Too Many Ideas!

I don't recommend juggling more than one project at a time.
My current WIP is Shadow Bound. I'm a little over halfway done with the first draft and hopefully I'll have that done the first week in August.

Then I'll take a few steps back and leave it alone for a couple of weeks so I can come at it fresh. In the meantime, I'll do a lot more planning on my next novel, code named: Phantom. Not a very clever code name, but oh well. This is the project I've been working on in Holly Lisle's How to Think Sideways course, since most of the planning for Shadows is already done. (How Think Sideways has helped me.)

So on the days I'm following along in the course and doing my lessons, I don't get much (if any) writing done for Shadows. The problem is, I'm at a point now where I really need to focus on Shadows because I need I nice tight ending. This is the hardest part of writing a first draft for me--keeping all the details and twists in my head while plotting an ending that's both exciting and satisfying. All while maintaining voice and character and grammar and setting...

I should probably set Phantom aside, but these thoughts keep popping into my head: "Ask John about musicals!" and "Ask Jenny about music schools!" and "Ooh, do a dot and line exercise for the hero!" It's like I have a little girl prancing around in a candy shop, trying to sample everything.

Just stop. Breathe. And Focus!

Uncharted Territory

I reached the 25k mark in my novel yesterday (happy dance!!), but now I'm a little nervous. I know how the book needs to end. However, I don't have ANY future scenes in my head. I know logically what needs to happen in order to get to point B, but there are so many paths to it and so many stops I have to make along the way.

This is going to take some pondering.

Doesn't it feel so good to get things done?

I just plowed through a difficult scene and hit the one-thousand word mark for the day! This is the point where I say, good job Emily! Three of the last four days have earned me this self-appreciation. (The 2000 mark is the kick-butt mark, which I rarely hit.)

This brings my total word count to just over 23,000 or 38% of the projected length of this novel. (I love spreadsheets! I have one that calculates a whole bunch of nombers and updates charts every time I put my current word count in. I'll say it again: I love spreadsheets!) (Said in the voice of Goob from Meet the Robinsons.)

Edit (Saturday, June 13, 2009)
I did it again! Over a thousand words today and they're good!

My Opening Scene's Crash Test

Let me briefly get you up to speed, in case you don't religiously follow my posts:
Holly Lisle is an author who has published over 30 novels. She makes a living doing it and she is amazing! She also happens to be a great teacher and devotes her time (in between novel writing) to teaching writers how to be better writers. I've mentioned her Clinics and course How to Think Sideways, but she also does Crash Tests.
A crash test is where she takes a few paragraphs of fiction from one of her students (and there are a TON of us) and she picks them apart piece by piece, showing what's good, what went wrong, and how to fix it. She just posted her fourth crash test AND IT'S MINE!!! Holy cow!

It's very helpful. I knew there were things wrong with it, but didn't know how to fix them. Anyway, here's the link to Holly Lisle and the Case of the Ghostly Girls.