Possible Change in Blogging Schedule

The biggest change is that I will try to have a schedule at all. Mostly I've just posted when I have something to say, a concept that works pretty well for me. I have read blogs by people who say they are going to post something every day no matter what and it shows.

I've been thinking a lot (not unusual for me, I've always been the kind of kid who lived in her head) and I think I am going to do a thing a week project like the brilliant Jonathan Coulton does. But don't worry, it's not going to be music, or at least it won't be music very often. It is really going to be a thing a week; it could be just about anything so long as I can look at it and say "I made this!" Worst case you get my column for the week. Best case you get something else.

This is partly inspired by my terrible memory, I often write something that should be the beginning of a larger project, put it down, find it later and have absolutely no idea where I was going with it. But weirdly these things sometimes stand on their own as flash fiction. Week one will likely be a piece like that, if I can remember where I put it of course.

The other reason I'm going to do this is because it's very, very hard for me to get any fiction writing done. I've got my column, this blog, other blogs I post on, the Grapevine to run, agentoasis to nurture and neurological deficits to fight against. The end result is I run out of energy (mental and physical) well before I can start doing any serious work on my fiction projects. It's especially difficult because I have a project called Carnal Fear that I started a century ago that is extremely difficult for me to write. It deals with some intensely personal, painful issues and it hurts to write it. Last year Will Shetterly said that he and Emma both thought I should take my hardest project and finish that first, although he later got worried about my mental state and told me not to do it if it was, you know, ruing my life or anything. (My choice of words, not his.) But I do want to finish it, I don't want it hanging over my head any more and I want it done before I die. I've gotten a tremendous response from a few women who have looked at what I have so far, with most of them saying they wish they had read it years ago because it makes them feel better about their own trauma. So, Carnal Fear it is, and hopefully it won't kill me.

So how does adding yet another project a week get me to finish my book? Isn't this yet another form of cat vacuuming? Good question. Perhaps it is but I'm hoping that since I work well under deadline instead it will act as an impetus for me to finish some things. The thing of the week may be a scene from my book. It may be a knitting pattern (I've designed some cool ones in my day) or it may be a poem or it may be a thing I want to write about the basics of using your keyboard shortcuts (honestly you would not believe the number of people who have never heard of control f) or it could be a couple of pages from a script. The one thing I will strive for is interesting. If we hit that and four pages a day then I will be extremely happy.