Forward Progress & Next Steps

I’ve made some progress on my proposal’s sample chapter this past week.

The sample chapter I’m working on now is centered on a mountain in Bolivia, the one I previously wrote about. I am recycling some material, but I am adding a great deal and changing the focus (from memoir to ideas/history). I am enjoying getting lost in research again, despite it taking so much time away from actual writing.

But the most frustrating part of writing these days is the limited time I actually have to work. I can find a solid block of writing time only two or three days a week. Each new writing session follows a few off days, so I feel that I waste too much time at the start of each session just reacquainting myself with what I last wrote.

Slow progress is forward progress.

I plan to pump out a very rough chapter, format it as if it were a final draft, and then sit on it as I turn my attention to the proposal’s introduction.

An when the very rough introduction is done, I’ll format it as if it were a final draft, and then print it — along with the sample chapter — for a round of hand edits. Sometime it helps seeing your work in this way.

As of now I have:

• A very rough query letter
• Half of a very rough sample chapter
• An outline and scattered passages of an introduction

I think I have enough momentum to finish a solid draft by the end of the year.