I’ve got a bad habit of only writing in a linear fashion. In other words, I write chapter 1, then chapter 2, then chapter 3, and so on. I just can’t get myself to jump around, even if I have an outline, because I’ll add detail and come up with some new ideas on the fly. This means more rewriting on the back end, or worse, scrapping chapters.

As a result I tend to sit around and mull things over, maybe scribble in the notebook a bit, and generally wait until a solution hits me. The current example of this is Chimaera, the first graphic novel in the The Pack series. I have to write a monster attack scene, and it just felt flat. I needed an angle, something to spice it up and give a little more information to the reader without cluttering things up with extraneous captions or rambling dialog.

Then I brushed my teeth. I stared at myself in the mirror, thought about the scene, thought “no, that sucks,” a couple times. Then BOOM!, the scene hit me. Now I’m excited about it, and not just churning out filler to get to the next scene.

It tends to happen this way a lot for me. Maybe procrastination is just part of my process. The benefit is it saves me some rewriting, and it helps ensure my first drafts are not far off from my second or final drafts. It also means I rarely have to scrap already-written pages, which I absolutely hate having to do. Excising filler is one thing, but abandoning passages because I sabotaged myself just kills me.

The downside is it slows me down. Sure, I can bust out several pages at a stretch when I’m on, but that procrastination means less time at the keyboard and fewer of those stretches. That’s just deadly if I were doing this full time. My friends writing for a living don’t have the luxury of waiting for scenes to come to them. If they sat around with their thumbs in their asses, they’d quickly starve to death.

It’s a habit I’m going to have to break if I want to make a living at this myself.

And finishing Chimaera instead of rambling here is probably a good start, no?

Later.

It’s tough to put my finger on why, as I’ve been working with this same project through most of the summer. I just find myself more motivated to put the time in, and the upside of that is it shows on the page. I’m not going to sit here and claim I’m pumping out Hemingway, but it feels a lot better than how it’s been going before.

Whatever the reason, it’s about freakin’ time. Announcements are pending and deadlines are looming. I don’t like breaking contracts or personal promises. If it’s deadline stress that’s motivating me, then next time around I’ll have to set shorter deadlines or buy my editors a cattle prod.

A huge thanks to those of you who’ve been waiting for the next big Oliveri project.

Tomorrow, things get interesting.

It’s been one of those months where I did a lot but accomplished little, especially on the writing front. Sure, I got a short story done and submitted, but I haven’t been able to make (yes make, not find) the time to put a dent in my other obligations. I’m sitting on two accepted outlines and a publishing schedule, so I really need to get my ass in gear.

I guess that’s what “next month” is for. Stupid procrastination.

Writing that short also made me realize my creativity has been in the crapper. I labored over its plot far longer than I should have, and it also took me far longer to put together some simple outlines than it would normally have taken me. Hell, I’ve even been silent on the blog because I didn’t have much to say, and the following picture is as close as I’ve come to doing anything remotely creative with my camera in weeks, if not months:

Beating procrastination is so f'n metal!

So, yeah. Half the year mostly pissed away. You people really need to smack me around more.

Yeah. Over the weekend. With a second still to be sent off tomorrow or Wednesday.

I don’t know what it is about deadlines, but I usually wait until last minute and get a last charge of energy to push them through. If I don’t have a deadline, I don’t make things a priority, much like what’s happening with the Top Secret Novella and the final act of “To Fight With Monsters”.

Not to mention the one other thing I forget every year: business cards. Yeah, I’ve got a new address for writing, but I still had time to get something printed up. Only now I’d be stuck with a slap-dash, sub-par design that I’d be hesitant to hand out. Again.

I really need to make sure I have my act together for the next con. I guess in that respect I’m lucky I don’t have a lot to sell this time around.