Author: jwjudge (page 1 of 35)

A few weeks ago, I posted that I had burned up a lot of creative energy in June and July with pushing hard to finish and revise Novel No. 5. I can now confirm that I discovered myself to have burned through not only my readily-available creative energy stores, but the reserves as well, resulting in creative brain burnout.

Contributions to Creative Burnout

A couple of factors contributed to the burnout I began experiencing. Work has been extraordinarily busy since may, a trend that looks like it will continue for another few months.

In mid-July, I began querying Novel No. 5 to literary agents. As with most things I do, I researched many agents before deciding to whom I wanted to query. Over the last month, I have continued to add to the list and submit the novel to more agencies as I find good fits. The querying process isn’t something I’ve enjoyed. To do it effectively — and maybe that’s not the correct word since there are no guarantees of any eventual success — it takes a lot of time. So much time. Time that I would rather be spending doing other things … like writing Novel No. 6. But there was a problem with that too.

By the time August rolled around, I found it difficult to decide which project to write next. I had two in mind. I had written the first couple of chapters of each, and since I couldn’t reach any sort of conclusion, I sent them to my Alpha Reader to provide some guidance. She told me her preference, and that’s what I’ve gone with for Novel No. 6.

Equal Parts Writing and Not Writing

Even then, though, I had a tough time finding my writing energy. I got up at the same early hour and sat in the same spot I always do, but the creativity necessary to write wasn’t there. For the first time this year, August has seen nearly as many days of me not writing as the contrary. Here’s what that has looked like:

• 8/1-5: 0 words
• 8/6: 383 words, writing my early August update for this site
• 8/7-9: 819 words in Chapter 2 of Novel No. 6
• 8/10: 0 words
• 8/11-13: 1372 words in Chapters 2 & 3 of Novel No. 6
• 8/14-16: 0 words
• 8/17-20: 2101 words in Chapters 3-5 of Novel No. 6

You can pretty clearly see that I’ve been making progress in an ongoing series of starts and stops. Even writing this is a form of procrastination, because I don’t have the mental energy to fully immerse myself in my novel yet.

Recognizing that, I’m trying to give myself time to recover while still feeling productive so that once work slows down and the brain drain passes, I will restocked my reserves of creative energy and be prepared to write Novel No. 6.

Recent Episodes of The Write Approach

Here are some episodes of my podcast, The Write Approach, that we’ve put out in the last few weeks. Each of these is on your preferred podcast app and on our YouTube channel.

• Episode 40: Bringing Life to Your Settings with Kellie Coates Gilbert
• Episode 41: The Ins and Outs of Writing a Series with Diane Kelly
• Episode 42: Choosing the Point of View for Your Story with Savannah Gilbo (our most popular episode, by a country mile)
• Episode 43: Using Short Form Fiction to Experiment with Millicent Eidson
• Episode 44: Screenwriting Your Way to Better Fiction with D.R. Ransdell

I finished the first draft of my fifth novel at the end of June, so I spent the next three weeks doing three rounds of editing on it. Everyone’s editing process looks different, but here’s my system.

For the first round, I print it off double spaced and double sided. Then I take a red pen and let it bleed all over every page. I’m adding and subtracting and changing language. Creating more depth to the story, and looking for things that are obnoxious.

Once I’ve finished with that, I take those pages and implement the changes into the manuscript on Scrivener. I don’t usually make the changes wholesale; instead, they continue to evolve from how I hand-wrote them to what ends up in the software. Then I begin the extensive process of copy-editing everything in ProWritingAid before sending it off to my alpha reader, who’s also been reading the manuscript in chunks as I’ve written it and helped me in developing the story. Usually after that, it’s ready for a final proofread.

That process took up most of July. But for the last third of the month, I wrote the opening chapters to two different novels, trying to figure out one to write next. One is a family crime drama that starts in the immediate aftermath of my short story, The Murder Tree (which you can read for free on Kindle Unlimited or buy for $0.99). The other is a fantasy novel involving three friends who decide to hatch a dragon egg; calamity ensues. I still haven’t entirely decided which it will be.

Because July mostly involved editing rather than drafting, I only wrote 5400 words in July. That brings my total for the year to 84,100. With that, I should pretty easily surpass 100,000 words for the year again.

We’re nearly a week into August, and this is the first non-work-related thing I’ve written. There are a couple of reasons for that. Work has been totally chaotic for a while now. And I burned through a whole lot of creative energy writing 20,000 words in June to finish the fifth novel and doing three rounds of editing in July. I think my brain needed some recovery time, but we are nearing the time to re-engage it and write the sixth novel.

My goal when I started writing Novel No. 5 on January 1 was to finish it in 6 months. Going into June, I did not think I would hit that goal. There was so much of the story left to write, that it looked like it would carry over into July.

More importantly than finishing the book is how it came out. I am so pleased with how Novel No. 5 came together. It is a suspense/murder-mystery novel that really delivers. Despite my extraordinarily thorough spreadsheet that I created for the story to outline the story and keep up with the various elements, the novel was in a constant state of evolution. I’ve sent the rough draft to my Alpha Reader, who has given me great feedback. I can’t wait to really make it shine in the editing process.

