Nothing to write about today. Have a kitten.

I really don’t know what to write about this time. I’m taking a break from Valentina’s Repast and writing the outline to Resurrectionist’s Blues – which is going to probably be a trilogy if I’m lucky. I’m thinking about combining the first and second books into one book. Unless I can stretch out book one a little bit and maintain book two as the crisis of faith. I’ll have to think about it. What might have been five books could get compressed to three. Can I write a single novel? Yes, but what fun is that?

What I’m trying to do with Resurrectionist’s Blues is write an existential horror story. I am trying to carefully tread on Lovecraft’s territory, but less tentacles. This particular story is going to deal with fact vs. faith, corporate rules vs. conscience. Now, whether or not I can carry this out remains to be seen, but at least I’m getting an outline done and following the horror beat sheet (which is making things easier). I might even try to apply it to my other problematic horror story The Truth Will Out, only because it is giving me some sort of structure to plug stuff into.

To be honest, beat sheets are becoming useful for me when I am writing out of my genre. I’ve got one for romance and the horror beat sheet. At first, they struck me as cheating, but now that I’ve seen just how good they are. I should find others and hoard them like a dragon hoards gold, or a librarian hoarding books. I’d imagine that there is going to be a beat sheet for every genre, and there is nothing saying that I can’t tweak it.

That’s it, really. Working overtime, so my writing has been curtailed a little, but I am working on the outline. Just taking a break from one project, but I have to work on something else. I always need to work on something and get it finished. No pressure at all. Really.

I’m getting Valentina fatigue. At one time, she gnawed and clawed her way into my heart. Now, I’m just blasé about her cannibalism and her ‘I’m having someone over for dinner’ jokes. I know that this is normal for me, but what’s not normal is that I have a hard deadline. I have to have everything done and uploadable by Hallowe’en. If I follow my normal route, I’ll work on something else and poor Valentina will fall by the wayside until October 27^th when I have no way of getting everything finished. Cue depression spiral and ice cream.

Yes, it’s the first week of March as I write this post and October seems so long off. Yes, I have dozens of projects I can work on, but this is a test for me. Can I hold myself to a hard deadline? If I can, then writing professionally can be feasible. Of course, I can always fall back on the wisdom of Douglas Adams: “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”

Maybe I’m doing this because I don’t feel professional, yet. Yes, I am making money (very little…) and I am (eventually) finishing projects, but I still feel like I’m pretending to be a writer.

Is this imposter syndrome? Looks like that on first blush. I don’t know. I feel like I’m waiting for a fairy to tap my head with a wand and say “You’re a writer! Now go forth and create the Great American Novel! Or at least the next Successful Kentucky Novel!”

God, this sounds so needy. Does Stephen King go through this? Probably not, then again – he’s got the track record to prove it. He’s even won an O. Henry Award for one of his later short stories. I can barely write a short story. I’ve written four and put them out there, but they were all stretches.

I know what I need to do. “Sh*t or get off the pot” as my mom would delicately put it. I think I’m going to work on ‘Medicine Show’ for a month, then see how I feel. Maybe by then I’ll have a better idea on what to do…or I’ll finish ‘Medicine Show’. Either way, I am going to be done with something by October.

I should get to work.

Enough said…