In Which We Discuss Writing

To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes (because I can't find the exact quote I want), "when you know the details of a thousand cases, it would be very odd if you couldn't solve the thousand and first".  That's how I feel about writing.  I read so much that it would be very odd if I didn't come up with my own stories, and I do.    The oldest is one I came up with when I was ten years old; that's nearly two decades.  I've been trying to write them down for years and I tend to trail off, or get tangled up....

Anyway, I'm trying something new.  I'm using a spreadsheet!

I took a lot of inspiration from this blog post.  I already use spreadsheets for finances, grade-tracking, and schedules, so it makes sense to me to use them for writing.  As well as organising timelines and scenes - which has made a huge difference to how real my worlds feel - it's also been useful for tracking word counts.  If you're interested in NaNoWriMo specifically, there are some great spreadsheets here!

To be clear, I don't want to be a full-time writer.  I don't want the stress of rejection, or to spend all day with my own thoughts.  I just want to get these stories out of my head into the best versions possible.  When/if that gets done, I guess I'll self-publish and see if anyone wants to read them.