First, I want to get something off my chest.  I hate feeling guilty.  I especially hate making MYSELF feel guilty over something that’s stupid.

I’m talking about Vicki.  I was really making myself feel guilty because I wasn’t getting the progress that I wanted.  Any other month (e.g. look back at May, Nov, and Dec. last year) I could have written 50K no problemo.  Way back in 2007, I wrote 50K in 11 days. 

I used to worry about never finishing a book (I’m glad the 2005 archives are gone!!) but I know that I can and will finish.  I can file something and bring it out again later and finish it (e.g. Conn, Victor). Yet for weeks, I made myself open Vicki’s file, whispering the fear–the lie–that if I filed her, she’d die.  I’d never finish. 

I tortured myself with that fear.  Daily.

Writers write every day, right?  How many times have we heard that?  Typically, I’d even agree.  Write 1K a day and finish 3 books a year, I know I’ve said that many times before.

But there’s no need to flail myself with guilt when a book isn’t going the way I want.  I could have put the book aside in March and moved on, instead of forcing myself to keep stabbing away at its lifeless corpse, because that’s really what it felt like.

Don’t get me wrong – if Vicki had been contracted, I would have been stabbing MYSELF to finish.  But she’s not contracted.  I’ve made no commitments.  It was just a book for me (right now), a personal challenge.  So why beat myself up?

So, note to self and any of you that might flail yourself with guilt about writing:  If it’s not feeling good, don’t do it!  If you’re leaving scars on your Muse, put the @#&%* whip away!  

We pick up enough scars each and every day just by being writers.  Bad reviews, rejections, opening up the dark scary places and peeling back layer after layer to reveal the horror and truth within.  Don’t make that scarring worse by tormenting youself with “shoulds” and “but the rule is….” or “but everyone else…”

There.  I feel better.

Now then, what do I mean about ulterior motive?  I’m declaring April my personal brainstorming month.  I’m not going to set a single goal for writing or finishing a single project.  I’m going to brainstorm.  I’m going to write snippets of dreams and secrets that characters whisper to me.  I’m going to write in my journal.  I’m going to go picture hunting.  I’m going to watch movies and read more books and cross-stitch.  I may even draw pictures!  Gasp!

One thing I’m learning from the harder exercise program I started in March: listen to my body.  Or in this case, listen to my Muse.  Gregar has never failed me before.  I’ve worked him hard and long, for years, with only minimal breaks.  I already have THREE contracted stories coming out this year. 

Yes, but but…  the shrill, annoying voices start.  Keep the pipeline full!  What about next year?  If you stop now, you may never start again.  Quitter!  Failure! 

Now there’s a very good reason my Muse carries a wicked ivory rahke, because I just borrowed it to slit that nasty little demon’s throat.  My greatest strength is my drive and my determination to succeed at all cost.  But that drive can also be my greatest weakness.

I have to learn to listen, both to my body and my Muse, before something tears or simply breaks.

So I hereby declare April to be my fun month.  I’m going to try some new things, build some new ideas, and just generally have a good time.  I will not write hard on any single project — but if I get an idea for a short freebie, I may allow myself to finish it. 

My ulterior motive:  MayNoWriMo.  I’m hoping that with an “enforced” writing restriction this month — and lots of fun idea time — that May will be a huge output month.   I’m being sneaky with my Muse and telling him no writing this month.  Just laugh, tell jokes, be that wicked smirking Blood I love so well.  Because next month, he’d better be the vicious Shadowed Blood again.

May, June, and July will be finishing whatever project I settle on for MayNoWriMo.  Top contenders at this time:  Vicki, Deathright, and Maya#2 using the subplots I axed from the original Bloodgate story.

This is something I’ve been thinking about off and on for years, and the past few weeks have made me think about it again. 

I’ve talked before about the writer’s journey — how each day can begin with a call to adventure, is fraught with peril, and yes, most of the time, requires passage through the Inner Cave. 

