Learning about my own writing

I’ve been talking a lot about my writing so far this year, which I think is a vast improvement for me personally as I have always been very private about my writing in the past. Not that I’m still not, I keep a lot of details about projects close and quiet, but I’m more open with what I’m doing and the general discussion of it.

I’ve learned quite a bit about my writing and how I write the last few months especially. For example, I’ve learned that switching from one project to another from April to May did not work out as great as I had hoped it would, and by the last week of May I was burning out and couldn’t keep going with my intent to work on the same project through June.

Which is okay! I still did a significant chunk of what I had initially planned to do for May and June during May, I just needed to stop and take a break. And I know I’m able to jump back in once my brain has had the chance to rest and reset.

So, I’ve learned that I need a month or so break between different projects. Like I took December off between this past NaNo and my work on The Heir of Ilyum in January and February. Then I took March off before continuing with the second part of that project, with the intent of switching gears in May for my mermaids novel.

Even though I feel mildly disappointed that I am not up to finishing what I had planned to do through June, I’m proud that I was able to get as far as I did. Plus the fact that, since November 1st, I’ve written about 170k words on my various projects. That’s some sort of record for me, both with consistency on writing as well as repeatedly hitting goals for a month (or two) of writing at a time.

Also, you know, every other year in the past I’ve gotten maybe 50k down in an entire year, including whatever work I did on a NaNo project. And I’m more than three times that, in a little over seven months.

Before, aside from during NaNo, I’ve always been consistently inconsistent with my writing. So, this year has already been really good for my growth as a writer.

Another thing I’m realizing that may contribute to some of my burnout regarding my mermaid project is the genre. While I typically focus on high/epic fantasy in my writing, the Munising Mermaid has been historical fiction/fantasy. As in, I have to work in a fair amount of historical research to make certain aspects accurate.

Relatedly. My senior year of college in one of my screenwriting classes, Bill, my professor, told me that my specialty is definitely fantasy based. This was in my capstone class with him, which I did at the same time as advanced screenwriting, and both of my projects were vastly different genres (sci-fi/futuristic and kid friendly versus high fantasy with regicide in the first ten minutes). We all preferred the capstone project (high fantasy) over the advanced class project, but I’d commuted and dragged myself through it because I had wanted to give it a go.

All this in mind, I’m giving my brain a break for the rest of the month. When July rolls back around, I’m gonna dip my feet back into The Empress of Ilyum and then see how I’m feeling about mermaids once I wrap that up.