Note to self: Don't write two stories at the same time. It gets too confusing.
Now, will I take my own advice next time I want to rewrite an old novel at the same time as write a new one? Probably not. Maybe I'll reread this blog post and have an "ah-ha" moment right before overloading my brain with two novels at once.
I really don't like this post's title. But anyway.
In case anyone reading this post doesn't understand what I'm talking about, January 1st 2011 I began rewriting my very first novel (which I'll call LoZ, for now), the only problem was... Well, no. That's an understatement. There were so many problems with that novel, but I won't go into them atm. The only thing that had me overly worried was that I stopped writing something else when I began editing. I'll call that MP. At about 25,000 words--or something near that--I gave up MP for an entire month. (Doing this always scares me, because I've done it before and never finished the novel.) Then, because I think I've caught writers' ADD or something, I gave up finishing rewriting LoZ and turned back to my other story. So all was good from February 10th until today, when I decided that I really wanted to write the last two scenes of LoZ and be done with that novel for another four years. Or whenever I give it another look and another rewrite.
I stopped writing LoZ because I didn't want to figure out the last bit. Why any part of my mind concluded that it would be easier to write the ending after putting it aside for a few weeks, I have no idea.
I always say that I'm trying something "new" with each novel I write. This isn't my usual style, I'm trying something new. So... I'm not sure what my "usual style" is, because it's always different. But 2011 is the oddest year for my writing so far. ("Odd" seems to have become my new word. I find myself using it all the time, which is, um, odd--as well as, you know, ironic.)
So far, my writing in 2011 has consisted of me jumping between rewriting LoZ and writing MP. Literally every month I switch stories. At least I know this won't go on for the rest of the year. Once I finish rewriting LoZ, I'm going to try to force myself to stick to MP, but the sad part is, MP is probably going to be the last novel I write for the next four years.
I can't help but think that I won't have time to write novels while I'm in college, and even if I have some free time, I don't want to overwhelm myself by trying to bang out novels in four or so months like I do now. Still, I don't want this to be my last novel for four years! That makes me very sad. It also makes me want to stretch out writing MP until August when school starts, though being that I'm already 48,000 words into the story, I don't think it'll last past June, if that long.
Yeah, yeah, just because I'm going to college doesn't mean I have to stop writing. But I'm going to a conservatory. I used to think that conservatories had less classes than regular colleges. Now, I've realized they have more. Yes, so if I go to this one school I might only have three academic classes, but add to that dance classes in ballet, tap, modern, jazz, rhythm/improv./partnering/otherstuffthroughtheyears, and any extra things I want to participate in, then that doesn't leave much time for novel-writing.
That's a dance major for you. Too bad for me I also like writing and being in theater. It'd be so much easier if I only enjoyed doing one thing. But I could never pick between dance a writing. (That's why that creative writing minor looks so appealing, even if it would use up all my free electives. *sigh*)
I've been writing pretty much non-stop for about four years now, so I can't imagine suddenly not writing that much anymore. In the back of my mind, I had this idea that maybe I would slowly go through and edit my novels. You know, whenever I had some time, just start reading and marking the manuscripts up with pretty colored pen. That would mean bringing my novels with me in the printed form (because I hate reading on the computer. Seriously hate it). I must've mentioned something about bringing my stories with me to my mom, because she was like, You're not bringing them with you, are you?
Well, I might? I can imagine myself packing up a big heavy box of manuscripts and sticking it in my dorm closet or something. I can totally see that. I can also see myself lugging the box from college to my house every time there's a school break.
I don't know. All I do know right now, is that instead of finish rewriting LoZ, as I was in the midst of doing when beginning this blog post, I have written 800 + words here instead. Yay for anti-productivity.
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