Moving in Parallel

​I have at last started writing again. No, it's not on my final book of the series. But I am working on that, too, just in a different way. The important thing is, I'm writing again.

I'm currently working on The Bear, largely because that has been the most insistent of the stories running through my head. I'm enjoying diving into writing again, and having an absolute ball with the initial discovery that is always my first draft.

There is, of course, an awful lot of insecurity about my ability to bring this story to life. While the impulse to write and the insistence of this story is currently far stronger than that ever-present niggling voice that tells me I'm not up to the task, I do live in fear that the voice will gain strength and sap my ability to write at all.

That's kind of what happened with the trilogy I've yet to finish. The third book isn't up to my standard (I don't think), and with so many issues to fix I convinced myself that I just wasn't the person to tell this story. I kind of just... gave up on it.

For a while, anyway.

Then my idiotic stubbornness kicked in and now I'm clawing my way back to it. By clawing away, I mean I'm reading the previous two books and making notes to help me fill in all those gaping plot gaps and missing names in book three. I'm then going to reread what I've written of book three thus far and fill in all the things that are missing. I'm hoping that it'll be a smooth, cohesive read by then, because this thing has been pieced together like some weird, Franken-monster of words and ideas just kind of haphazardly stitched together. That's what it feels like in any case.

I think that I'll be able to get through everything I need to do before the end of the year. Long after the deadlines I have set for myself, but I have been struggling a lot lately with my mental health.

Between working two jobs, volunteering at another, and the increasing workload I have for my own ambitions, I've been sort of... frozen in place, completely unable to work on my own projects. And that freeze has compounded the mental struggle I was already battling because of all the afore-mentioned other things.

So, by starting on The Bear, I have also begun to unfreeze myself. Letting some of the damned-up creativity trickle out has helped with the feelings of being stuck, which has had a nice knock-on effect of lightening my load a little, which makes me feel like I can breathe again. Breathing is important. Necessary, even. With this little bit of wiggle-room, I'm feeling a little more able to do the enormous amount of work I need to get done in order to get this series done and out in the world.

And the next free online serial done and out in the world.

And the special edition of The Dying God & Other Stories done and out in the world.

The Bear is taking up most of my creative time (I don't have much any more), but I am working concurrently with book three of my trilogy; sort of in parallel. It's not typically how I work. Normally I focus on one story exclusively until it's done before filing it away for the first edit and working on something else.

That isn't working for me this time, so I'm trying to be flexible and working on two things concurrently. The little progress I make on each doing it this way is still leaps and bounds better than the no progress whatsoever on either that was happening before.

So, off I go to do more work!

Slán go foill!