One of my resolutions for the year was to write more. The four installments for my novel series are planned, but making the time to draft them has been a challenge. Since I’m permanently working from home (our office was mothballed, so we couldn’t go back if we wanted to), I don’t even have a daily round-trip commute to take a break between computers. Now my drive time consists of a walk from a comfy chair to another sort of comfy chair, and from my workstation to my recreation station (I would say play, but that’s trademarked).
I spend some sixteen hours in front of a screen. That may be more than some nine-year-olds.
See, I’m still thinking young.
In order to devote some blocks of time to writing my stories, I have been taking advantage of write-ins and such, but this week will be busier than usual. I have three write-ins this week; one is in person.
That means I have to leave the house hoping my idea of dress code matches everybody else’s. That was never a problem in the office.
I also have a writer’s group meeting, and it’s the only one right now that’s in-person. It’s in a library, inside a municipal building. Bookstores aren’t taking in-person groups at present. They may not come back at all. Imagine book retailers discouraging people who write what they sell from meeting in their locations. What is this world coming to?
I also started working with a critique group to make sure novel number one is all it could be. We exchange our pieces via email two weeks in advance and then meet virtually once a month to review everybody’s work in progress. We try to cover as much as we can, and occasionally we meet for over three hours. It’s helpful, and we get our edited pieces back.
This means I have editing on my list of things to do while I’m still drafting.
During National Novel Writing Month last November, I wrote an additional 50,000 words. That could be a whole story, but editing will probably truncate it to half that on the first try. It’s the novelist’s curse to hate a lot of what we draft.
This is going to be a full month, and I hope to get plenty more writing done.
In addition to what I’ve just done here for you to read.
Wish me luck.
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