Writing Update, Ponderings, A Few Answers (Patreon)

I’ve missed giving you guys chapters this month. But the posting break turned out to be even more necessary than I anticipated, since getting over the fatigue took an irritatingly long time.

Feeling great now, though!

What I’ve been up to:

I’ve tackled some personal and professional matters that I’ve needed to deal with for a while. They ate through the days, as such things do.

As far as writing goes, I’ve mostly been outlining. I have big outlines and little outlines, and they get revised frequently. At this point, making new short to medium term ones to compare different ways the story could play out is a significant part of my process.

It’s been nice to take my time with it. 

I’ve completed Chapter 212, and I’ll be finishing 213 tomorrow, which means we officially have the tiniest of backlogs!

I wanted it to be so much bigger by now, but I’m grateful for it. And I hope that I’m not going to need to plan much more for the next few chapters. I should just be able to write through. So I’d like to get four more done by the time I post Chapter 212 for you all on February 26.

Three is more realistic. (I do not want to be realistic. I want to be epic and write twice as much as I usually can.)

Pondering:

--I’m pondering if I want to keep the same release schedule moving forward or if I want to shift it. Sunday/Wednesday/two skips a month has worked, but maybe it could be better. I don’t really want to change the number of chapters I release, but having even a small backlog opens up some possibilities.

If the chapters are already written, I can sometimes drop two or three at once because I think they read well together then skip the next posting days, for example.

— I’m thinking it’s likely I’ll take another backlog-building break this year. The idea of having the legendary 10 chapter backlog is very, very tempting for me. 

The prep time is also valuable. I’m glad I realized this week that I shouldn’t launch a plot point I had planned to kick off soon. It’s cool, but it will be way better to wait a few months to bring it in instead of complicating the stuff we already have going on. 

Having a few more days to sit and look at the story and come to conclusions like that is great.

I will try to warn you well in advance instead of taking an emergency break next time!

Answers: 

 What’s your favorite notebook? -- asked by nobody, Sleyca just wants to talk about writing supplies

For the past half year, I’ve shifted to drafting much more by hand than I was previously. I’ve always gone back and forth between notebook and laptop, but now I pretty much always start writing in the notebook first. 

The best thing about a notebook is that the internet is not on it.

My one true notebook love is the Maruman Mnemosyne, size B5, dotted or lined. I’ve gone through about fifteen of these since I found them, and I just bought a fresh stack. I’m also using a larger one with pages that are half grid, half blank for brainstorming and making mind maps of my ideas for the story. 

What’s Alden’s favorite type of sock pattern? Stripes, dots, tiny little rabbits and/or ferrets being cute and adorable? — Panda

As soon as he gets his hands on a pair of poison dart frog socks, he’s going to wear them way too often.

Is Leo the postbox going to be more part of the story in the future at all? — Rachel Becker

Leo will make a reappearance! There is even a mention (only briefly in passing) of him in 213.

I've tried to write a couple stories myself but keep getting burned out. What do you recommend for a new writer to help prevent burnout? — WarBorn TV

I don’t know if this is what’s happening to you, but here’s a thought on it from one angle. At the beginning, what a lot of writers have in our heads are all the most exciting parts of the story. And we haven’t established any worldbuilding or characters yet, so there’s a lot of freedom to imagine and chase new ideas to unexpected places. It can be easy to write and write, until suddenly it’s not. 

Going from obsessed with your story and caught up in a flow with it to feeling unhappy with what you’ve made and confused about where to go next is rough. I suspect it’s a point when a lot of people suddenly think, “Oh, it was never good. What was I doing? I don’t even like it anymore.” 

Sometimes, I think it really is time to set things aside and let them rest until you’re ready to come back to them with more energy. But before that, it’s important to push a little farther in and see if you find something to be excited about in the story ahead of you. It might only be a single “Aha!” moment away. Or you might power through a couple of chapters, feeling like they aren’t as good as you want them to be, and then realize when you go back to reread them a month later that they’re actually great and you’re so proud of them. 

Also, take good care of your health. And get plenty of sleep. 

I may be talking to myself on that last part. It’s later than I thought, and I’m going to bed now, guys. I had some more of your questions lined up to answer, but I’ll grab them in the next few days. 

Talk to you soon.


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