Back writing

Well after a week and more of not writing due to having flu I took the plunge yesterday and wrote the first scene of a new novel that is currently called The Stairs Lead Down. Well today I carried on with it and the first chapter is now finished and totals 3,495 words. Today's effort chipped in with 2,778 of them. Not  bad day - especially as I had a few other things to take care of before I could start typing.

Now I've explained the logic of leaving the fourth Ben Williamson and choosing to write this story before - in the first posting of the day. It kind of makes sense to me. After all when you get advice from an agent and a publisher that seems to tally up it makes sense to follow it. I just hope I've chosen the right option of the two that fitted.

Mind you even if it doesn't I am currently intending to go straight into the other story - the 15th Century Venice tale as soon as this version is done to first draft (although I will admit I might head back to the fourth BW novella and finish it off - it is halfway to its 30K after all so it wouldn't take long).

So I have a plan. Now all I have to do is follow it.

That sounds so simple but inevitably there will be times when I want to go write something else. Ideas don't stop popping into my head just because I have a current WiP.

I'm not alone in this I know. One of my writing friends (a recent acquaintance made through twitter) called Melissa Elledge has the same issue as me. (I'm posting links to her blog and twitter account at the bottom of this blog posting.)

Knowing that you share a problem with someone else though, doesn't make it go away. All that I can do for that is try to up the resolve factor. I will overcome my basic flighty writing nature and concentrate on just the one story. (I WILL!)

It's obvious that I have it within me to achieve this. I have after all written four novels and three novellas. I got to the end of each of them somehow, even given my predilection to wander between projects.

And in any case I think I might be able to get through this YA ghost story relatively quickly. It think it's going to clock in at about 80K words. With 3.5K already done I can claim to be approaching 5%. Add in the fact that my wife is playing in a pantomime (saxophones and musical director) later this month and she'll be out a lot giving me ample time to write. I'm hoping that I will be able to average about 1.5K words per day. That should mean I'm approaching halfway by the end of the month. I all goes well maybe I'll be beyond that.

Of course I've made these plans before only to see them crash and my ears. I guess the best way of viewing this is we will see what we will see.

But I am not going to write anything more tonight. Sunday nights are those times when I unfortunately have to do all the preparation for another week at work - like ironing shirts. How I love ironing. I know one thing; if I ever get rich from writing (not going to happen I know) I will be getting someone else to do the ironing.

Anyway - report is pretty much done. I'm heading off now to relax for a while and maybe watch some TV with my wife. I need to spend some quality time with her - it is what keeps me sane after all.

Links
Melissa Elledge's blog
https://saidthelioness.wordpress.com/

Melissa Elledge's twitter feed
https://twitter.com/mjelledge
 

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