First Steps

Besides writing writing writing, I'm trying to get my stories organized. I have over 60 stories, mostly incomplete, sitting in my writing file. Some are terrible and will never see the light of day, some are my guilty pleasures I keep coming back to work on, and the rest are a mixture of good, bad and ugly that might be publishable. Maybe. Some day. Today's first step is to organize them in some way besides the terrible file names I used to "describe" them. Seriously- Cage? What the hell is that? There's not even a cage in the damn story!

Currently my focus is on a rough novella, a first draft novel that is being edited by a gracious friend, and a couple of possible short stories. I have another novel in the works, which is what I'm sitting down and working on until I get the first novel back in between editing the novella and short stories. And I've got 3 different story lines in my head right now, fighting it out to see who can hold my attention long enough to get it out in ink. The problem with those story lines are that sometimes they hold up once out of my head and sometimes they don't, so I let them bounce around inside my skull until I'm sure they have enough permanence to last past the first five pages.

It sounds like a lot. It is a lot. I just to need to not let it overwhelm me. The friend who is editing my first novel has already given me some great ideas to rework it, and that was just from talking with her for five minutes. I'm really excited to get back to it, but I'm going to wait until she's done with it. The novella I haven't touched in close to a year so I should have fresh eyes on it. Tomorrow (make that today looking at the time) I'll start the editing on that.