I’m long overdue for a Wobbly Noob Diaries entry to update you guys on my adventures in beginning adult cycling. I was going to do that earlier when I was still feeling high and annoyingly perky after a bike ride, but I got distracted by other blog posts and frittered away my time and energy levels on those instead. Go me. Better luck next time, I guess.

Well…

Today was my first day back on the writing saddle, and as luck would have it, it wasn’t a short story I ended up working on. I got back on Helleville because seeing that unfinished file on my desktop every time I turned my laptop on drove me bonkers, and just as it was with Rose and Spindle, being reminded of my failure to carry through with that plotbunny made me want to gnaw away at my computer desk.

I did talk about being raised Catholic and a lifetime of guilt trips and all that fun stuff, right? As they say, you can take the girl out of Catholic school…

Anyway, my taking on another novel project as opposed to a short story also means that I was able to resolve some of the difficulties I’ve had with the plot, and while other main plot points still need to be ironed out, at least I’m moving forward again.

This is also where I get to wax philosophical about the writing process and how good it can be as long as I keep my act together and not go through another meltdown. When I wrote Rose and Spindle, I took a different approach by focusing on page count per writing session as opposed to word count. Every time I sat down to write, I had a goal of three pages to complete that day. It was a necessary change in writing approach because I found that focusing on word count tended to weigh heavily on me, and it was a nightmare, dragging myself through 2,500 to 4,000 words per session.

With page count, seeing the physical marker of my production for that day – the number of pages, of course – was easier to deal with and less taxing on my nerves. And it’s more doable because the word count varied a great deal; as long as three pages were written at a time, I was fine.

So I’m taking what I learned there and am applying it to Helleville. The difference here is that I’m tackling four page-chapters (any overflow will be half a page long and no more) since my chosen font size is larger than the one I used for Rose and Spindle. It’s a quirk. I tend to vary font styles and sizes with each new WIP, though my default’s 10-pt Palatino Linotype.

At any rate, I’m moving cautiously forward, and I’m also making sure to scribble extraneous notes into my writing journal as often as I can to keep my story’s focus on track. I’m hoping that this approach will also minimize the inevitable blocks by helping me maintain steady levels of writing energy.

It also doesn’t hurt to watch The Corpse Bride, The Addams Family, and Beetlejuice for the gazillionth time for ongoing inspiration. I know that Kolchak: The Night Stalker has been a great motivator of sorts. :D