Hitting the Wall
I know this is shocking (not!), but February is not my favorite month (sorry Valentine's Day). Seems between back-to-back flu bugs and a myriad of other distractions, my writing (including blogging) is crawling through a deepening mud bog. The good news is I've managed to power through the first draft of the yet untitled Volume II of The Oxbow Kingdom Trilogy. The bad news is that the novel is still under 60,000 words, so I've been debating with myself on where to go next. Should I consider the first draft done, or do I keep adding until the word count is closer to where it should be? There are some spots where I left placeholders in the manuscript knowing I had to go back and add details and backstory, but I'm finding this "jumping around and patching holes" to be rather difficult and inefficient.
Sitting here writing this post, I think I've convinced myself to start the revision process. I'm going to read the book from start to finish and try to wrap my head around what exactly I have on paper and what's still rolling around in my noggin. Then maybe what to write next will be more self-evident. I'm inherently averse to writing anything remotely close to 'filler,' but I fear that's what I may be doing if I try to stretch this first draft closer to 80,000 words.
Some of you might be sitting there reading this and wondering "Where are the links? Where's the cool new website to check out?" I realize this isn't my typical post where I detail my experience with some external writing tool, but my self-imposed deadline of a blog post per week has passed, and rather than churning out some 'filler' and doing a sub-par review, I thought I'd share the fog that's been encircling my brain the last few weeks. I hope it's just the cold and flu meds and the gray February days messing with my productivity. Oh, yes, and the release of the Dragonborn DLC hasn't helped, either. Damn you, Skyrim!
As always, I'd love to hear your comments,thoughts, advice, etc. Please drop me a note below if you feel so inclined. Anyhow, that's a little glimpse inside my head. I'll be back next week with something fun to test drive. Here's my Pinterest of the week:
Sitting here writing this post, I think I've convinced myself to start the revision process. I'm going to read the book from start to finish and try to wrap my head around what exactly I have on paper and what's still rolling around in my noggin. Then maybe what to write next will be more self-evident. I'm inherently averse to writing anything remotely close to 'filler,' but I fear that's what I may be doing if I try to stretch this first draft closer to 80,000 words.
Some of you might be sitting there reading this and wondering "Where are the links? Where's the cool new website to check out?" I realize this isn't my typical post where I detail my experience with some external writing tool, but my self-imposed deadline of a blog post per week has passed, and rather than churning out some 'filler' and doing a sub-par review, I thought I'd share the fog that's been encircling my brain the last few weeks. I hope it's just the cold and flu meds and the gray February days messing with my productivity. Oh, yes, and the release of the Dragonborn DLC hasn't helped, either. Damn you, Skyrim!
As always, I'd love to hear your comments,thoughts, advice, etc. Please drop me a note below if you feel so inclined. Anyhow, that's a little glimpse inside my head. I'll be back next week with something fun to test drive. Here's my Pinterest of the week:
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