Ring the bells and bang the drum!

Kim, you've just finished another manuscript. What are you going to do now?

Start the next project.

I wish I was going to Disneyland instead. That would be nice but a writer's work is never done. Especially since I'm taking part in an online summer class that requires me to write 50K. Oh, and the class starts next week. Yeah, I kinda screwed myself on that one. I usually take a week off between novels so I can, you know, clean the house. I think I've mentioned before that a lot of household tasks get pushed aside when I'm finishing a novel. It's not procrastination, I just want to finish the manuscript a lot more than I want to scrub the shower. That's why I spend the days after the novel completion celebration catching up on all those tasks. It restores my sanity (such as it is) before I begin worldbuilding the next. Because I finished the Cyberfunk a week later than I wanted to, I have to jump right into the new book.

So, what's the new project? It's a story that's been percolating in my brain for a couple years. The working title is Flame and Filch and it's about a thieving duo and the city guard tasked with stopping them. It sounds like a simple task but the thieving duo is comprised of a very distracting woman and a dragon.

As you can tell it's a fantasy. It's also one that won't be as challenging to write as the Cyberfunk. In fact, I didn't realize exactly how much I'd challenged myself until I started working on F&F. Because it's simpler, I'm hoping that I'll be able to get a buffer built in a couple week so I can devote some time to cleaning the house. I want to clean up a couple short stories as well. I need to start submitting stories again.

Hello deadline...goodbye deadline

Another self-imposed deadline has sailed by and I'm exhausted. I've been writing at full speed for over a month and the novel still isn't done. Clearly I'm not one of those people who can write a first draft in seven months. Granted, if I only had one job or was able to write full time, that would be different. However, with the demands on my time being such as they are, I do not have that ability. Lesson learned.

Lesson aside, I feel that I have thoroughly established that the "I don't have time to write" myth is invalid. If I can crank out 6-8K while working two jobs and attending book signings, than anyone else can to.

I'm close to the end. I've only got about another 13K to go and come hell or high water, it will be finished this week. I've got fun and merriment planned for Memorial Day in honor of the book being complete and I am very much in need of a fun day. I also want the intended reason for the merriment to be justified so I MUST FINISH.

And on that note, it's time to dive back into the manuscript.

A slight delay

Because I must finish the cyberfunk in the next week or else, I won't be writing a new post this week. However, through the magic of the internet, you'll still get a dose of Kim. I wrote another guest post for The Fictorian Era on the why I chose to become a writer. The post goes up tomorrow and I'm excited to see your reactions to it. You get more than a peek at how my mind works in this one. In fact, writing it made me laugh out loud more than once.

Changing positions

First up, I have some news. Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned that I hate writing poetry? Well...I'm reconsidering my position on that.

Shortly after that post went up the oft' talked about Tracy talked me into entering Ken Scholes' The Named Lands Poetry Contest. I had originally decided no to do it because well, it's poetry and with my insane self-imposed deadline I really need to focus on finishing the Cyberfunk. However, knowing that Tracy wouldn't let me live it down if I didn't submit something, forced my hand. I wrote a quick collection of haiku and sent it off. (Don't look at me like that. It was just six poems and haiku only take a few minutes to compose.) Last Sunday the winner was announced.

Me.

Fraking A.

I've never entered a poetry contest before. Heck, my writing period hasn't won any accolades yet so to find out my first was for a medium I only do under duress kinda really weirded me out. Add to that Ken's comment that he and the judge were "blown away" by the best of my six and you can guess how much my mind was blown. I was in a state of disbelief for a couple days.

So, yeah. Because of this (and something Greg Manchess teased me about the night before my win) I'm reconsidering my long standing hatred of poetry writing. I don't know if I'll start entering more poetry contests because of this. We'll see. For now I'm just going to try to ease into a more positive position so I'll feel more comfortable dabbling with the form. Baby steps are important. Especially when I have an imminent novel deadline. Speaking of which, I need to get to work.

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I have another guest post on the Fictorian Era coming up on Tuesday, May 14th. You won't want to miss this one. I laughed so hard when I wrote it.