Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Juggling Act

I'm in a strange place in my writing career right now.  I've decided to break one of my rules and am now working on multiple projects at once, an action that has the potential to turn me psychotic.  I should concentrate on one at a time, but times are a-changing, and I can't, in good conscience, work on only one exclusively.

First, I'm putting the final touches on Akeldama.  The novel is scheduled for release in May of 2016, and I'm going back and editing some things after gaining, or being rejected for, permission from several companies to use their products' names in the work.  I've gotten most of the permissions I need, including from some fairly big names like Glock, Beretta, and Philippe.  Unfortunately, since some companies have explicitly denied me permission to use their name, I have to go back and change a few details in the novel.  The changes aren't major or story-altering - they're more tweaks than anything - but I still have to go back and make the changes so I don't risk a lawsuit down the road.  This takes time to make sure that I've hit what I needed to.

Second, I've decided to get back into writing another novel.  It's been quite a while since I've done anything on this scale, so breaking the inertia and getting back into the writing groove is challenging.  The novel I've decided to focus on is the prequel to Homecoming, and I will start the first chapter(again) this week.  This novel has greater potential for development right now, and I think I can get the first 50,000 words done by Christmas with no problem.

Third, I'm also doing an online novel in a serialized format.  This is more of an experiment than anything else, a chance to see what my writing on the fly is like, as well as to allow my readers(both of you) to experience a very raw form of my work.

That brings me to my last project - this blog itself.  As you know, I believe strongly in consistently blogging since predictability is a key to maintaining readership.  I used to do a week's worth of posts on Sunday and schedule them out for the following time period.  This made life easier and still allowed for me to blog about unexpected events.  However, when I went to my new format, I had to alter that schedule.  The first two types of posts - one about the business and the other about writing itself - are easy enough to do in a day.  However, including a short story in the week's activities makes getting all three in one day near impossible, especially if I want to have any kind of quality to the work.

I now write my short story at some point during the week(sometimes the night before it posts).  I've posted work that I found less than stellar so that something would appear on schedule, but I'm rarely pleased when I have to do that(see if you can figure out which ones aren't up to snuff).  This means knuckling down and pumping out stories.  I think this new online novel, challenging though it might be, will turn out to be a good thing since it's more coherent than some random story.

All in all, a lot of balls in the air at once.  If I don't go insane doing it, especially on top of my regular life, it'll be fun.  At the very least, the resulting psychosis should be great for all of you to follow.

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