Switching Stories

I admit I’ve been worried about it all summer. I did not want to stop the forward momentum of my current story to work on perfecting a revision of the story I’m trying to sell.

And yet. It had to be done. Published authors do it all the time, working on a new project and getting pages to edit from their publisher. I’ve heard them say they work on one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. How I admire that kind of flexibility.

As for me, I’m fairly rigid with my writing practice these days. But the watchword for me these first two weeks in August (via my horoscope) has been to remain calm and patiently attend to details before Mercury goes retrograde on the 20th.

By the 20th, I want to have the proposal out to Harlequin and the currrent WIP drafted. Retrogrades are good for revision (not so great for mailing a manuscript to a publisher) but I’d like to finish the first draft and save everything on my hard drive before the retrograde hits. I have to start school on the 23rd anyway, another reason to get my writing projects to a good place by the end of this week.

Which normally would make me panic and rush through everything. But I’m trying to stay calm and do my best work despite all the flutters with the agent advice and the switching between two stories and the self-imposed deadlines.  

So last week I gathered revision advice and thought about how to implement it on Story A while still writing my 1000 words a day on Story B. Then this week I switched to Story A Monday and Tuesday and felt good about the changes I made to the ms. This morning, I went back to Story B and did another 1000 words while I let Story A cool a few days before reading it over again. If it still sounds good, I’ll send it Friday or Saturday.

All of this and right in the middle of writing the black moment, too. But I am doing it, and it is not a problem. I know both stories so well that that it has been way easier than anticipated. As long as I remind myself continually to stay calm and on task with the details instead of doing the usual Aries headlong rush.