I’m in a plotting and planning mood right now. I think it’s a vague attempt to escape writing synopses for Love Immortal. It has been quite productive. I’ve plotted five of my A Day in the Life series short romance stories and have written three of them. I’m planning to write eight of them this year and have chosen which characters will feature. I have to plot another three, but it shouldn’t be too difficult since they’re only 4000 word scenes.
I did figure out my rough schedule for the year to see what it was going to look like. Conclusion: Frightening.
I will write the first draft of Heart of Darkness in February, and after that I need to schedule in two more drafts each on Heart of Darkness, Forbidden Blood and Ascension. And after that I need to proof all three, and write their synopses, etc. When I totted this up on a calendar, allowing for writing, editing and proofing my A Day in the Life stories too, it turns out that to do everything minus the synopses will take me until the end of September. Blech.
I hate it when I figure things out and it basically says – yes, you’re going to be editing, editing and editing until September! Congratulations! Of course, another story will come along and bump that date a bit because I’ll write it in some fevered attempt to escape editing hell. I think it’s a special circle of Hell reserved for writers… or at least writers who aren’t lazy and do edit and do several drafts on their stories to perfect them.
Of course, there’s only one thing for it. I’ll just have to get my head down and get on with it. I’m not going to rush things though. I like to be thorough with my writing and do things properly. If I get my head down I should be able to shave some time off my predicted timescales. A few days off each soon adds up when you’re talking second and third drafts on three novels. If I manage to get three days off each, I claw back a couple of weeks working time. It doesn’t sound like much, but I could probably write 40,000 words in that time. I generally write for four days a week on my journey to and from work, and at lunch, and can usually clock up around 5000-6000 words on each day. That’s 20,000 a week. So, if I knuckle down and get on with my editing and really focus, I could save enough time to write half a novel. Yay!
I really want to get on with my Hades’ Boys series too. I need to do extensive planning on it since it’s a seven book series where the main story arc runs through them all, with each story having its own arc as well. I haven’t written anything like that before, but I have written my three book Prophecy Trilogy, so I know how much planning needs to go into it. A lot! I might start doing bits for it on weekends when I can, but I don’t usually have much spare time then.
Ah, it’s a planning, plotting, writing and editing nightmare, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I just wish that doing second and third drafts didn’t take me as long as writing the first draft does! I could get so much more written and I’m bursting with new stories right now.
