Temporarily switching tracks
Dec. 10th, 2019 01:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cheriepriestSo as you’ve no doubt guessed by now if you regularly stop by this space, I flamed out of NaNoWriMo. I did a decent count - 30k+ words in about 2 weeks - and I’m pleased with that output, but nowhere near finished with that particular work-in-progress. I’d like to pretend that some calamitous event occurred, but nah. It’s just the holidays, and we had some houseguests, and I had to do some Christmas shopping and shipping - plus a couple of interviews, some house-related things, and a bunch of other stuff I’m conveniently forgetting about right now.
So around the middle of the month, I tapped out.
Do I wish I’d made more progress? Yes. Am I beating myself up about it? No.
The fact is, I spent the much of 2019 pretty wildly burned out by a work-for-hire project that ate my life, and I needed some serious downtime… downtime which turned out to occupy most of the middle of the year (along with moving house yet again).
That said, I am actually setting aside this WIP draft, but only temporarily. My fabulous new agent has given me edits and notes re: a fun upcoming project I gave her, and now I’m going to concentrate on cleaning it up by the New Year, that we might shop it in 2020.
Also in 2020, I will absolutely finish this WIP and - it is to be hoped - shop that one next year, too.
So 2020 will be a year of fresh starts, or that’s the plan - though it will also be the first year that I haven’t had a new release scheduled since 2004. On the one hand, that feels vaguely horrifying. On the other, what a freaking relief.
I’ve spent 16 years putting out at least one - and sometimes as many as three - new books a year, plus staying on top of short stories, tour travel and promotional events… all while trying to run my non-work life on top of it. In those 16 years I moved eight times - three of them across the country. I held down a formal day job in some form or another until 2011, and have freelanced doing corporate copywriting gigs as recently as last year. My husband and I have both had health issues here and there, and meanwhile we’ve been navigating medical and other care for two large dogs (one with chronic health issues), a very sick kitten who turned into a very large cat, and a geriatric kitty who got subQ fluids and meds several times a week for years. (May she rest in peace. We lost her this past January at the ripe old age of 22).
Anyway, it’s been… a lot. For a long time.
So although I did and/or do need some breathing room for a hot minute, it will only take the form of switching to a lower gear for a bit. After all, we’re still settling into our new old house, and we’ve got family coming to visit in January, and I’m on deck for a couple of conventions next year + some school visits and a visit to some incarcerated kids whose teacher has invited me. But I’ll still be writing! Just a little slower, probably.
My official writing goals for 2020 are modest: I’ll finish rewrites on my weird little mystery so my agent can send it out the door in the spring, and I’ll finish this WIP draft - which is likely to run a bit longer than my usual stuff typically does. If I’m lucky, I’ll get it rewritten/cleaned up/ready to shop by the end of summer. If not, hopefully by the end of the year.
Then what? I’m not sure. I have a very weird/dark project that began as a video game pitch - but I think should be a book instead. It’s been lurking in the back of my head for awhile now; maybe I’ll drag that out and take another run at it. Or hell, maybe some as-yet-unanticipated idea will hijack my brain. You never know.
At any rate, there’s the State of the Cherie. I’m hanging in there, and I’ll intermittently tweet and blog and so forth, and I’ll make you all aware of any new developments as they arise. Thanks for reading, as always, and I’ll go ahead and declare a formal hiatus on this page through the end of the year.
But I’ll be back. You know me - I never can stay away for long.
So around the middle of the month, I tapped out.
Do I wish I’d made more progress? Yes. Am I beating myself up about it? No.
The fact is, I spent the much of 2019 pretty wildly burned out by a work-for-hire project that ate my life, and I needed some serious downtime… downtime which turned out to occupy most of the middle of the year (along with moving house yet again).
That said, I am actually setting aside this WIP draft, but only temporarily. My fabulous new agent has given me edits and notes re: a fun upcoming project I gave her, and now I’m going to concentrate on cleaning it up by the New Year, that we might shop it in 2020.
Also in 2020, I will absolutely finish this WIP and - it is to be hoped - shop that one next year, too.
So 2020 will be a year of fresh starts, or that’s the plan - though it will also be the first year that I haven’t had a new release scheduled since 2004. On the one hand, that feels vaguely horrifying. On the other, what a freaking relief.
I’ve spent 16 years putting out at least one - and sometimes as many as three - new books a year, plus staying on top of short stories, tour travel and promotional events… all while trying to run my non-work life on top of it. In those 16 years I moved eight times - three of them across the country. I held down a formal day job in some form or another until 2011, and have freelanced doing corporate copywriting gigs as recently as last year. My husband and I have both had health issues here and there, and meanwhile we’ve been navigating medical and other care for two large dogs (one with chronic health issues), a very sick kitten who turned into a very large cat, and a geriatric kitty who got subQ fluids and meds several times a week for years. (May she rest in peace. We lost her this past January at the ripe old age of 22).
Anyway, it’s been… a lot. For a long time.
So although I did and/or do need some breathing room for a hot minute, it will only take the form of switching to a lower gear for a bit. After all, we’re still settling into our new old house, and we’ve got family coming to visit in January, and I’m on deck for a couple of conventions next year + some school visits and a visit to some incarcerated kids whose teacher has invited me. But I’ll still be writing! Just a little slower, probably.
My official writing goals for 2020 are modest: I’ll finish rewrites on my weird little mystery so my agent can send it out the door in the spring, and I’ll finish this WIP draft - which is likely to run a bit longer than my usual stuff typically does. If I’m lucky, I’ll get it rewritten/cleaned up/ready to shop by the end of summer. If not, hopefully by the end of the year.
Then what? I’m not sure. I have a very weird/dark project that began as a video game pitch - but I think should be a book instead. It’s been lurking in the back of my head for awhile now; maybe I’ll drag that out and take another run at it. Or hell, maybe some as-yet-unanticipated idea will hijack my brain. You never know.
At any rate, there’s the State of the Cherie. I’m hanging in there, and I’ll intermittently tweet and blog and so forth, and I’ll make you all aware of any new developments as they arise. Thanks for reading, as always, and I’ll go ahead and declare a formal hiatus on this page through the end of the year.
But I’ll be back. You know me - I never can stay away for long.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-11 09:48 am (UTC)I don't know if this is any use, so don't think of them as suggestions, just as data points -- but two things have helped (apart from the obvious: diet, exercise, etc). The first is to try to pencil in a six month long sabbatical from writing at least once a decade. Unfortunately my last one got eaten by mum's illness, but it got me out of a patch of burnout in 2007 and it at least gave me space to recover last year. The second thing ... is carte blanche for a random creative project, on spec, unplanned, with no strings attached, no deadline, and no penalty for not delivering. Ironically, that one turned into a book, due out next December, and my NaNo project this year got me the first half of a sequel, because it's a trilogy, and it got the creative gland working again.
I've got to pause and go back to the two horribly overdue proximate-burnout novels (both tainted by their respective parental deaths) that I owe publishers, sooner or later. But I'm hoping that having the first 2/3rds of a trilogy in the can and scheduled will give me back the self-confidence to grapple with them again.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-11 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-12 10:21 pm (UTC)