first drafts, even with the outlines I used to do, the story was very much a candybar scene story. The phase outline is helping me flesh this one out too. I've already gotten 60 phases on it, in just one day of working on it. If you'd like a sneak peek of the outline for this one, I've excerpted a few of the phases in a post for my Patreon at the Bicycle level. 

Previously, I was working on transcribing Front: Or My First Completed Story EVAR!!! Since our big house move at the beginning of January, though, I haven't been able to work on it. I may try to do so within the next few months, even if I'm still stuck on my laptop, but I'm not making any promises. 

Sleep, Writing, and Crafting

 I haven't made as much progress as I wanted on my two stories. This is mostly because the level of my motivation has fluctuated over the past couple weeks. My sleep schedule has gone wonky, and I'm learning to settle into playing Pathfinder on Friday nights, two things that mess with my motivation. Honestly, though, it's mostly the sleep issue. Insomnia sucks.

This year, I'm tempted to enter Nano. To do that, I'd have to work on something I've got enough of an outline on, and that means it would be the gay romance, and I'm afraid I'll burn out on it. It's something I'm thinking about, though, and it would be kind of nice to do this rewrite during Nano since the original draft was written in November during the first week of Nano, even though it wasn't an "official" Nano project.

Either way, I'll be getting my words on DH01 and DOTSC01, and transcribing Front. Oh, and that's coming along quite nicely, that transcription. It's both just as sucky and not as sucky as I thought it was, in different ways. Most of the non-sucky parts come in the form of my technical skill with the story. Though that's definitely improved (along with everything else) over the years, I'm consistently surprised by how well things are written in Front, for one of my earliest works.

Otherwise, the crafting bug has bitten me. I've been working on a new quilt (yeah, I started another project—but this is normal for me) that I found a tutorial about online. It's called Pins And Paws, and comes from a quilt company based in Missouri. I find that interesting, because that's where my dad was from. It's funny how things circle around like that. 

Many Tasks at Once

 So the past month has been more successful writing-wise than previous months. I think this in part is because I've trimmed back my writing to a minimum of 250 words and no more than 500 per session. Before, I was writing as much as I wanted. I blasted through scenes and would write for two, three, four days in a row, be dry for the next week. Keeping my wordcount to a low range helps me remain interested without burning me out.

Another thing I think that's helped is that I've added other writing tasks to my roster. 250-500 words a pop on one project wasn't really enough. It felt like a warm-up, so I added a second project. The second project, DOTSC01, has the same range of wordcount as the first, which works well. It also helps prevent bouncy brain where I hop from one project to another in an endless round of distracted writing. 

That worked so well that I decided that it may be a good idea to add another writing task to my list. Hence working on the handwritten story from years ago. This tale of yore is called, Front, or My First Completed Novel Evar!!!, and it has the seeds of my current writing in it. I'm transcribing it directly—not making any corrections—and adding commentary that makes me laugh at least.

And, as if that wasn't enough to have on my list of writing tasks, I decided to rework an old gay romance I wrote years ago. I think I wrote the original draft of this particular story in November of 2009. At the time, I was not participating in NaNo, but I managed to slam out just over 80k words in about 6 days, if I remember right. It's got some major issues. At the time, I didn't know how to handle conflict, hence this reworking of the story. I'm outlining it in Scapple right now. 

Having a number of tasks seems to be working well for me. My writing mind is calmer than it's been for years, and I feel like I'm making progress on everything. I'm having fun too, which is important to me. And, best of all, writing slow brings out detail I wouldn't otherwise be able to include. I'm quite pleased.

So that's where things stand in the writing world. My mental health is doing well with regular dosages of all my psych meds, which is good, and I'm very faithful with taking them at a regular time. I'm also looking into other ways of earning money, primarily by hawking my handcrafts that I make with sewing and crocheting. Things are going well!