After ten posts in eight days, I took an accidental leave of the blog to work on a few writing projects at-hand. I’m trying to flesh out a few short stories for submissions, write Act II of a spec script for class, and plug away at a new novel idea for NaNoWriMo. Each category gets a little more done on it, but none are finished. Here’s another way to look at it:
I should have been trying to publish short stories for the past year, but I’m not on the submissions train like I should be. I’m getting better at it, though. This, I suppose, could be categorized as an ongoing deadline. I should always be working on something which could get out there into submission land.
The spec script pages are due on November 19. That’s just how that is.
The NaNoWriMo novel idea is “due” on November 30, a contest-imposed deadline for a not-really-a-contest website based solely on members’ drive to strive in their dutiful writing. It’s fun, but not pressing. Still, if the novel is good (and really, it’s been interesting and fun to write), this is something which could feed back into submission land, someday.
All three projects have different formats – short stories, screenplays, novels – and all three projects have deadlines – immediate, self-imposed, and late – and all three projects lead to the same goal: get them into submission land. If you’re going to juggle a few balls in the air, you might as well do your best to keep them focused on the same goal. Jugglers don’t concentrate more on one ball than the next because they understand it takes working with all the balls as one solid unit to keep them in the air. I’m a writer who likes to keep busy, and that’s part of why I work on so many different projects at once (this also may keep things from being finished, but that’s another story). For me, letting each project feed into each other and unite as one big cacophony of creativity keeps what I’m doing fresh and far from overwhelming.
-nm