Writing Overload

I go from feast to famine as far as writing is concerned, at least in my head.  First, I’m miles away from any deadline, artificial or otherwise, so there is no real urgency to create anything.  As a result, I spend a lot of time “thinking’ about my story and what the characters are doing.  Then, I’m within days of a deadline on not one, but two projects, but still miles away in terms of word count. If I have done the first thing properly, the ideas will tumble from my head faster than I have to ability to type or can even dictate, and I become a slave to a daily word count goal and there are a lot of late nights. This is where I am now. 

 I have one book that was due (really) a bit ago, but in my head the deadline is still ten days away.  My characters are still moving around and revealing their motivations and haunting my dreams, generally driving me even more nuts than I am.  (Trust me when I tell you that some of these are pretty unsavory characters and I don’t want to meet up with them, even in my dreams, and I’m the one that dreamt them up.) I have another book due almost immediately after, a new sort of project for me, an anthology. Most of the authors that have to committed to participate have delivered their work on time, but there are a few (whom I love) that have not.  This bunch is generally my friend group and they are obviously not enough afraid of me.  I will have to call them now and start acting like a bill collector to get their submissions, but if I’m doing that, that means I’m not working on project  number one. I also have to do contracts for the whole lot so I can deliver the finished project to the publisher on time.

This project started simply but has grown into much more than I ever could have imagined.  It is a global project, including writing by women from several countries, genres and backgrounds.  It includes some submissions by previously unpublished writers  and I have to say all of the submissions have blown me away, many giving me new respect for people that I had no idea had such things in their past.  It is amazing that these woman have become so phenomenal with the support or in spite of.  I find I love them all. Some have brought me to tears.  On top of that, I am so floored and humbled by the writing talent these people possess and am in awe of the global similarities we all have.