#WIPMarathon: February Update

It's time for another #WIPMarathon update, hosted by the lovely Ifeoma Dennis!

Last report wordcount: I was at 16K of Alliance 6.

Current report wordcount:  I finished my draft at 79K words!!!!! O_O

WIP issues this month: Tying a series together is HARD. Really hard. And oh, the continuity issues...

Four things I learned this month in writing:

• Novels are my thing. Other writing forms, I struggle with. I've been writing a short story for three months. It's 1000 words. In that time, I've written almost three novels. I think I know which I find easier. :P And I never did finish that second novella I started in June last year...
• Draft first, make an edit list for later. I've got better at not being distracted by shiny new ideas, but sometimes I get the random impulse to edit a previous draft. I know editing can stop my writing process in its tracks, so I have working "edit lists" for each draft to tackle later. In fact, for this series, I now have a multiple-column editing spreadsheet, because I'm that hardcore. ;)
• I definitely made the right choice fast-drafting the series back-to-back before publishing the first. Not only is the whole series now done, in draft form at least, it meant I could go back and sneak some more foreshadowing into the first book before it's published. I already know that I tend to have trouble concentrating on writing when I have a book release (especially the first in a series), and the crushing self-doubt strikes with a vengeance after publication... so this ought to take some of the pressure off!
• Writing is a learning process. After I finished the Darkworld series (September 2013), I was at a loose end. I wrote several drafts over the next year, most of which... didn't turn out as planned (except The Clockmaker's Key, my MG fantasy). But I learned a lot in that year. I learned that I'm a slow planner but a fast drafter, that I work best when submerged in a WIP, writing madly like there's an angry grim reaper hovering over my shoulder. And I learned how to push through a draft even if the whole universe is conspiring against me (broken laptops, plagues, missing files, Scrivener crashing, Microsoft Word autosave fails...). I used all these things when I wrote the Alliance series, and that's how I wrote a six-book series in six months!

What distracted me this month when writing:  Nerves about Adamant coming out in 11 days!!!!! Exciterrifying! Also, paperback formatting, ordering proof copies, updating ebook files, flailing, falling over, walking into doors...

Goal for next month: Sleep? :P Nah, I'll be editing. A lot. I need to do second-round beta revisions on Nemesis (Alliance, #2) and book freelance edits. And I need to fix some of the big-picture issues across the series. Book 3 is still a jigsaw because I decided to rearrange half the scenes...

Last 200 words:

Spoilers. ;)