I published my last novel in 2015. So it has already been nearly six years since I last released a new story, which puts me in the company of writers like Patrick Rothfuss and George R.R. Martin for the slowness of my productivity.
There are many reasons why it is taking me so long. I naturally procrastinate unless something really urges me on. I've been stressed out by so many things, not leastwise by the election of a certain someone to the highest office in the land in 2016. But primarily the reason is that I started working on two different books at the same time.
I hadn't planned to do it. I started working on one of them (I don't even recall which I started first), got stuck on something early on, and then began working on the other while my mind mulled over how to overcome the complications in the first.
I really don't recommend this method of writing. I've never been a fast writer--each of my first novels took four years to produce--but at least by working on only one at a time I did manage to finish them. Now with the six year mark approaching, I just hit the 51,000 word mark in one novel, and I'm only at 21,000 words in the other. Which means I'm perhaps around the halfway mark in the first, and nowhere close to finished in the second.
The stories don't bore me. I haven't lost interest in them. It's just that one of them is extremely complicated and needs lot of thought to overcome the many obstacles. Yet my mind can never just set about working on one of them, because both stories keep jockeying for attention in my brain. Each time I think I have stopped working on one to focus solely on the other, some new idea pops up that makes me go back to the other manuscript.
I so badly want to finish at least one of them, so I've pushed harder this year than I have in quite some time, but the finish line feels so far away still, which is discouraging. If I could just finish one then the other might be easier to complete as well.
I wonder how many of you have had this same frustrating experience?
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Absolultely... been working on two this past year and even worked on a third for a little bit (20K words) when the thought came to me. I always find I switch when work / life get in the way of my flow, when I get back to the keyboard I slip to the other one. 70K words in on each now, I just need to find the time to finish.
ReplyDeleteYou are making decent progress, though, so that is nice. Like you mentioned, I've been further distracted by other ideas as well. I did a novelette not long ago, which makes me want to also do more in that world.
DeleteWell, this post is both discouraging and encouraging at the same time. I'm far, far behind you in the whole process, but it makes me feel, umm, okay that others struggle with the whole process. It kind of gives me hope, I guess. Thank you.
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