For some context on my productivity, here’s a month-by-month breakdown of how much of the story I wrote:

• January — 11 chapters
• February — 5 chapters
• March — 11 chapters
• April — 8 chapters
• May — 9 chapters
• June — 16 chapters

I had such strong finishing energy in June. Those 16 chapters amounted to 20,928 words for the month. I’ve only had one other month (November 2020) when I’ve written more words.

That brought my to 78,700 words for the year so far. I’ll pretty easily eclipse 100,000 for the year … as long as I can decide what my next novel will be. As it stands, I’m waffling between another fantasy novel or something that follows up on my short story, The Murder Tree.

Also in June, Barbara Hinske and I released three new episodes of The Write Approach. Here are the links to the podcast website, but you can also find the interviews on your favorite podcast app or our YouTube channel.

• Episode 37: A New Location Can Affect Your Inspiration
• Episode 38: Hurricane Research and Keyword Hunting
• Episode 39: Allowing Creative Principles to Guide You with Brock Swinson

July has in store for me a great deal of editing. So much editing. In fact, I’ve already started the first round of edits and have gone through the first 6 chapters making revisions.

For some recreation in June, I bought a kayak, which the kiddos and I have gone fishing in a couple of times.

May was a wildly busy month. I worked more than fifty hours a week in my law practice. We released three episodes of The Write Approach:

• The Power of Consistently Showing Up to do Your Creative Work
• Beware the Toll that Writing Takes with Kristina Adams
• Writing Effective Dialogue with Tiffany Yates Martin

And I wrote more than 10,000 of my fifth novel. I’m currently writing the last chapter of the Act II and plan to finish the novel in July. I’ll then do several rounds of editing and start querying agents.

In the meantime, here’s some flash fiction based on a conversation that occurred in a hotel room lobby.

---

Interracial Interaction in a Hotel Lobby

“Howdy,” he said to the woman making her coffee at the station next to the hotel’s breakfast bar.

“Morning.” She returned the greeting. “I’ll be done in a minute.”

He smiled at her. “I’m in no rush.”

She paused stirring her artificial sweetener into the coffee that that creamer had turned blonde. “You must be from the South.”

His corners of his lips turned up. “Originally from Texas, but I’ve lived most of my adult life in Birmingham.”

She nodded as if taking a moment to appreciate what she already knew about her own powers of observation and assessment about folks.

He asked, “Was it the howdy that gave me away?”

She shook her head and returned her attention to her coffee. “Nah. Nothing like that.” She put the lid on her paper cup and made a gesture that the station was all his.

Before she turned to go, he said, “I’m curious how you knew where I was from.”

She looked him directly in the eyes. “I’m a truck driver from Jackson. It’s only when meet white people from the South that they talk to black folks. Everybody everywhere else?” She shook her head again and frowned. “Nothing.”

“Really?”

“That’s a fact.” She turned an ambled off toward the table where her breakfast waited on her.

I’ve written more than 5,000 words of Novel No. 5 in the first half of May. That has topped me over 47,000 words and put me at approximately the 2/3 mark for the novel. While the framework has stayed in place, many of the particulars of what I think are going to happen in a given scene between conception and conclusion. I continue to be excited about this project and have no doubt it will be my most commercially successful novel.

On May 2, my fourth novel, Casual Business with Fairies, released. You can buy it on Amazon or any other online bookstore. Here’s an early reader review.

That’s all I’ve got for now.

If my writing in April were a landscape, it would definitely be a mountain range. So many peaks and valleys. But not the Rockies. Probably the Smoky Mountains, because the peaks weren’t all that high. I had four days in which I didn’t do any writing, and there wasn’t a single day that I hit more than a thousand words.

Still, including this update, I’ve written more than 10,000 words in April and hit some significant milestones in the writing of my fifth novel. I went over 40,000 words in the book and put it over the halfway point. In fact, this morning, I finished the third chapter in the second half of the book.

I sent the first half to my Alpha Reader a couple of weeks ago. They read it all in one sitting and provided some great feedback. I’m feeling really good about this murder-mystery. Of course, that’s subject to change without warning, because that is just the nature of writing. I reserve my right to hate everything tomorrow.

---

In other creative pursuits, my fourth dark fantasy novel, Casual Business with Fairies releases on Tuesday. The protagonist in that book is an insurance lawyer, who more closely resembles many aspects of my nature than any other character I’ve written. You can order it from your favorite online bookstore.

If you’re interested in the origin story of my debut novel, Vulcan Rising, I made a video about it. Available on YouTube. I plan to do similar accounts of my other novels as well.

We also had great interviews with some really impressive guests on the podcast I co-host with Barbara Hinske, The Write Approach:

• Episode 30: Writing Fiction as a Second Career with Lisa M. Lilly
• Episode 31: Strategies for a Sustainable Writing Career with Jessie Kwak
• Episode 32: What to Expect When Working with a Publicist with Kathleen Schmidt
• Episode 33: From Spicy Romance to Chart-Topping Suspense with Alessandra Torre