So. I’ve not done much in the way of New Words in the last couple of weeks, partly because Touchstone was still sitting there giving me the side-eye any time I thought about starting a new project, and partly because Touchstone itself still felt too… momentous, shall we say, to dive into. Partly, also, because I had edits I had to deliver and an article for Aurealis due, which >.< I am still procrastinating on and need to kick my butt into gear and finish so it can stop eating all my writing time through avoidance 😛
HOWEVER.
I realised this week – no, last week, late last week – that it’s now been four months that I’ve been avoiding Touchstone because I still felt like I couldn’t decide whether to just press on and finish it or go back and revise, and if go back and revise then a simple revision/read through, or full-on proper edits. Decision paralysis, yo: we can haz it!
But. It’s been four months, and time, as it is wont to do, has passed regardless of my decision making (or not, as the case may be). If I’d made the decision four months ago, I’d be four months into revisions – or at least half way. And even if it turned out to be the “wrong” decision (in heavily inverted commas), so what? The time has passed regardless, only here I have nothing to show for it. (Not that one is required to Have Things To Show for one’s time; it’s okay to just exist, truly it is.)
SO. There was a butt-kicking of sorts in my journal, and then some concerted time pulling out my novel revision process – Holly Lisle’s How To Revise A Novel course, if you’re interested – and refamiliarising myself with it, because I haven’t used that full-on-edits process with a novel since… maybe How Not To Acquire A Castle? No, that can’t be right: as of writing this Castle still has some timeline inconsistencies in the published edition, and that wouldn’t be the case if I’d done the full schermozzle on it, hmm.
Anyway, suffice to say IT’S BEEN A WHILE since I last used the full editing process (one day I’ll write a post on the various different processes I’ve used – so far it’s been a different stroke for every folk i.e. novel) so I familiarised myself with it, then project planned it all into my calendar. And, thank you very much, I did it SANELY, which is to say, not basing my assumptions of how long each step would take on Best Case Scenarios, ah ha ha.
So I’m now looking at a release date of, like, April next year, which OTOH makes me sad because writers are nothing if not impatient, but OTOH as afore-determined, the time will pass regardless and if it’s a choice between later or never, I guess I’m picking later.
See me be mature. B-) Rawr.
I HOPE *fingers crossed* to also work on outlining Stag Book (the sequel to Fox Book, aka A Fox Of Storms And Starlight) at the same time, and maybe write bits and pieces of Stag Book around working on Touchstone, but we’ll see. It’s not going to be the most extensive edit I’ve ever done, but it is also the longest book I’ve ever written, so I don’t really have enough data to predict how much of my attention it’s going to absorb. I really really really want to preserve at least one writing session a week for New Words, but eh. We’ll see.
PS Oh, oh! I DID write new words recently, just not an new project! In reading through the print proof copy of Christmas Miracle Is Just A Saying (November release, a holiday season urban fantasy) I realised that I wanted to make a couple of plot points clearer, so I added a little over a thousand words to the manuscript. I’ll talk more about this book’s journey closer to its release, once the April and June releases are done 😀 <3
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