Typing It In

Today is October 10, 2010 (or as my husband points out 10/10/10). This entry is a delightful example of the trouble with setting ambitious, yet unformed goals. Specifically, I announced the clock was running on my projects and there were two immediate problems. First, I didn't set any clear timeline for follow up and second I didn't make an actual strategy for how I was going to proceed with getting my book in order. 

Now, in my defence when I oh-so-blithely wrote my first post I was coming home from work and writing for a couple hours every night. But there is nothing like committing to a product to cause that sort of unself-conscious inspiration to wither. That's usually where these kinds of projects die for me and why I'm in this position in the first place. I have this feeling that to get to the end of these sorts of things I have to surprise myself by more or less completing it in a state of passive inspiration. 

Anyone who has ever got anything done will tell you that is BS. Particularly when the ideas and themes for my book have been percolating for so long. It's not a question of inspiration any more, the thoughts aren't going away. It is now a question of execution. 

I've decided I want to focus on completing the book first, or at least getting the bulk of the story points outlined in sufficient detail that I can turn to it in a less structured way in the future. So far there are 46  pages of full text, 6 chapters (2 of which are outlines) and the last two page of the book. I know where the stories needs to go, I know the main plot devises by which I intend to get there but I'm still working out some of the precise interactions between the characters and to be completely honest I don't know exactly what I want to do with one of the protagonist's "friends". 

So far I've been working toward the end goal, but this can have the impact of forcing the story forward at an unnatural narrative pace. So my strategy is, for the next two or three times I open that file, to go back to developing back story and to laying out the time line in greater precision. After that, it's really easy to fill in the description and the dialogue. I think I'm going to have to say too that this will have to take place by the end of the month or else this will be a 'five year blog project' instead of a 'one year' one.