Camp NaNoWriMo – Go Big – Day 15
This picture sums up this precise moment in my mad month of unbridled creativity.
For the past two weeks, I’ve been involved in a pretty much nonstop rush of pouring words on the paper, or planning to pour words on the paper, or thinking about pouring words on the paper. The fires of writing were burning hot in the forge of my heart, and there were more times than not that I felt like what I was creating was getting ahead of me. It wasn’t so much that I was putting the words on paper, is that the stories were tearing themselves loose from my thoughts and finding a new home better suited to their natures. It all sounds artsy fartsy and vaguely ridiculous when I say it out loud, but there’s some truth there. The past two weeks have been crazy binge-writing session that’s been different from any writing I’ve done before.
And now…
Now I’m in between. I took the day off to give the stories time to ferment before I went back to stir their pots and extract the rare liquors of imagination that I’ll bottle and send out into the world for your consumption. This is the halfway point of my journey, that moment between the burning flair of the creative sun, and the long, dark night where I’ll conspire with my editor and readers and artists to assemble the raw ingredients into the final product.
DAY FIFTEEN: Thinking, Not Writing
I think it’s important to take some time off from writing to refill the reservoirs your creativity. While the past couple of weeks have been fantastic for clearing out the cobwebs from the pipes of the writing engine, I needed a little time to think about what I’d done. By forcing myself to stay away from the keyboard and not to look at what I’d written so far, I gave my subconscious time to gnaw on the bones of the stories that I’d laid down. I’ve already felt the stirrings of some new ideas, and see ways to strengthen the stories that have been written so far. That little bit of distance between the act of creation and the final polish can make all the difference.
Plus, fuck it, it gave me more time to play Arkham Knight.
Tomorrow
Yesterday, I said tomorrow, that is today, would be editing day. That, as you may surmise from reading today’s blog entry, was just a lie.
Tomorrow, tomorrow will be editing day.
I totally promise. Pinky swear.
Looking Ahead
My editor tells me he’s nearly done with the first pass of the first novella. This is fucking awesome. If all goes the plan, I’ll finish edits on novella number two, and novella number one, by the weekend. That most likely means, that by the end of next week, both novellas will be done and ready to publish.
But…
Well, we’ll just have to see about that. Stay tuned.
About Sam
I am the author of the popular Pitchfork County series of horror novels. I also write a newsletter with great reading suggestions and free fiction.