productivity

I despise how floundering over a problem kills productivity. I’m a list maker and I check things off as they get done. One thing done, and it was a completion item, something I’d been working on for two weeks. So, I’m working on Hunting the Red for the time being. I’ve had a few complaints over the setting, that they really couldn’t connect with it, and I was wondering why at first, because it was just a valley. Then it hit me. Just a valley to me, could mean something different to another person. I also have a hunch my visualization of this valley may be a little off from a typical valley, which is something Id need to point out in the story. Geography research? Earth science research? Yes, but probably not anything extensive today: 4th of July holiday. 🙂 That actually gives me another day to figure out which novel I’m supposed to work on next. I have a hunch I should dive into the Forgotten Star revision.

I wanted to read some YA before I got into that revision because I’m half afraid it’s venturing into coming-of-age stories, but I know other adult fantasy that starts with younger characters. There are some dark things that happen, including a mad king’s attempted rape of a character that I’m not sure I’d want to touch in YA. The second story hits a major dark spot for the character, inclding torture and a descent into evil magic. It feels like it’s too much. So if my issue is the characters’ ages, I could just make them a little older, right? Their society is not typical, and their coming-into-their own is triggered by an accident that results in the two lovers meeting.  I don’t think this will affect what currently needs fixing in the novel, but I’d rather not revise it twice…  time to look up YA guidelines?

See, damn it, I just want to write.

Maybe this should be a focus-on-short-stories month, and I’ll work out the issues while I’m getting the shorts into publishable quality.