08:48 am: Finished a new one . . .
Finished a new story late on Friday night, all Selkie-like and only 1600 words. I was planning on writing a big chunk of Saturday, but mostly got crits done instead, so I'm whittling away at all those extra words I got in the first couple of weeks.
I'll have to lay down a lot more this week, though. I've got 4 stories started (more than 1500 words each already), and I need to actually finish 2 of those in the next two weeks.
Will it be: The Stigmata Virus (5000 more words-ish, I'd guess); the cyberpunk story (eesh, maybe 7000 words to go - it's definitely novella-sized); the minotaur story (maybe 5000, maybe less), or the witness story (God knows)?
Let's skip the Witness story - that's one where I have a feeling for the character, and I have some words, and I have a "mood" of the piece, but I still don't know where the plot is going at all.
That used to not bother me - I'd just write about a character's adventures until I felt like I'd gotten to the end of the story. Later I'd worry more about structure. And that's more or less what Stephen King suggests in
On Writing. (A fabulous book on writing, BTW).
Lately, I've really been wanting to know where a story is going before I invest too much time in it. Since I haven't been writing as much since the baby, I don't know if that's a byproduct of the Write-A-Thon mentality (Must. Finish. Story. This. Week.), or if it's a byproduct of never feeling like I have enough time (baby again), so I don't want to waste time meandering around in a story. Or it could be that my writer-ly approach has somehow been altered.
When the Write-A-Thon is over, I really need to sit down with Witness and see if I can get somewhere on it by just continuing to work with the character and whatever comes up. I'd hate to lose that method of writing, even if it is less efficient.
Now I'm gonna head down to a cafe (leaving my sweet bear with her grandma for the morning. Go, grandmas!)
Current Mood: 
contemplative