Still Disappointing Mother All These Words Later...

My latest take-aways from writing and posting an ongoing serial

Note: This is not a story update! This is musing on the writing process.

If you follow me, you know I’ve got an au currant¹ WIP I’m posting in tiny snippets as part of a “post at least 200 words a day” challenge by

Gina Hogan Edwards

. It is based on a concept I came up with a year ago and have just been sitting on, because I was dealing with a major writer’s block around writing new fiction. I spent a lot of time editing and rewriting older, unreleased stories, but new fiction? Not so much.

Gotta (re)start somewhere, so I did. Using Substack to jump back into the discovery writing process is making me pay more attention to the process itself, honestly, and here are a few things I’m learning from Transmigrated Teri:

1. I really do work better (and faster) when I only have a vague idea of where the story is going.

2. Theo the Dog is turning into Dug the Dog from the movie UP, but not on purpose. And I don’t think he’ll stay that way, as what I know for a fact is that he’s a magical familiar who is going to become plot-critical. Somehow. Someway. Eventually. I’m pretty sure…

3. I’m debating whether aspects of traditional Western witch mythology are going to show up, but truly, I’d love for Teri to get to ride a broom!!!!

4. Holding myself back from revealing too much too soon is a difficult thing because I’m worried the super-short scenes I’m writing/posting during July are not interesting.

5. But then I remind myself this is a writing exercise for me and that I can repackage things later on.

6. The struggle continues, aka, the “KimBoo learn how to describe clothes challenge.” 🙄 At least Teri is from my own world so she will be able to describe clothes using familiar terms, but I need to be better about describing what I see in my mind’s eye. There is a reason my mother, who was my first and most demanding editor, always derisively called me a “radio show writer” (because I struggled so much with describing things and focused most of my energy on dialogue). Ah, the more things change…

My plan is that at the end of July, when the challenge is over, I will shift to posting full scenes as they get written, probably once or twice a week. I’m waffling about locking updates to paid subscribers only????

Much to think about…

1. “au currant” is the term I use for posting a serialized work as it is being written; episodes/chapters might be edited or not, but the story itself is incomplete.