Hello dear readers,
I know I haven’t been sharing much work on here lately, but there’s a good reason for that: I’ve been busy! Really busy, actually. If you listen to the DPW Podcast, you know I’ve been submitting a lot of stories and poems for publication. And while that’s a bit time-consuming, it’s not the reason I haven’t been sharing more work here.
I’m currently 200 pages or so into my first novel. This is what I call my “A” project; it’s the most important thing I’m working on and it’s by far the most difficult. I’ve decided to categorize things alphabetically, going by importance and what can be considered long-term projects and short-term projects. So my novel, being the most important and longest-term project, is my “A” project. Since I don’t think it’s helpful to get burned out on a single project, I prefer to have numerous backup projects in constant play so I can revert to one of them when I need a productive break from what I’m working on.
Here are my current projects:
- A-Project: my novel.
- B-Project: a longer short story that will be submitted to various contests.
- C-Project: an absurdist literary short story meant for higher-end literary journals.
- D-Project: the DPW Anthology that will be self-published.
I will break these down in more detail in just a second, but first I want to elaborate on one critical element of being a writer. As a creative, I’ve often fought the urge to pursue new ideas while currently working on a project. In the past, if I was working on a story, I wouldn’t start anything else until it was done. That’s good for finishing projects, but my brain doesn’t like that. For instance, if all I did was work on my novel and ignored all the cool new story or poetry ideas that came to me until it was done, I would probably end up abandoning it because I would lose the passion for it. I know this would happen because it has happened countless times. When it comes to my stories, I’m a serial cheater. I HAVE to be able to write other stuff while being with my current work in progress.
My method of working on numerous projects at once might not work for everyone, but it seems to work well for me. The downside is that it doesn’t leave me time (or energy) to do certain things like updating my website as often as I’d like. It also makes it so I won’t finish any single project as quickly as I’d like. But hey, at least my brain won’t drown in new ideas that I never end up pursuing!
So breaking down my list here, my novel, the A-project, is a long-term endeavor that I have no desire to rush through. I will finish it when it’s ready to be finished. There’s a bit more urgency with my B-project as I want to enter that into spring contests when they arise. Fortunately, that story is near its end so I don’t foresee any issues with finishing it in time. My C-project, strangely enough, has bogarted most of my time this past week. It’s a weird story idea that shouldn’t work but does and I’ve been having a blast writing it. So much so that it’s going on much longer than anticipated. Regardless, I plan on having that one completed and out for submissions by the end of the week. This leaves my D-project, the DPW anthology, which has been in the works for years now; even longer than I’ve been working on my novel. And it’s 98% done! But formatting it and going through the self-publishing process is an obstacle I’ve avoided for far too long.
Despite the chaos this style of productivity might seem to cause, it has been working for me and I believe it will yield some great results. I already know that the two stories I’m working on are top-tier (for me) and are some of the best stories I’ve ever written. I truly feel I’ve turned a page in my writing journey and am now moving beyond being an amateur writer. I expect within the next two years you will start seeing my stories out in the wild versus only seeing them because I share them on here or social media.
I plan on sharing more older work here soon, so keep an eye out for that. Until then, thank you for following me on this crazy journey and I hope to share more good publishing news with you all soon.
Cheers,
Caleb James K.
Caleb James K. 