Novel Roulette

I don't presume to know how many other novelists out there are like me and constantly playing roulette with their projects.

I figure I've got seven fiction novels that I've created detailed worlds for and written large portions of their plots. Seven. And I am not the most productive wordsmith in the world by a long shot. So I end up focusing on maybe two of these projects at a time, only one if I'm either extremely inspired or if I'm being perversely focused, but usually two so I can world build for one (which is fun and relaxing) when I'm stuck in actually writing the other one.

For example, here's how the past five months of my writing life have gone:

October: got wicked excited about plotting Grave of the Goddess and decided to write that while waiting for NaNoWriMo to start. Pretty much focused exclusively on this world even while nominally working on some kind of plot and characters for my planned NaNo, Solemn Vow. Also spent a ton if time in the NaNo forums soaking up all things writing.

November: ditched the chick lit idea immediately to write Grave of the Goddess for NaNo. Worked only on this all month. Wildly successful except for one week where I got bogged down by a slow part of the plot and the presence of relatives.

December: relative crash and burn. Set everything aside for several weeks. Wrote nothing, not even journal entries. I still can't decide if I did this to recover from NaNo or if the bad effects of unemployment were starting to gnaw at my creativity.

January: slow slow slow. Set Grave aside entirely. Instead, spent all my creative time invested in rereading and thinking about how to restructure A Hunter's Fire, and also creating ridiculously detailed history for my Stormwatch series.

February: got a freaking job! Also completely lucked out as the job has copious amounts of free time where no one cares if I'm reading or writing my own stuff. I've finally come back to Grave of the Goddess, just as enthused as November. But Face the Flames and Stormwatch are at my fingertips too.

I don't know if there's something wrong with me that I operate like this - with a writing backup, waiting to see where the ball lands today. But that's how it seems to be.

There's a story waiting for me -

I know there's a story waiting for me in this place - with its cloth-covered metal walls low enough for me to comfortably see over when I'm standing and its terribly dull wallpaper in the restroom. So dull it's a little offensive; you know, even cheap Chinese restaurants have better wallpaper in their one stall bathrooms than that. Offensive that we're all expected to just take all this dumb mediocrity like it's our jobs... Oh wait.

This morning there was a huge bank of deep purple cloud cover hanging down on the point of collapsing onto the southwestern horizon. I drove toward it, watching the little strips of softly glowing pinks and yellows straining to show up behind it, around it, above it - anywhere they could. And everywhere else things were a soft dove grey slowly turning bluer and bluer.

Maybe it's time to face the inevitability of blogging seriously. Every time I attempt to do it though, I fail miserably. Kind of like finishing my novels. I need a noveling buddy / someone to hold me accountable when I start falling off the bandwagon. Just means I need someone willing to be stronger at this than I am. Fuck.

Here's the plan: between now and April, finish the first draft of Grave of the Goddess. Get the second draft done by August, and in the meantime desperately seek agents and publishers.