Writing process meta

[magistrate]

sholio and I are testing out an accountability buddies setup, where we meet to talk writing shop, discuss goals, and analyze how well we're meeting them. (We're still in the first week, so neither of us have any idea how well it will work. But one of the best pieces of advice I got last year was "Failures are just experiments that yield negative results," so even if we find that this format doesn't work well, that's useful information! And I'm hopeful that it will work, and be awesome for both of us.)

The theme I want to engage with this year is of productivity, and constant storytelling: I want to be creating and putting out a lot more work than I do currently. Getting back to my Clarion West levels of a short story per week would be amazing, and the fact that I'm making my living off freelance stuff which doesn't eat as much time as a full-time job tips it into the realm of possibility. (If I could transition to making my money off writing, that would be incredible. I am looking into ways to start on that path, specifically through Patreon, but my ability to write and produce complete works on a consistent schedule is something of a prerequisite for that, so that's where I'm starting.)

The two goals I had for this week, to support my theme of producing lots of fiction, were:

1) To take a look at how I choose stories to work on, and

2) To take a look at how I go about moving stories through to completion.



This is an interesting week to look at how I decide what to work on, because I've switched projects a couple times earlier this week. Which... probably requires some explanation of how I work on things, because even that's changed up a bit from how I used to do things.

Anyway.

My drafts folder (...er, folders; I have a big folder with subfolders for all my long projects, a separate folder where short fiction is kept and organized by what phase of the writing/submitting/publication process they're in, and a Gmail conversation with myself where I keep miscellaneous bits that haven't crystallized into stories yet) are something of a controlled chaos of snippets and fics in various stages of completion. I'll start new projects at the slightest provocation, and then spend time off and on over the next few days adding clips and scenebits and turns of phrase and maybe even big chunks of text, as inspiration hits. Then, as inspiration wanes, I'll drift away from the project until it hits my radar again. At that point, I'm generally left with something that looks like an ancient, worn tablet: my job is often reconstruction. (Fortunately, I write so nonlinearly that I'll often have most of the high points down, and can use those as a kind of outline.)

Recently, I've built a 25-minute period into my morning (...er, post-wakeup; I tend to sleep in until afternoon and stay up until 4AM when there are no external demands on my schedule) routine where I sit down and focus on writing. I have a timer, I put a "Do Not Disturb" note up on my door, and I close everything except the writing program and whatever I'm listening to. I'm hoping to up the time to an hour, once I've gotten the habit fully solidified.

During the ~morning writing period, I've adopted the policy that I can only work on one thing, and I'll work on that through to completion, day after day. This is how I managed to get the fanfic piece After Every War finished after it kicked my ass for months; this is also how I managed to get the story I started submitting on the 1st finished, despite its recalcitrance. If I'm blocked on the story on the docket, I have to outline or brainstorm. But I have to spend that 25 minutes engaging constructively with that particular work.

For the rest of the day, whenever I'm writing, I can work on whatever I feel like; that's more my natural state. And being able to work on whatever I feel like is important for the way in which I generate fiction. But having that structured time at the beginning of the day ensures that I'll get something done on a timescale that isn't dependent on when inspiration comes 'round again.



So, what I need to look at is how I choose what goes into that morning slot to get focused attention. What makes this week interesting is that I broke one of the rules up above, and have actually switched up what I'm working on.

The precipitating event for that is that, for the first time ever, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is open to electronic submissions for an issue. F&SF is regarded as one of the "Big Three" of the speculative short fiction magazines, and it's one I've never broken into. And, to be honest, one I stopped submitting to because printing out a submission, getting letter-size mailing envelopes, and mailing submissions off was too much trouble for me. (Now especially much, considering I don't have a printer.) So I knew I wanted to send something in while I had the opportunity. The opportunity which will vanish after January 14.

As I only had one story in submittable shape and it was under consideration elsewhere, I had to whip something else into shape, and fairly quickly. So I grabbed something I had technically finished last year but which was languishing for want of revisions, and moved that to the front burner. Which is actually a pretty good illustration of three of the big factors in how I decide what to write:

* I like to pick up things that are close to being finished, or which I have a strong idea of how to finish,

* I consider publishability, and my overall having-submissions-out status, and

* If something is time-sensitive, I tend fall on that first.

Those cover three out of the four big criteria I've identified that influence my writing schedule. The fourth is:

* If I've told someone I'm going to write something, and have the sense that they really want to see it, I feel motivated (and a bit obligated, heh) to get that done.

This last one is one of the big things that dragged me through finishing the troublesome epic that was Beneath a Beating Sun, and accounts for no fewer than three of the things on my shortlist now: more scenes in the Gay YA (for thebaconfat and squeemu), and both Mansions of the Dead and U is for... for fignewton. It's also why I think a crowdfunding platform like Patreon could work really well for me, if I can connect with an audience who's excited about my writing: excitement is infectious. *grin*