A New Writing Project

I have just come off of completing another draft of one of my books, and am in the process of putting the final touches on it.  Still debating on e-publishing it or sending it off to a mainstream publishing house, but that's another topic.

I have two or three other books in various stages of development, all with at least two drafts completed.  Those are things I can work on a little at a time, reading and rewriting as needed until I like them again... and then hate them again (writers out there will understand that).  But it's been a long time since I've had a new idea, so I pulled out an idea I had last year sometime that I haven't developed a whole lot.  It's based on a series of dreams I had one night.  As dreams, they weren't connected, but when I woke up my inner Storyteller strung them all together into a really weird but very interesting sci-fi story, something I am very excited about and can't wait to dive into.

I'm typically not an outliner, or a planner, and I think that is why writing does not always hold the joy I wish it did. I am constantly writing myself into corners, and when I decide to change something, it takes forever to look for all the references to the previous plot. Not to mention that every scene I have to completely rewrite changes every scene after it. Whereas if I outlined or planned a little before writing the bulk of the book, it would be much easier to make changes.

A good friend of mine got me a book for Christmas called '90 Days to Your Novel.'  It's essentially a writing plan that takes you through outlining to dialogue coaching to scene-building, all with the goal of helping you write the best and most organized first draft possible in three months.  The exercises start daily, then move to a handful of weekly assignments that you can complete at your leisure throughout the week.  Writing is WORK, and this is definitely a book that reminds me of that.

So, I'm going to give this a shot. Although I won't hold myself to making them 90 consecutive days, necessarily--my discipline may not be there yet, but I'll do my best once I polish off this last one. I'll check back in soon to update my progress.