I’m not actually sure where to go with my writing career right now. I intended to write Mist and Tides, the working title for the first in a Nacre Then series, and while I’ve had the characters all set, I never really had a defined plot. As I was planning it, I sketched it out to make the most sense, but it never really panned out the way I had wanted it to. Frankly, the plot didn’t excite me. Obviously you can see how that would be a problem, given that this would be something I expected myself to focus on for a few months.

So, as a writer, I’ve kind of been at a loss as to where to continue.Obviously I’ll never be at a complete standstill because of this blog, but at the same time I want to always be working on a novel. Technically I never finished the first draft of Dreamscape, and I’m still planning on doing that before I actually start any other projects, but I don’t want to start anything I’m not already in love with.

So, what I plan on doing is writing a seven or eight part series of short stories, each about five thousand words long, in the various nations of Nacre Then. I’ll tie them all together to some degree, but we’ll see how well that works. This is also the sort of thing that I can post to the blog, since it will be a collection of short stories, so all of these ideas seem to be panning out well.

At this point I’m starting to think that I’m just not ready to write a novel. I don’t know what I’ve yet to learn about myself but writing a full length novel just isn’t coming together the way I’d like it to. I hate outlining and I’m not good at developing characters, but I can’t deny that those are two very important things for a writer. I could very well be a discovery writer, but I don’t like the idea of starting a project not knowing where it will go.

In other news, I’m almost finished with the eighth season of Writing Excuses. I’ve come to the conclusion that it would do me a lot of good to go to conventions and meet people in the field.I want to fo to the Writing Excuses Retreat, but this year it is fifteen hundred dollars and on a cruise ship. Besides which it sold out in January, so my best bet is to start saving up for next year right now. Just a week with all of those insanely smart people would do me a whole lot of good, not to mention I’d love to meet those people in the first place.

Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about local conventions and stuff to use that to my advantage. I like the prospect of going to cons to meet people and learn new things. Somebody in my writer’s group is going to Kansas City next week for WorldCon. I’m not nearly free enough to just be able to go out of state for a convention like that. Maybe in a few years, but I’m just hoping that a big convention will be more local in the next few years.

For now, of course, my main focus is to just get through school and find a job I like, if there even is a minimum wage job I’ll enjoy. I don’t have to worry about what I am or am not writing for the time being.