Day 34: Writing on a holiday
Like yesterday, I got up early today, but despite the fact I was bone-tired, I didn’t sleep very well last night. I’m pretty frustrated—what’s the point of trying to get up early when I’m not going to have a good night’s sleep?
Anyway, I’m STILL working to finish Snowflake step 6 (expanded synopsis) on volume 10 of my series.
***
WOW I finished Snowflake step 6! It gave me so many problems and took so long!
There was one plot point that gave me the most problems, and I only was able to figure out a solution after I’d also tweaked the spiritual conflict in the scene to reflect the gospel message a bit more. So maybe God wasn’t letting me move forward because He wanted me to fix that spiritual conflict.
The rest of the plot points also took time to solve, but nowhere near as much time as that first one.
Now I’ll try to do the spiritual and romantic arcs for the volume. I already did some of it, but now I’ll go through and make sure they’re all completed.
***
My brain is getting tired although I had been hoping to write for a couple more hours. However I’m having difficulty focusing on my story, so I think I’ll stop here.
While I took a break, I started reading a couple short ebooks on self-publishing, and I’ve been thinking about my publishing strategy once this series is plotted out. I have some decisions to make about how to edit the series and how to release it. I think I’ll pray over it and see if anything jumps out at me. I’ve been thinking that I’ll write all the rough drafts of the volumes in this series all at once, and then release the books every two months or so—two months would be enough time to edit and format each book and do any marketing that I intend to do. But I still haven’t decided.
Time spent writing: 4 hours, 43 minutes
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 38 minutes
My takeaway for today: If I’m stuck, I should pray and trust God to help me, because He might have something He wants me to do about my story.
***
Okay, I took a nap and woke up in time for dinner (thankfully the hubby was in charge, he smoked a pork shoulder). After dinner, I felt rejuvenated and went back to work, and I finished the spiritual and romantic arcs for volume 10!!!!!
Now I’ll take a break tomorrow (it’s my writing Sabbath) and then work on the plot for the serial novel on Monday. I don’t think I did the Snowflake on that volume, so I’ll start with step 2 (1-paragraph summary).
I’ve also spent more time thinking about how I want to create and publish this series. Originally I thought I’d do it like all the other books I’ve published—release them one at a time as I’ve written and edited them.
But that thought always made me a little nervous because unlike other series I’ve written, this one has an ongoing plotline rather than each volume being stand-alone. While I know I can correct things because of the flexibility of self-publishing, I have the fear of making a really major plot mistake in an earlier volume and only realizing it as I’m writing a later volume.
I realized that what would be less stressful for me would be to wait to release volume 1 and write the rough drafts of all the other books at once. However, it makes me antsy and impatient because I have a book almost ready for publication, but I would be sitting on it for a few months at least.
I also have no idea how long it would take me to write the other 9 volumes of the series—plus the serial novel, so I guess that’s 10 other volumes. I’ve had some good progress on my dictation skills so I think it might not be too slow, but there’s a lot of factors I just don’t know about.
I don’t know how long it will take me to do Snowflake step 8 (scene spreadsheet) and blocking for each volume, which I need to do before I can start writing. I don’t know my writing stamina and how many hours I could work each day on dictating. I still haven’t completed editing on volume 1, and since traditionally editing has been a weakness of mine, I don’t know my possible editing stamina and how many hours a day I could focus on that, which affects how fast each volume will be edited.
But all these concerns only affect the length of time before I start publishing this series. It doesn’t affect the series itself. God willing, I’ll be able to be faithful with the time God has given to me.
I’ll spend some time tomorrow praying about this, too. I don’t feel God speaking to me against the idea, but I still want to make sure I dedicate some real time in prayer.
Updated time spent writing: 6 hours, 35 minutes
Updated time spent doing other writing-related business: 2 hours, 15 minutes
My takeaway for today: If I’m stuck, I should pray and trust God to help me, because He might have something He wants me to do about my story.
