Here we are at the start of September and the year is 2/3 over. And with all the things I crammed into the first 8 months of the year (a musical, a play, my final uni subject, and a trip to the USA), I feel like I’m only just reaching a point where I can have a rest.
I’ve also written a lot. A lot for me, anyway. I don’t have the exact figures, but I reached 90k on one WIP and I don’t think I would have been much past 20k on it by the end of 2018. And I wrote a 10k novella in two weeks in early July.
The 10k novella, Operation: Sugarplum, is for a Christmas anthology and I’m actually really happy with where that’s at right now. But the WIP, Facing the Music… I wrote 50k on that last year and then started it again and wrote 90k and now I feel like I want to start again… again.
I have realised I need some distance from it. I’m taking at least a month or so but I’m tempted to leave it be for the rest of the year. Instead, I’m going to focus on some shorter WIPs, and try to write a submission-worthy pieces. At the moment I have my eye on
- Unnatural Order, an anthology to be released by Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild, and
- Zodiac Series, by Aussie Speculative Fiction.
I’ve also been going through my short stories folder, where there’s a lot of abandoned material. I’ve identified a few that I feel are worth a re-visit. The Christmas anthology has made me realise I could have a lot more of my work out there if I just go for it. I need to let myself write things and really work on them and polish them up, rather than getting blocked by a blank page at the outset.
So that’s my plan. Four months of short stories, then back to the novels in the new year. I think I might re-visit Memories and Magic (remember that one?) as well as Facing the Music and see how I go.
Wish me luck!
Emily Wrayburn 
Well, good luck then!
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