After Nearly 7 Months...

I'm starting to feel like I'm getting back on track. I took time to do some leisurely reading and finished one book I had started reading months ago. I enjoyed my 2nd trip to visit my family last week, but found a distinctive and clear desire to work on my own writing started to gnaw and chew at me as the week wore on.

I would have done some work on it if I could have, but my memory stick is incompatible with my parents' old document program, so I jotted notes to myself about the things I need to do. I started setting forth goals again for myself to get all the revisions done (on my 9 finished manuscripts) so that I can submit some things and get my butt- and my head and heart- back in writing mode.

NaNoWriMo will be upon me in no time as it is and so I must have the revisions done by then so I can get to work on the 2nd book in my 2nd series. Pretty bad when I've spent most of this year doing nothing. To have been so productive the past 2 years and look back and see how much I accomplished and then to look at 2009 and realize that other than working a few revisions here and there, I haven't completed anything else is a staggering difference that I'm not very proud of.

I had serious writing burnout though and I know that. In 2 years time, I used up my best supply of writing energy and I collapsed in a puddle, feeling unmotivated to move forward and wrestling with overwhelming self-doubt. I need to learn to pace myself so I don't spin out like that again.

I'm getting things sorted though and once I'm done with the revisions on what I have finished, I'm making an exerted effort to write and then revise directly after- not write and write and write and then attempt to revise a lot of different stories in a short amount of time. I need a plan and I'm getting it laid out, as well as learning what works for me as far as the page/word count stuff. That has stumped me for a while, but I think I'm starting to get it, too.

Here's to making the rest of 2009 productive for myself in regard to my progress toward becoming a published author. I need to find consistency and make it work for me, not against me.

Need to get to work. Have a great day!