Summer Progress Report – How Am I Doing?

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It’s been…a busy few weeks, which, as I talked about last month, was entirely my own fault for taking on too much.

I’m realizing that more than anything else, my tendency to say “Yes” to things (sometimes with an exclamation point attached) is really having an adverse effect on my productivity, because not only does having more things to do quantitatively reduce my amount of free time, it also pulls me in multiple directions, giving me more things to juggle and making me exponentially more stressed.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to make this problem better, and though the solution definitely involves taking on less things, making this happen Continue reading »

I’m Querying My New Novel! (Here’s How That Works)

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Quick Note: If you’re a literary agent who’s stumbled across my blog, this might be a good place to start reading ;-)

I’ve had this one in the works for a LONG time—MFA Thesis Novel is my satirical novel inspired by my experiences in grad school at the University of Nebraska.  It’s about a twentysomething writer from the Northeast named Flip (who’s totally not based on me at all, btw) who leaves his mind-numbing office job to start an MFA in creative writing program in an unnamed midwestern state.  The problem, though, is that Flip’s a literature nerd who’s stuck in the past—his heroes are Joseph Heller, John Updike, and Kingsley Amis, and he hasn’t read much of anything from the past twenty years—which means his fellow grad students are more than happy to tear his novel to pieces on the first day of workshop.

While Flip’s main goal is to create great writing, the other grad students…think differently.  Everyone around him is obsessed with getting published, beefing up their CVs, Continue reading »

Here’s What I’m Working On Right Now

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A lot’s changed in the past six months—the most glaring thing being that I LIVE IN JAPAN NOW so my routine’s changed a lot from what I was used to back in the States.

On a grander scale, though, the landscape of how I’m spending my time and which goals I’m pursuing is also different—not because my goals have changed, but because I’ve made some decent progress in the past few months in crossing bigger projects off my To-Do list, and that feels pretty good.

So without further ado, here’s an up-to-date list of which goals I’m pursuing right now, in approximate order of importance: Continue reading »

Last Post in America! (For a While, Anyway)

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It’s been a CRAZY few weeks since July started and I realized I had LESS THAN A MONTH before Japan to pack up my entire apartment and finish the novel and cancel all my utilities AND finish up a bunch of miscellaneous writing projects AND bring my Japanese up to par—so yeah, I’ve been pretty busy.

Having so much to do has partly been good, since it’s kept me insanely focused most days and pushed me to get more done…though the downside is that it’s also causing me a lot of stress and led to a lot of mad scrambling as I second-guess myself about what needs to be done and in which order.

So with a week before my flight, here’s a report card-style progress report of Continue reading »

July Novel Update: Deadline Met…Almost!

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One of my friends recently described this blog as a chronicle of projects I’m trying to get done and how outside problems keep getting in the way.

Yeah, I get that.

If you’ve been following my Novel Update series you might recall that I’ve ALMOST finished a workable Fifth Draft of my novel about grad school life in the Midwest, and that this draft is especially important because it’ll be be the first one that’s finished enough to actually show people.  Since I leave for Japan at the end of July, a few weeks ago I set a self-imposed deadline of finishing the Fifth Draft by July 1st so I’d have time to Continue reading »

May Novel Update: Draft 4 Complete!!!

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Amazing how quickly the tables can turn.

My April novel update consisted mostly of a depressed lament about how little I’d gotten done not only in the past month, but the past year—it took me almost nine months to completely finish the third draft of this novel after I went back to full-time Day Job work, and the fourth draft was progressing just as slowly.

Now, though, things are different: two weeks ago I made the final edits to the fourth draft, after working on it every weekday since I left my Day Job.  That means it only took 16 working days (chunks of two and a half to four hours from late morning to early afternoon) to finish the last 275 pages Continue reading »

April Novel Update: Slow Going…

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Just a quick update this month, because I’ve got a lot of things to do.

Last month I dove back into actual revisions on the fourth draft of my novel, though as usual, progress has been slow.  As of today I’ve revised 40 pages, or about 12% of the manuscript, which is much, much less than I wanted to have done by now.

For the actual revision process I’ve gone back to setting aside entire nights (from 8:00 to 11:00pm) for novel work instead of grabbing an hour here and an hour there, since I work best when I can devote larger chunks of time to writing.  Unfortunately, though, a variety of things (i.e., excuses) have kept me Continue reading »

March Novel Update: Draft Three Complete!

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If you’ve been following my Novel Updates Series then you already know the story: I’m writing a novel that takes place at a grad school writing program in the Midwest, and for the last year and a half I’ve been buried in the revision process—you know, that part where you go back and edit everything you’ve written until it’s actually turns out good.

Last year I finished pen and paper edits for the third draft, and a few months after starting my Secret Office Day Job I started typing them up, page for page and line for line.  Because I’ve been busy, it was taking a REALLY long time, which is why I started posting updates here to keep myself on track.

Well two days ago, at around 11:00pm, I finally finished typing.  That’s Continue reading »

November Novel Progress Update!

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Just a quick note this week, since it’s been a busy one.

When I last checked in for my October novel progress I was working on typing up the revisions from the 3rd draft and had gotten through 55 pages, or about 20% of it.  That was pretty good, but not great.

November’s progress was similar: as of today I’ve gotten through 120 pages of revisions, or roughly 40% of the draft.  That’s also good (and slightly better than last month’s progress!), but not even close to where I’d like to be.

I am happy this month that I was able to spend more nights actually working than in previous months.  That’s partly because I developed a rhythm of Continue reading »

October Novel Progress Update!

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It’s been a busy month, but not for novel-writing.

When I last posted about my progress on my new novel I was getting back into the game after a 3 month hiatus brought on mostly by my new job and recent move.  Taking a break from writing helped me get a lot of stuff taken care of, but after so many weeks away I realized I had to get back to the novel or else I risked becoming even more disconnected from it than I already was—and that wasn’t a good thing. Continue reading »

Confession: I Haven’t Worked on My Novel in 3 Months

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I’m absolutely ashamed to admit this, but it’s true.

According to my Daily Schedule Log, I last put in actual writing time on my new novel on June 1st, the day I finished editing the final chapter of Draft Three.  Since I’m drafting this entry on Labor Day to schedule for next week, that means my No-Novel period’s run just over three months, and that’s a long time.

To my credit, it’s definitely been a busy three months since I started my new Office Day Job.  This is partly because I’ve actually been working more hours and was dealing with a nasty commute for the first few weeks, but also because of the general life upheaval that came with the new job throwing off my old writing schedule.  Having to deal with a lot of new surroundings, routines, and habits made it harder for me Continue reading »