But there’s another cycle I’m thinking about now, more like a life cycle, specifically for a computer program (my Evil Day job).  There are stages of coding, just as there are stages of writing.  I might spend weeks on a design, meeting with the business area to hash out the requirements and then building an outline or “synopsis” of the solution I’m going to deliver.  The longer we spend on business requirements and design, the better the final product will be.

Granted, not all projects — or books — require detailed analysis and design.  But for large, complex projects, a solid design is crucial.  Typically, the person writing the design may not even be the final programmer.  Components may get handed off to others to code, and they need to be able to read the design document and understand how their piece fits into the cog.

For some projects, the requirements and design stage goes on and on and on.  Lord, I just want to CODE, I need to go go go!  I’m tired of the endless meetings and reviewing spreadsheets.  Let’s do something.  Anything.  Go!

That’s the stage I was at when I started Vicki, even though I hadn’t done any of the normal “business requirements and design” that I normally do for a book.  After heavy revisions in January, I needed to just sit down and write.  Just go.  Grab the words, write freely, don’t worry about spreadsheets.  Just go!!

And it was fun — while it lasted.

That’s really the point I originally started with.  Like moon phases and hormones, I think there can be cycles for a writer too where we just naturally do one stage of the process better than others.  Sometimes, I can write 1K, 2K a day, for weeks, and feel energized at the end of each day.  Other times — even though I love the story as much as any of them — I can’t get but a paragraph, and it’s agonizing.  I can’t concentrate.  I don’t WANT to concentrate.  I’d rather clean toilets or fold laundry — anything! — than write, even though I love to write, I need to write.

But if I’m paying attention, a different cycle of the writing process is usually sparking.  e.g. if I don’t feel the words coming fast and strong, maybe it’s a good time to plot.  Or brainstorm. 

Or maybe I just need a break before all circuits melt.  🙂

I’m still sitting in a pretty good position for this year.  I have three contracted works in various stages of production.  That kind of work takes very different muscles from simply wallowing in a lovely draft, where the words are mine and mine alone.  When I get the editor’s file, it’ll be a drop everything and MOVE sort of push to get that work done and returned as quickly as possible.

Not a good time to be writing deep in the zone on a new book.  That’s what really started the sputtering on Vicki–I received revisions on The Bloodgate Guardian, and I just never got my flow back.

As much as I want to be writing new words right now and finishing Vicki, it’s just not happening.  Because I didn’t do a thorough design (plot) at the beginning, I don’t have much story left, and the book hasn’t broken 30K yet.  I’ve discovered some wonderful things, but they need work.  Lots of work. 

So last night, I sat down, opened Vicki’s file (the first time in days, honestly), and typed out every note and dream I’ve had in synopsis (telling) form.  It was a brain dump.  Even writing about the scenes I envisioned, I did not get the burn to write.  I didn’t slip into story (showing) mode once.  That tells me more than anything that it’s time to set Vicki aside for awhile.

Don’t worry – that seems to be my process for writing contemporary erotic.  I did the exact same thing for Conn and even Victor’s books.  I had about 15K written in loose chunks for Victor long before I sat down last year to write his complete draft.  I have a good start for Vicki in a few months, after I let her story stew just a bit longer on the back burner.

So what’s on the writing plate this month?  Honestly, I’m not sure.  I seem to be in an idea-generating cycle.  I’m hearing voices of characters, very very clearly, who have no business talking right now. 

e.g. Shannari was really blaring in my head yesterday.  I’m like, hey, your story is DONE.  Why are you bothering me?  But she just kept talking about the dream, how real it was, how easy it would be to slip there and never come out, because HE’S there.  Of course, I thought she was talking about Gregar, but then…

I got the chills on my arms that told me maybe she wasn’t talking about herself after all.  Maybe she’s trying to help me understand someone else.  *shivers*

Anyway, if I seem disjointed this month and jumping around like a duck after a June bug, that’s why.  The ideas are coming hard and fast — so I’ll be jotting them, brainstorming, while I wait for the editor revisions to come.