Having A Hamlet Complex

As I continue on my "epic" 2015, my thoughts wander to Hamlet. Yup, the Danish prince of one of Big Willy Shakes most epic plays is in my thoughts as we are on the precipice of summer. Usually, this time of year, I imagine some epic writing plan for the coming months and share it here on the blog. Then in August, as summer reaches it's twilight and I am faced with the impending doom of the coming school year, I lament how miserably I failed at achieving my goals. So, here we are, the first real warm day of the year and as I'm thinking what's next for me, I can't help but feel like Hamlet.

Now, let me explain before you go running off thinking I'm suicidal or have a thing for my mom or something. I'm focusing more on the idea that Hamlet is the "prince that can't make up his mind." It's my favorite angle, especially as a high school teacher trying to get reluctant Shakespeare readers engaged in a text. Presenting Hamlet as a kid that's so overwhelmed by everything happening to him that he can't rightly decide what his next move is going to be. One of the things that kept me reading The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan was my feeling that Rand was really Hamlet, unable to decide what to do next because everything was so overwhelming. I love when books do that and it's something I try to emulate in my writing. Which is why I am evoking the Danish prince, I am in a place where I can't decide what to do next. 

I found a great groove the last six weeks or so on THE SEVEN LABORS OF NICK JABLONSKY, a contemporary YA that I've been working on and off for a few years. A groove that came to a grinding halt when I came to the last section of the book, no more than 10,000 words, and realized I couldn't stick the landing. This put me into a panic that I cannot express. I froze, not sure what to do next with it. The panic became worse when something that was vexing me since the end of Christmas Break, my computer crapped the bed and took everything with it.

PSA for all of my blog readers: BACK UP YOUR DATA. My calm was irrevocably damaged when the poor IT guy came in to tell me all the data on the hard drive was lost and with it the the latest draft of SPRING'S TEMPEST, which just needed a polish draft, and a working draft of book three. It sucks and threw me into a tail spin. A tail spin I am struggling with right now. Like Hamlet, I can't make up my mind what I'm going to do.

I did manage to find a partial (about 77k out of 136k) draft of the new SPRING on a thumb drive and big chunks of it is just revised and rewritten from an older draft of SPRING, so it's not as catastrophic as I thought it might be, but it's still daunting and I'm trying to get my legs under me. I've reread/revised what I have and it's better than I remember (5 months away from it helps) and I figure I can recover, but the working draft of book 3 (SUMMER something...it's getting pitched as STRIFE but I'm leaning towards something else). In the words of the Danish prince, "That it should come to this" is debilitating and I'm unable to decide what to do.

On top of that, another project that I'm struggling sticking the landing for is SISTERS, which I decided needed to be more epic and is going through a face lift of sorts. It's not going to be called the YOUNG WEAPONMASTERS anymore, but the more epically named RETURN OF THE FALSE LORDS. That looms too and I want to put the end to SISTERS and plot out the other books in the series.

As I see it, I've got to make a run at this. I'm pretty convinced my agent is tired of me talking about the same two projects (SEASONS and SISTERS) so much that I want to get new words (LABORS) to him to see if we can do something with it. Plus I almost feel like I'm in a rut because I'm twirling around these few projects. As work lessens a little in the classroom, can I up the volume of writing work I do. Can I hit Rachel Aaron-esque From 2k to 10k level of work? As Hamlet says, "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't." Can I complete all of these things in the next 120 days? I've challenged myself like this before and failed miserably...should that deter me? Of course not.

If I complete all the things in my ledger, it's about 270k. If you look at in terms of 120 days, that's only about 2k a day. I need a bigger pace than that. I want to start something new (besides SUMMER)...that 90s ski epic looms and I'm pretty sure the timeline I made with Aaron Starmer to complete said project is close to expiring. I have a notebook full of ideas I can work on as well and, for some reasons, a few of the scifi projects are calling me: A TOURNAMENT OF PRINCES ("Taming of the Shrew meets Firefly") and THE POINT GUARD AND SPACE PRINCESS ("Attack the Block meets "Love and Basketball"). Can I get more than 270k done? Can I finish off the SEASONS trilogy then move on to other projects? Is it worth the trouble? I don't know the answers for sure, but as Hamlet said, "This above all: to thine own self be true."