You ever feel on such creative fire because you’re more than 30,000 words into a manuscript and almost through the demo process for your second EP and then you started a writing workshop facilitated by your favourite teacher from high school and you forget about your blog and don’t write anything for six weeks?
Maybe?
No?
Well, that’s where I’m at.
Let’s break it down by project. First off, the novel. I’ve done NaNoWriMo (https://nanowrimo.org) twice before and, although fun, the output from that has not been something I’ve managed to return to. I liked the ideas, but the execution was so haphazard that I didn’t get anything that I felt was worth revisiting. Enter Save the Cat!
Save the Cat! is a how-to of screenplay writing, and Save the Cat! Writes a Novel (Christmas present!), by Jessica Brody, is the book dealing with plot in novel form. I read it, making copious notes, and then I started writing. I have to tell you, I feel so much more prepared. My outline has changed a couple of times already, but I knew how to manage it. I’m having much more fun writing, and instead of the NaNo target of 40,000 words in a month, my target is 80,000 in however many weekdays that takes me, with a minimum target of 400 words a day (weekdays, mainly). I started January 25th and I’m at about 34,000 at time of writing, so I feel like it’s going reasonably well.
This novel is probably not something I’m ever going to publish, even self-publish, but it’s a very interesting exercise. If everyone has one good book in them, this is mine. I’m very proud of the work I’m doing on it, just for its own sake.
And on the subject of writing – this workshop I just started attending, run by my high school English teacher (who is still awesome). I’ve only been to one session so far, but I feel really good about it. I think I am going to learn a lot. And I came out of that first session feeling so inspired. Not in any particular direction, just generally inspired.
The blog, of course, has been the one casualty of my recent storms of creativity, but I feel more or less okay about that. I haven’t had anything nagging at me to be written for the blog, or I would have written it.
But also, perhaps most importantly, the music. We are well on our way to producing a second EP: the songs are chosen and (mostly) arranged; we’re now at the scary part, the contacting-the-other-people-we-need part1. We’re months2 from releasing anything, so I won’t say too much about it. But we thought we were excited for the first EP, and this time we’re finding out what excited really feels like.
I’m spending a lot of my waking hours thinking about one of these things. I’m burning so hot it feels like I should be burning out, but these projects are feeding into each other, giving me creative fuel for each other. I’m not looking forward to seeing what happens to the others when one of them reaches its conclusion.3
For now, I will enjoy the ride.
—
1 We need people to play instruments we don’t, as well as to mix and to master the songs.
2 Maybe even months AND months.
3 I don’t think I’ll crash too hard, but I may lose some momentum.
I realized when this showed up in my mailbox that it had been a few weeks since the last one. It’s been a busy time here, so I didn’t realize that it has been six weeks, but it sure sounds like you have been productively engaged with your other loves. Awesome to hear about your book and next EP. I am looking forward to their releases, and, even with previewing, I think you should at least self-publish! 🙂 (speaking as one who enjoys your skill with words).