…and G-d laughs.
After having multiple WIPs become Works Not In Progress during the Unexpected House Renovation, and the rounds of surgery after surgery, I started writing something last year as a writing exercise. I figured, if I couldn’t get a story finished, then I could start writing something never intended for publication, just to try to prime the pump, and to try out some things I know I’m bad at, like writing spicy scenes… because the only way to get better is to practice. I figured I do that for maybe 2K, maybe 5K words, and have no heartburn when it froze up like everything else.
I just finished it last week. At 71K words.
Once finished, I breathed a sigh of relief, and intended to stick it in a computer folder and never look at it again.
…Less than 24 hours later, my cover artist was grumbling about an unexpected expense that was going to hit at an awkward time. An expense that’ll… add up to about exactly one cover art. And here I have a story that could use cover art.
I may have said some unkindly things. I may have glared at the sky, that being the general direction I yell when yelling at Himself upon discovering I am the butt of a Divine joke. And then I started kicking myself for the editing ahead, because I didn’t do the copyedit until I puke on this one, secure in the (no longer true) knowledge I wouldn’t be publishing it.
Lest I thought this was the wrong move, when I contacted an Awesome Beta Reader, her response was to note she had almost reached out to me earlier that same day, to see if I had anything to entertain her.
Himself makes backup plans, you see?
Execute one sinal salute. (Head bowed, bridge of nose pinched)
Well, while waiting for beta reader feedback, I’ve at least started reading back into one of the WNIP, and with 9 months away, am doing a fair bit of editing. Hopefully I will be able to read into the story and pick it back up. Hoping to finish this one out, and start knocking down the To Be Continued pile.
Except…
Because I followed genre tropes, the Story-that-needs-a-penname reads as first in series. So when I publish it, I need a second and third in series at least, to wrap it up. Which means that I got a story done, only to increase my WIP/WNIP list…
Some days, I can’t win for losing.
Mad Genius Club 
7 responses to “Men make plans…”
Hey, at least it’s not the 11+1 novels long short story!
Yet.
Possibly not ever, but that would be tempting fate.
Hahaha! . . . *Sob* . . . Umm, I think we’re all well past the point where we realize we will die with so very many WPIs and WNIP that we could have kept writing for another decade, except that would mean we also leave even more unfinished.
The one that resonates with me is the line about “God put me on this Earth to accomplish certain things, and right now I am so far behind that I will never die.” 😀
We’re in goal setting time where I work, and I’m seriously at one of those points where what I ought to write is get the rest of my life sorted out so I’m showing up with gas left in the tank. But that doesn’t fit the obligatory metriced corporate buzword methodology, so will have to figure something out there. Lol.
Might actually talk with my manager about it. She’s the sort who would get it.
But I definitely get the nothing working.
The one year I tried a Gantts chart template in Excel to outline my writing/publishing plans it didn’t work out very well. I’ve switch to just setting up an Excel calendar each year and marking off each day whether I did writing, something writing related, or something related to a hobby important enough to compete with writing (bookbinding, computer science, trying to get into fitness).
I started being daily in my writing when I found a place to post progress online. The places have varied, but I stick to the process like glue.