Single-minded

I met my word count goal for last week, although I had to work on Saturday. Actually, I exceeded it, winding up with something over 7,000 words. With five scenes completed and the rest of the book roughly outlined, I feel comfortable stating that I could finish that novel in something like three months. The plot feels solid, and I like the characters. Once upon a time, I'd have been terrified to look away from the story, for fear I'd lose it if I didn't pay it my undivided attention.

However.

I am feeling a confidence I haven't felt before. I suddenly find myself at this place where I no longer struggle trying to figure out how to turn a vague idea into a story. I can do it. I have done it. I know what games to play with myself, and I'm growing comfortable enough with my process that I can pick up and lay aside stories in progress and pick them up again later. I, like, know what I'm doing.

I'll wait a few seconds here for the lightning strike.

OK. Safe for the moment. So, on Sunday, I was moved by the urge to work on something, since all this peace and quiet keeps shouting that I should USE it, by God. And I caught up on some reading Saturday, and I'm not terribly in a gaming mood. So I sat down and opened up a new OneNotes tab for Crowmaker, because my old notebook for it is cramped with old ideas and I've been having new ideas (kinda). And I spent pretty much the entire day Sunday working my way through the part of the planning process that I previously skipped on Crowmaker (thinking at the time that I needed to try to be more of a seat-of-the-pants writer). (And I won't say it didn't work, because I think I can trace a lot of the really good stuff about that story back to that experimental, don't plan too much approach to that existing first draft.) And I like the work I accomplished, and I feel good about going back to that novel--next week.

Because THEN, just to be really crazy, I spent today working on a novella I'd started planning just before I got the ms request from Steeple Hill. And I'm incredibly excited about that story now, too. (I bet none of you knew that Loki looks like a very young, Nirvana-era Dave Grohl. The proof is here. And no, the novella isn't about Loki, but he does make an appearance.) The plan is to make this story my "vacation" project and see how much I can get done by Friday.

Or until the naps capture me. Either way, it's been a good writing vacation thus far.