My second takeaway for today: It might be less stressful for me to write the entire series before releasing volume 1.
Anyway, I’m STILL working to finish Snowflake step 6 (expanded synopsis) on volume 10 of my series.
***
WOW I finished Snowflake step 6! It gave me so many problems and took so long!
There was one plot point that gave me the most problems, and I only was able to figure out a solution after I’d also tweaked the spiritual conflict in the scene to reflect the gospel message a bit more. So maybe God wasn’t letting me move forward because He wanted me to fix that spiritual conflict.
The rest of the plot points also took time to solve, but nowhere near as much time as that first one.
Now I’ll try to do the spiritual and romantic arcs for the volume. I already did some of it, but now I’ll go through and make sure they’re all completed.
***
My brain is getting tired although I had been hoping to write for a couple more hours. However I’m having difficulty focusing on my story, so I think I’ll stop here.
While I took a break, I started reading a couple short ebooks on self-publishing, and I’ve been thinking about my publishing strategy once this series is plotted out. I have some decisions to make about how to edit the series and how to release it. I think I’ll pray over it and see if anything jumps out at me. I’ve been thinking that I’ll write all the rough drafts of the volumes in this series all at once, and then release the books every two months or so—two months would be enough time to edit and format each book and do any marketing that I intend to do. But I still haven’t decided.
Time spent writing: 4 hours, 43 minutes
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 38 minutes
My takeaway for today: If I’m stuck, I should pray and trust God to help me, because He might have something He wants me to do about my story.
***
Okay, I took a nap and woke up in time for dinner (thankfully the hubby was in charge, he smoked a pork shoulder). After dinner, I felt rejuvenated and went back to work, and I finished the spiritual and romantic arcs for volume 10!!!!!
Now I’ll take a break tomorrow (it’s my writing Sabbath) and then work on the plot for the serial novel on Monday. I don’t think I did the Snowflake on that volume, so I’ll start with step 2 (1-paragraph summary).
I’ve also spent more time thinking about how I want to create and publish this series. Originally I thought I’d do it like all the other books I’ve published—release them one at a time as I’ve written and edited them.
But that thought always made me a little nervous because unlike other series I’ve written, this one has an ongoing plotline rather than each volume being stand-alone. While I know I can correct things because of the flexibility of self-publishing, I have the fear of making a really major plot mistake in an earlier volume and only realizing it as I’m writing a later volume.
I realized that what would be less stressful for me would be to wait to release volume 1 and write the rough drafts of all the other books at once. However, it makes me antsy and impatient because I have a book almost ready for publication, but I would be sitting on it for a few months at least.
I also have no idea how long it would take me to write the other 9 volumes of the series—plus the serial novel, so I guess that’s 10 other volumes. I’ve had some good progress on my dictation skills so I think it might not be too slow, but there’s a lot of factors I just don’t know about.
I don’t know how long it will take me to do Snowflake step 8 (scene spreadsheet) and blocking for each volume, which I need to do before I can start writing. I don’t know my writing stamina and how many hours I could work each day on dictating. I still haven’t completed editing on volume 1, and since traditionally editing has been a weakness of mine, I don’t know my possible editing stamina and how many hours a day I could focus on that, which affects how fast each volume will be edited.
But all these concerns only affect the length of time before I start publishing this series. It doesn’t affect the series itself. God willing, I’ll be able to be faithful with the time God has given to me.
I’ll spend some time tomorrow praying about this, too. I don’t feel God speaking to me against the idea, but I still want to make sure I dedicate some real time in prayer.
Updated time spent writing: 6 hours, 35 minutes
Updated time spent doing other writing-related business: 2 hours, 15 minutes
My takeaway for today: If I’m stuck, I should pray and trust God to help me, because He might have something He wants me to do about my story.
My second takeaway for today: It might be less stressful for me to write the entire series before releasing volume 1.
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