Boy, once again, it’s been a while.
This hasn’t been an easy time for me when it comes to my writing. For some reason, I’ve been in a bit of a funk for the past few months. I had every intention of writing and working on different projects, but every time I tried to put down any sort of words, I just couldn’t do it. I felt paralyzed mentally and creatively.
Now, I hate to admit this, but I kind of hid this problem from my friends. I only started admitting to it recently, finally telling my long-suffering agent.
Here’s the screwy thing: the moment she said everything was okay, that’s when the dam sort of burst. I zeroed in on a project and decided that that was what I was going to work on. And once I had that in mind, it just took off. It’s like I had all of this bottled up inside of me, waiting to come out at some point and now, it can’t get out fast enough.
So what’s this project? Well, the working title for this is #GottaBeBae. That will not be the final title. Not even close. But I have to label this thing something, and that’s what I’m going with for now. It’s a long story (I kind of go into it in a previous post).
What’s it about? Well, the fast-and-loose description is it’s a mash-up between the Biblical book of Esther and Star Wars. That’s not the most precise description, but I think it’s a good descriptor. Think science fantasy set in a world that’s kind of a near future version of ours.
I don’t want to say much more than that. I first came up with this idea about a year ago, but the plot has turned out a lot different than what I first anticipated. That’s not a bad thing. Truth be told, the original plot was something of a mess.
So I started writing this thing a few days ago (I think last Friday or Saturday?). Since then, I’ve gotten the wordcount up to 11,428 words. I’ve set a goal for this one to be 80,000 words long in the end. I suspect I’ll go longer, because that’s kind of my thing.
If you’re curious how I’m doing, there’s my little wordcount tracker to the right of the page. I keep that updated at the end of each writing session.
So there we go. Let’s see how long I can keep this pace going!
You go, John. I’ll be praying for your writing. And looking forward to your final project.
Could you be motivation? I started a novel over a decade ago. I used Writer’s Edge, signed with a self-publishing company that went belly-up (it was covered on the Indianapolis TV stations and the front page of the star – the company, not my book). I then joined the ACFW and completely reworked the novel (much better than the version that was supposed to be published), but then I started questioning whether the work to get it published was worth it. This was 2014. Off and on the past year, I started polishing it again – the first chapter that its. Maybe your progress can motivate me to move forward!