Back to episode seven today. Writing short stories is nice because I constantly get a sense of closure and accomplishment. There’s something deeply satisfying about typing “End” at the final moment. If you’ve been following this blog for any time you know I’m working on this serial of fantasy novellas, and that I’ve now finished six, and am in the middle of number seven.
This has been an interesting exercise because being novella length bits.
Well, actually most are novellas, a couple are technically very long novelettes per the 17K guideline using a pure word count…which I really should learn more about, actually–in the old days the count was based on printer’s words, which was always a bigger number than the actual count. Using printer’s word counts, all these episodes are novellas.
But I digress.
This has been an interesting project because I envisioned this as six or seven episodes, but I’ve been working on them off-and-on for nearly a year, plugging them into holes in my writing calendar whenever they fit. That’s all good and well, I suppose. In some ways it’s nice to have a project that can flow into those kinds of spaces. But it’s also frustrating because it seems like it will never finish. Note: I am a classic, achievement-centered person, meaning I get this need about myself to check things off my list. So I find projects like this to be psychologically wearing.
It’s not helped by the fact that as I get into episode seven, I can see that it could actually spawn another two or three episodes. Grr. Overall, I suppose that will be great news if there is a readership for them. But right now, sitting down in my basement and needed to see “End” typed at the bottom of one of these pages, I admit fully that this concept has an element of annoyment to it. Annoyment. Is that a Word?
Grin.
My life is so tough.