Hello! I'm going to probably make this short and sweet this month because honestly? I've been doing a lot of things, but most of them aren't writerly, and they're just recorded in my journal. If anyone ever wants to read it, I'll gladly offer the thing up for scrutiny. But I don't think anyone's here for that, right?
(Please say "right." My handwriting has become increasingly illegible even to me.)
Here is the writerly bit: I am 80K into SapphicDystopian and as in love with it as I was at the beginning. Writing a detailed outline is I think the best thing I've ever done; I feel much, much more positively about the state of this first draft than I did for SLL. In this process, which began with my short stories over the summer, I learned that I am 100% a planner. Not a plantser. Not a pantser. I can do the other styles (and did), but I think planning everything out and barely deviating from said plan is the way to go for me.
Not only am I confident that I am hitting important beats (like having ACTUAL character development and motivation and a propulsive plot and not getting mired in purple prose...you know the drill, especially if you were ever forced to read some of my early work), but I have more fun. It's literally so cool to be like, "in a few chapters, we'll be at my FAVORITE SCENE...so I guess we better keep writing, huh?" Excellent motivation. 10/10. If I had many days where I didn't write (and I did), it wasn't because of writer's block, but because of exhaustion. I was pulling water from an empty well, after all. It was bound to happen.
Writing and editing SLL, I had this crazy anxiety propelling me: if I don't write this now, I'll lose the idea, because I have no idea how this will end. It was--dare I say it?--stressful as all get out. I never wanted to do it again. The sequel? Even worse. Let's not talk about that one (I am still 1/4 of the way through major overhauls on it).
But writing SapphicDystopian was fun and exciting and sexy and amazing. It still is, and the fact that I have roughly 10-15K left, when I'd hoped to be finished two weeks ago, isn't a reflection of my enjoyment.
It's a reflection of the fact that life got crazy.
Remember that general malaise I told you about? After I did that surprise drive to get ramen with my coworkers, and I had to take 295? Yeah, it didn't quite...let up. Because I got the WORST ear infection and sinus infection shortly after, which has plagued me through all of September. I am a snot factory now, contagious to only myself, with a head that still feels ready to split in two. And while I can totally write under snot factory conditions, it became a little harder when I was out of the house two days a week and doing the Glassboro drive again. Plus, more house stuff. Cubicle life (surprisingly not terrible!). Adjunct teaching. Starting to sub on my off day. A lot of newness, a lot of using my brain's energies for tackling the newness, which left not that much energy to write.
In fact, I barely had energy to consume any new media. Literally, everything I binged was Superstore. I got behind on my ARCs (not like behind behind, but those lil guys are piled up on my NetGalley app). The Mirror and the Light, the third and final Thomas Cromwell book, got me through the whole month. Even my makeup was the same palette, week after week.
But I am in good spirits. I am hopeful about the future, whatever it may bring. I aim, by the next time I write this blog, to get SapphicDystopian finished up and sent to brilliant beta Enty, who's been dying to get his hands on it for weeks now. I also aim to dust off SLL one last time for DVPit, which is being run on Discord. Taking notes to see if it may be a viable option for QueerPit, and also still exploring the BlueSky angle.
Until we meet again!
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