Plan of Attack

This year i signed up for the Write1Sub1 short fiction challenge. It was great. I decided to write two stories a month, and then edit and submit those two stories the next month. I got halfway through the year before getting sidetracked with starting a zine, which kinda, sorta, really ate into my writing time.

So, being the sucker for punishment that i am, in 2012 i’ve signed up for two challenges. Firstly is a relaxed version of Write1Sub1, wherein i’ve decided to write and sub one short story every two months.

The second challenge is an offshoot of W1S1. Over at Absolute Write, a forum i belong to and spend far too much time at, someone suggested adding a novel component to the W1S1 challenge. We decided to run with it. The short of the challenge is (for the long of it clickety-click this linky) that participants task themselves to write, edit, polish and start subbing a novel within a time frame they determine. The shiny badge we’ve got in our AW signatures and on our blogs can be seen on my righthand sidebar. Much props to Lydia S Gray for the badge design.

The challenge kicked off in November, to coincide with NaNo, and then to kick on from NaNo. I’ve often wondered how many NaNo novels languish at the bottom of drawers and harddrives once NaNo’s over for the year. Anyway, we’ve been going for a month now and, to help with the motivation, we’ve decided to start doing blog chains. Not just for the Noveleers, but also for the Short Fiction Architects (i made both of those names up btw, so feel free to direct tomatoes and other soft fruit in my direction).

Which, long-windedly, brings me around to the point of this post. I’m leading off the December blog chain, the topic/prompt of which is: Plan of Attack (or, How are you going to reach your writing goals?).

Of course, i’ve now realized that my plan of attack for the Novel challenge is somewhat hazy. My plan of attack for the short fiction challenge is easy: write story, edit story, attempt to sell story. But novel challenge, well…

It’s been nearly two years since i last completed a novel ms. I’ve started a few, but those are languishing in their folders on my harddrive, occasionally wailing loud enough for me to hear them and pull them out and scribble more words before stuffing them away again to focus on short fiction, or running a zine, or something else.

But i want to write novels. I’ve got worlds and universes in my head that need exploring in novel-length works. Hell, i’ve just had an idea for a 15-20 book series, which is entirely bad timing and entirely something i’ve never had before.

So, what’s my plan? Apart from write, edit, sub.

Well, for this novel i’m going to try things a little differently. For other novel projects, i’ve always worked off a fairly detailed outline. Usually things change or are added within the story, but the basic outline has always stayed the same. However, this time i’m going a different route. I don’t know the ending of this story yet, which is unusual because i usually know the ending first. I do know the objective, and i’ve got the cast of characters sorted, and the universe they’ll be running around in.

This time, i’m just going to let it come out. If i write myself into a corner i’ll carefully untangle the relevant thread(s) and trace my way back. My ability to write good first draft, without endlessly worrying about doing so, has gotten much better in the last eighteen months, as has my ability to be consistently productive when i put butt in chair. Which is good. I also feel my grasp of telling a story has improved. Which is also good.

In terms of time, i’m hoping to have the first draft finished by March 2012. I’ve got some time off at the end of this year, the first portion of which will be used to frantically prepare issue #2 of C&C (btw, i’ve just seen the cover art for the issue and it’s fan-fam-flann-tastic!), but the second portion of the holiday will be just me and the keyboard and the story. I’m looking forward to it very much.

Once the first draft is finished, I’m going to let it sit while i work on another novel, the first in my mega-series. When that first draft is finished (i’ll give myself until the end of June for that one) i’ll go back to the other and edit. If not too much needs to be rewritten and restructured, i’ll be subbing it by August. If extensive rewriting is needed, i’ll do that, allow to sit for a month, edit again, and be subbing by October.

Excitement!

Yeah, the plan still sounds pretty vaporous, doesn’t it? I reckon it’s a nice balance between flexible and structured. Or so i’ll be telling myself until March, at which time i’ll probably be yelling, ‘Where the hell did that time fly?’

And that, ladies, gentlemen and writers, is my plan.

Next up will be Alex Shvartsman, discussing his plan. I expect his post will be up in a day or two.

For a full list of participants, check out this thread at AW.

Write hard, y’all!