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I've arrived at a crossroad... |
Finishing my novel is way outside my comfort zone; I'm avoiding working on it like my life is being threatened! I haven't given up - I think about the story and characters a lot, know where I want the plot and structure to go, and have a 5,000 word outline I'm quite happy with.
I might be overwhelmed because I'm not sure if I can maintain the voice for 60,000+ words. Maybe it's because I'm struggling to find more than two hours in a row every week to sit down and actually work on it. Maybe it's because I still don't know what changes to make while drafting the chapters I've already written, and probably introduce more errors than I fix. Or maybe it's because I'd like more experience writing and editing longer short stories (3,500-5,000 words?), which is a real challenge for me at the moment - I can barely control 2,500 of my own words...
My new plan for 2012 is to:
- Submit my 'finished' short stories to various competitions and lit mags. Workshop/draft/re-write any that come back and re-submit them until they get published
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| Ah, there is the road to success! |
- Edit the stories I've been resting/avoiding, and submit those for publication, too
- Write a few new stories, which I haven't done for a while
- Continue writing articles and reviews for SEED, Platform and other student magazines and blogs
- Post on my blog a little more frequently
- Work on my general writing and editing skills
- Add a few chapters to my novel
- Continue helping at Vic Uni's events and proofread their publications; and, towards the end of the year,
- Produce a collection of my successful and favourite stories, which I'll submit to various publishers. If the collection doesn't get picked up, I'll publish a small print run myself and sell it through a few different places - it worked for Mathew Reilly's first novel!
Hopefully, this will give me the skills I need to work as an editor/proofreader, or establish my own critiquing/proofreading/copy-editing/printing business. I can then study Novel 2 in 2013 and, hopefully, finish the first draft of my novel by early 2014.
I keep reminding myself that at the start of last year I didn't know the first thing about nouns and pronouns, let alone parallel construction, phrases, coordination, subordination, et.al (not that I now know everything about the overly complex language that is 'basic' English). I've come a long way, but have an even longer way to go...
So, yes, I'm trying to stay focused and motivated, and am keeping the big picture in mind: becoming a successful editor and novelist, while trying to be a good father and husband :)
Emanuel
