Yesterday was one of those banner days in writing. I typed "The End" on the final page of a project and reformatted it from "Work In Progress" to "Manuscript for Submission". The book, titled Becoming Thuperman 3: THUPERMAN & CASSANDRA culminates a trilogy that includes BECOMING THUPERMAN (2/28/2017) and Becoming Thuperman 2: HOMER UNDERBY (Fall 2018). If all goes as planned, it should be released sometime in the Spring of 2019.
The past couple of months have been a blur for me as I first focused on completing the sequel to BECOMING THUPERMAN, titled HOMER UNDERBY. I began to write it in February 2017, though it was not yet titled. It was around the time Pandamoon Publishing approved the final version of the initial novel of the series for release. A lot of things intervened to delay the writing of the second book, including the beginning of another project, a sequel to FRIED WINDOWS, tentatively titled CASTLES OF NINJA BREAD. FRIED WINDOWS was the first novel of mine that Pandamoon Publishing released. Somewhere in all of that confusion and frustration, I attended some events, served in my secondary role as publicist and worked a lot at my day job.
I could blame delays on writer's block, but I usually don't have that problem. Or perhaps I know how to overcome the block in my creative flow if I ever start to suffer. I write something, no matter what it is, everyday. It can be a letter, a shopping list, a post it note - I don't care what it is, just write something.
A common source of distraction is TV and particularly following the news. If you want to write, turn off the box, unplug it from the wall, cut the cable-- whatever it takes. Remove the temptation and, in the case of news, eliminate that negativity from your life. Any shows you follow, record them if you must for later binge watching. You will still hear about what's going on in your daily comings and goings, like shopping for snacks for your writing sessions. But I promise you, you will not care about current events nearly as much as if you were listening to the talking heads telling you how important this or that thing was and how close we are to the end of the world as we know it. In other words, the news will not dominate your thoughts and adversely impact your creativity.
Although BT was originally conceived as standalone novel that I drafted in the summer of 2013, while waiting for my substantive edits for FRIED WINDOWS (2014), in the process of editing, Jessica Reino and I discussed a possible sequel and perhaps a third book. During our conversation that lasted about an hour and a half, I bounced several ideas off of her and we came up with a rough plot outline for one or two more books. I believe this step was the essential element for writing BT3 as quickly as I did.
As a rule, I write fast. When I have a project underway, I can knock out between 1500 and 2500 words per day in four to six hour sessions. Other work and life in general often gets in the way of projects, but generally I can stick to a writing plan that averages somewhere in that range. When I wrote the essential core of WOLFCATS, a series that will begin with the release of the first volume in late Summer 2018, I composed 413 pages in six weeks. In subsequent revisions, that one volume, which was titled ONE PACK, has become the central five books in the ten book series.
In early February of this year, I restarted BT2, revising the several chapters I had previously written and continued with fresh material. In the process I had some marathon sessions on days off, some of them producing 5 to 6,000 words, a pace that would satisfy any writer. As a result, I completed HOMER UNDERBY on March 14, 2018. I spent two days reading and revising it, removing unnecessary words and some annoying words used too frequently, before submitting it. As any writer can tell you, it is easier to continue writing a series than it is to shelf a project and go back to it later. On March 17, I began writing BT3.
From the outset the book flowed well. Early on, I easily exceeded my daily goals for word count, rapidly reaching the 10,000 word milestone that I use as a threshold before calling anything I'm writing "a project". But then, something remarkable happened. I had three days off together, over a weekend. I decided to be a hermit and do nothing but writing and thinking about writing. I wrote 19,000 words! That was amazing for me. I'm not sure I've ever done anything like that before. And then, after having a couple of days that I came home from work and wrote 2,000 words, on my next day off I cranked out 10,000 words in a single day!
Most days during the past month were average writing days for me. And there were a couple of days that all I did was revise what I'd written the prior day. Sometimes a writer needs to go back and rediscover a thought that was lost in the mix. My books tend to have lots going on in the background and at times my creative process is tantamount to keeping sixteen plates spinning atop wobbly poles as I compose something. Being immersed in the story already and have a set of familiar characters who are, of course, like real people to me, also helps a lot for writing a story fast. A writer must believe in his or her project and be emotionally involved in the lives of those portrayed if ever the creative magic of turning fiction into a surrogate reality is going to work.
Now that the wild ride is over, I plan to read and revise for the next few days, how ever long it takes. And then it's back to FW2. Let's see how long it takes to finish that one.