Writing status & thoughts

Novel #3: 13k words / 50k?

Novel #4: 5k words / 50-60k


Based on my current progress, I feel confident in concluding that my writing speed is nowhere near what it was when I was a student.

I've been working on Novel #3 for roughly over a month, and 12k words in that time isn't great speed. To be fair, I spent the past week rewriting large chunks of it to solve various issues. I have the full skeleton of the story laid out, which is why I'm cautiously optimistic that I can finish this story; however, fleshing out the details has been pretty time-consuming. 50k is my default estimate for novels (which would technically mean I'm about 25% done right now), but I'm not sure if I can actually meet 50k (& 50k is still on the short side for publishable novels).

Novel #4 is newer and YA, so I was tempted to prioritize it over #3 (another New Adult novel). That's especially because I'm not 100% sure Novel #3 is publishable (I think the overall premise could be appealing, but it would probably be more "popular" if I were the kind of writer who could write a romance full of Unresolved Sexual Tension instead of, like, friendship as romance.) However, again, since Novel #3 has the story basically fully outlined, whereas #4 is (a) newer, and (b) intended to be the start of a trilogy, my cautious instincts would rather try to finish Novel #3 first so I can have more completed projects.

(On that note, Novel #3 was initially intended to be the start of a series as well, though I've decided to give up on that for now. While I do think the world of the novel has clear series potential, I'd rather see if I can publish this novel, assuming I can finish it, before I start thinking about writing sequels. This novel itself can definitely stand alone.)

On the topic of deadlines

I'm usually not good at meeting my own deadlines, although I do find that it helps to at least have deadlines to aim for.

Novel #3: In my ideal world, I'd like to finish this before April of 2019 so I can participate in #DVpit on Twitter. I have some idea of how to pitch this one on Twitter. But given that I'm only about 1/4 done, I'm really not confident I can meet this deadline. I'll try, though.

Novel #4: At first I thought this was a candidate for #DVpit as well, but I started to think that this book may be better suited to a traditional query letter, since it's not quite as easy to sum up in 280 characters. In any case, unless something changes, I've already decided to prioritize #3 over this book anyway, so it'll be a while off.