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Sep. 6th, 2019 09:41 pmOkay. I'm posting this partly on the off chance that anyone is actually interested in my whining about these updates, but mostly because I need to put it somewhere to be accountable.
I have decided that my rough draft of this story is done. It's still missing a few fairly significant scenes, and there are a lot of plot and character threads that I need to flesh out in much more depth, but I think that all of those will benefit much more from me taking some time away than they would from me continuing to push out more words. I've saved the file as "draft 1," so I will always have a copy to return to if I need to and don't have to worry about editing it in the future. I need to commit to taking some time away, and also to doing some actual research (I find it hard to research and write at the same time) into timelines, crafts, politics, etc.
I'm terrified that if I stop working on it, I'll never be able to pick it up again. But I've been working on this thing for the better part of eight months. Hopefully a few weeks won't make too much of a difference-- and hopefully I won't completely despair of it when I return to it again.
So this is my commitment: I've closed the document. I don't get to open it again for another two weeks at least. If I have ideas I absolutely MUST write down in the meantime, I will write them down in a separate notebook-- but no opening that document. I'm taking time away, and I will not guilt myself if I'm not thinking about my story all the time every waking moment of my life. It will be okay if I stop for a little while. I am not running out of time. There's no need to panic.
(The first draft is over 86,000 words, by the way, which officially makes it my longest solo piece ever.)
I have decided that my rough draft of this story is done. It's still missing a few fairly significant scenes, and there are a lot of plot and character threads that I need to flesh out in much more depth, but I think that all of those will benefit much more from me taking some time away than they would from me continuing to push out more words. I've saved the file as "draft 1," so I will always have a copy to return to if I need to and don't have to worry about editing it in the future. I need to commit to taking some time away, and also to doing some actual research (I find it hard to research and write at the same time) into timelines, crafts, politics, etc.
I'm terrified that if I stop working on it, I'll never be able to pick it up again. But I've been working on this thing for the better part of eight months. Hopefully a few weeks won't make too much of a difference-- and hopefully I won't completely despair of it when I return to it again.
So this is my commitment: I've closed the document. I don't get to open it again for another two weeks at least. If I have ideas I absolutely MUST write down in the meantime, I will write them down in a separate notebook-- but no opening that document. I'm taking time away, and I will not guilt myself if I'm not thinking about my story all the time every waking moment of my life. It will be okay if I stop for a little while. I am not running out of time. There's no need to panic.
(The first draft is over 86,000 words, by the way, which officially makes it my longest solo piece ever.)
